Ki Stories

**Prince Vlad** · Posted On: 5/20/2011 4:23am

Interesting side note. When I was living in Japan and training with the Buj I asked about 'ki' ( expecting to learn some kind of secret death move). I was disappointed by the shihan's response that it didn't exist and that people claiming to use ki were either deluded or they were deliberately tricking people. At the time I was pretty surprised because there was such a willingness to believe in the supernatural among Japanese people in general.

The funny thing is that when I left Japan I couldn't find a Buj club that didn't talk about energy and ki. Before quitting the Buj forever I attended a seminar where the instructor had everyone clap hands, close their eyes, stand on front of a partner with hands outstretched and almost touching - then you had to try and follow your partners hands around by sensing mystical ki emanations... Imagine a large sports hall full of dudes garbed in black with tabi and shin wraps all standing around like tripped out hippies with their eyes closed saying "wow I really felt it!". That was the last time I trained at the Buj. Now the only ki I experience is the bliss of being choked out or the pulsating throb of severe bruising. Life in the Buj was so much easier...

**xlins** · Posted On: 5/20/2011 5:04am

Somewhere.... I read something like "ki is balance" or "ki is body mechanics, coordination" No special powers at all.

**Lonestar** · Posted On: 5/20/2011 10:07am

As much as I love my old TKD school for giving me my base in MMA I am never going there again for a multitude of reasons. Here is one of them:

My instructor was starting to get into the whole Qi, energy thing, and admitted he was learning it all off of the internet. He was always one of those instructors who would go off into lectures, taking up a good ten minutes of class time on a tangent. So now he was wasting class time talking about 'energy' and 'air'. He never used the word 'qi' or anything like it to describe what he was practicing.

His favorite demonstration was his ability to push people slightly without touching them. This ability he taught us as well. I was never able to do it. You would literally gather air up in front of you with your hands into a ball and push it into the small of the person's back in front of you. The instructor and the few students who could do this could do it on other students but not me. When my instructor tried to I could feel some heat pushing on my back. He would just say that he needed more practice to push me with it.

I am not opposed to the idea of some kind of energy in us. I just don't see it having any practical applications or a need for it to be trained or put in alignment or whatever.

**Sri Hanuman** · Posted On: 5/20/2011 3:36pm

Originally Posted by xlins

Somewhere.... I read something like "ki is balance" or "ki is body mechanics, coordination" No special powers at all.

It has thousands of definitions, because it is a broad term used widely to explain phenomenon that at the time either had no definitions, or were too vague to pinpoint.

Ex.
Ki/Qi could mean breath, focus, mind, blood combined with generative force, steam/heat, balance, or that happy feeling you get when you club baby seals.

**Evilenzo** · Posted On: 5/21/2011 5:08am

Originally Posted by Ignorami

I once went to an Aikido seminar run by this guy:

During the warm-up, we were doing some gentle back-rolls. (not right over, just kind of rocking back and forth)

The venue had two different types of mats thrown together to cope with the number of attendees, and my back was rolling across the join between the two significantly different thicknesses (uncomfortable), so I turned 90 degrees.

He told me to turn back the same way as everyone else, over the seam again, "so that everyone's ki is flowing in the same direction".

There was no winning me back from that comment.

People like this make baby OSensei cry...
I'm trying to prove that not every Aikido dojo is a joke, they're not helping... as the leader of Aikikai Italia, which in his yearly two-weeks long seminar at times indulges in... choral buddhist chantings, that's my Ki story.
By the way we sometimes try judo immobilizations (at which i of course suck), just to compare the two things.