What The Heck is Chi? Part 1
I had studied internal kung fu for almost 15 years. To be clear, I don’t mean I studied part time. I owned a school in San Diego, CA and taught an average of 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. And I usually spent my day off practicing kung fu with some of my older students. But the day came when I realized I could no longer suppress the ugly truth. Deep down inside, I knew that I knew next to nothing about chi! In fact, the only thing I knew for certain about chi, was that I should be able to somehow use it to defend myself against a brutal attack by one or more assailants who meant to inflict serious damage on my person. I knew I should be able to use chi in such a situation, but in in reality, I had no idea exactly what I needed to do with my body, the one getting attacked, in order to actually use chi to avoid serious injury. Given that chi is the veritable foundation of any internal martial art, I knew I had a serious problem!
I had read many books, searched the internet and watched videos. I went to seminars. I talked to many teachers, including old style Chinese masters. Still, chi was something I just couldn’t grasp in my mind. One definition, and a typical one, I read is “A Chinese term for the all-encompassing universal life force that flows in and around our body.” Sounds good enough. Now, what do I do with that to prevent a fast moving fist from flattening my nose? Another typical explanation, “Your dantian is the best home for your Chi and the best place for you to focus your energy so that you can come form a balanced, whole place in yourself.” Well, that didn’t tell me how to protect my nose either. Maybe this one should have helped me, “The chi is envisioned as moving upward from the ground through the feet, the legs, and past the waist. It flows up along the spinal column, past the shoulders, and into the arms.” But it didn’t really help me any more than the others. Was I to believe that the guy trying to hit me would suddenly see the chi going up my spine and stop his attack? And what if he didn’t see it? Bye, bye pretty nose!
So there I was, every day teaching something I now admitted to myself I knew basically nothing about. I would dutifully quote the tai chi classics to my students while making a feeble attempt to put it into words I thought they could understand. The classics tell us “the energy at the top of your head should be light and sensitive.” Huh? What energy? Sensitive to what? How was I supposed to make it light as opposed to heavy? Does this have something to do with head butting? After talking to my students about such things I was always amazed, and relieved, that nobody asked for clarification. I guess they think that everybody else understands and they don’t want to appear ignorant!
When you think about it, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the whole idea of using this mysterious force called chi is difficult to understand. The word chi is a noun. Specifically, it is classified by English grammarians as an abstract noun, as opposed to a concrete noun. Concrete nouns deal with things that can be seen, heard or touched. Examples of concrete nouns would include, “house”, “tree”, “mountain” or “boat”. Everybody gets pretty much the same image in their mind when a concrete noun is used. Abstract nouns, on the other hand, are used to talk about more ethereal, or theoretical concepts. Some examples of abstract nouns would include “freedom”, “faith”, “power” or “god”. These nouns can evoke radically different images in the minds of two different people. I don’t recall a war that started because two people couldn’t agree on what a house or car is. But far too many are the wars that have been started because two people couldn’t get even close to agreeing on who or what God is!
Now, if you’re like me, if the word chi isn’t crystal clear to you, then be sure to check back for future installments on this blog.
