Quote:
Originally posted by whacky:
Thanks a load KT ONG ....... i really must find about the "ch'i" cause it seems interesting, and if you find anything more about it do tell me please.
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You're welcome. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Basically,
ch'i (
qi if you use Pinyin romanization) actually just means 'gas' or 'vapor'. Nothing special. But by extension there are also other meanings for this term, such as 'aura', 'emanation' or 'atmosphere'. The term
ch'i is also very much part of the Chinese language even today -- not just found only in ancient books, sorry [img]tongue.gif[/img] -- and in this respect a look at the common usage of the term in various situations can offer yet further clues as to what it can mean. Thus a lively person is said to be 'brimming with the
ch'i of the dawn', a dark, desolate and depressing place can be described as 'laden with the
ch'i of death', a humid place can be said to have a lot of '
ch'i of dampness', one who is real angry can complain of 'being
ch'ied to death', and so on.
Try and see what the different meanings have in common. Think of something subtle and diffused, with no visible shape or form, which you can sense nevertheless and which can also exert definite physical effects on things.
In its 'raw' state,
ch'i may be thought of as
energy diffused throughout space (Needham opted for the term
matter-energy) and manifesting itself in different specific 'varieties', such as the ones mentioned earlier. But this picture of
ch'i would warrant some qualification, because it would have to be
living energy, not the dead, brute energy of modern physics. All creation is thought of as immersed in this boundless ocean of living energy; in fact all creation is a temporary 'condensation' of this living energy into definite forms. And every living thing
receives sustanence from this ocean of energy.
This last point is the crux: if it is true, it makes sense to seek to tap into this energy and get more of it in one's body to promote one's health, and to make oneself capable of holding more of it. And theoretically at least, it may also be possible to build up a sufficient store of
ch'i energy in oneself to employ in
combat, either by raising one's physical attributes to superlative levels through nourishing one's body with this
ch'i, or by actually projecting
ch'i missiles [img]tongue.gif[/img] . All this forms the rationale behind
ch'i-kung (
qigong if you use Pinyin romanization) and the Internal martial arts -- not to mention many of the countless
wu-hsia novels (Pinyin romanization:
wuxia) so popular among the Chinese, in which authors fantasize about different schools of martial arts each with its own highly fanciful methods of building up and using the
ch'i, plus side effects etc.
Dunno if Ryu's '
Hadoken!' is possible -- I've seen nothing of the kind in real life
-- but I think there's already sufficient evidence to suggest that
ch'i is not entirely hogwash. It's to be regretted that there doesn't seem much serious academic research on the reality of
ch'i, though.
Hope all that has been of some help.
Here's a decent website about
ch'i-kung (
qigong), BTW. (Would you also be interested in any
books?)
[ 09-23-2002, 04:26 AM: Message edited by: K T Ong ]