The non mysticism of martial arts

We are all familiar with martial techniques and we can understand leverage and the generation of power but inevitably there will be a reference to Chi and some eyes will roll and some will widen in blind acceptance of some mystical secret. Unless you speak to someone who actually has an understanding of such concepts and they will look at you like you’re insane if you refer to this as some form of irrational magic, because to those who understand it is very physical and very attainable. In fact, the thing that prevents people from seeing it is merely a result of not understanding their own body and their own mind.

 

Lets examine the premise which makes us assume that this is magic. If we cannot perceive it through our five senses it must not exist. Or you will get someone making reference to some sort of ‘sixth sense’. What is our mind? Our mind is a tool that processes information collected by our senses. But we need to question the nature of our senses, and the information that is gathered by our mind. We have all smelled something so strong we can taste it, as well as tasted something so strong we can smell it. Our hearing is based on feeling sound waves on our eardrum, and much like when a car drives by playing its radio too loud with too much bass, we feel the vibration in our chests. The idea being that taste and smell are closely related and hearing and touch are closely related. Lets also examine other things we feel and receive information about but don’t directly attribute it to our senses. We constantly receive information like differences in air pressure, some people get headaches around high tension lines, around microwaves etc. And what about when we feel someone staring at us and we look across the room and see someone actually looking at us. We have all walked into a public restroom with no one in sight and feel like someone is in there with us and then hear a cough in a stall. So we recognize that we gather information that doesn’t seem directly related to our view of our senses. My assertion is that we have too narrow a view of our senses and the areas where the information we have gathered falls into those areas between the definitive lines of our senses. Like peripheral vision, just because we aren’t focused on it does not mean haven’t seen it. We have our mind which logically reasons information which is gathered through our senses, it deciphers information into our perception of the world. Our definition depends on the amount of information we have to base our perception on.  If we can only see the left side of a car we have to assume the right side is symmetrical based only on the expectation of symmetry. If you take a stick and place one end on a wall, you are feeling the wall, through the stick. Anyone who has ever had an exposed nerve quickly realizes the nerve feels sensation through the flesh, just as you feel the wall through the stick. The stick is matter and energy, molecules of air are matter and energy, so are you feeling the wall across the room since you are touching the air which is touching the wall? So when a person practices these arts what they are really doing is using their minds ability to take more available information and process it into a usage.

 

One of the most common problems is the expectation that one cannot feel the wall, and therefore will not feel the wall. This is the same issue people experience with parts of their bodies when they lack the motor control to make subtle adjustment. They frequently say that they see it can be done, but their bodies do not work that way, which is true to an extent but the statement would only be true if they say their bodies do not work that way yet.  The mind is the same way and the more we learn we are able to perceive the more we see it as very normal and not the mystical mystery we once believed.

 

Think about the way our minds change over time. Children cannot control their emotions but, hopefully, learn to.  We get in a tub of hot water but control our urge to jump out if we are determined to enjoy the bath. We learn to overcome our fear of heights, of water, of darkness and all of these things seemed impossible at one point but the mind is able to overcome it. This is the same. We say we cannot feel where our balance shifts, until we develop awareness of our balance. Once developed, we see how unbalanced we were. We say we cannot feel the opponent’s intention until our awareness increases and then we are able to see how we felt it all along, but were not paying attention to the details that told us. After one learns to quiet the mind, you can feel the energy between your hands, then traveling through the body then expanding outward.  Once you experience this you will find it to be a very physical manifestation and not mystical in any way but you must question your perception.
The mind starts to become aware that such information was present all along but hadn’t noticed it because we didn’t look closely enough. We discover there is no ‘sixth sense’ rather under utilized five senses, and a mind that wasn’t using all the information gathered. Feeling isn’t limited to just what we are touching directly, it is insubstantial to the beginner, subtle to the more experienced practioner, and obvious to the master. In order to achieve this awareness one must absolutely question and challenge their perceptions, the premise upon which they define their view of what is and isn’t. We must recognize the mind is finite and cannot catalog the infinite, but this doesn’t mean we cannot function effectively. Like a mathematical equation, we needn’t memorize each numerical combination, merely the formula necessary to find the correct answer.
Relaxation is the key to the gathering of the information. We are trying to feel energy and energy travels through a relaxed body but is blocked by tension. We never see a golfer swing his club with tension, a baseball batter swing with tension, a gymnast move stiffly, as they are utilizing the same principle whether they know it or not. Like a mechanic who can feel the proper vibration of a finely tuned motor, or a musician feeling the music through their instrument, so should the Tai Chi practitioner relax to feel the energy in the body. To begin, one must practice standing, feeling in what portion of the foot they feel the weight most pronounced, then seek to adjust and balance it through the entirety of the foot while maintaining the openness of the bubbling well cavity and the slight grasp of the toes. Next feeling for tension and then consciously dissipating it. Tension is like loud music, in that sometimes you must walk outside before you realize how noisy it was inside. Just as one cannot hear silence, we cannot feel relaxation, we only become aware of these things. Recognizing tension may stem from perceived necessity or incorrect alignment, proper study must be done to eliminate poor posture, and then the mind can eliminate the added tension. Once the posture is achieved and the body relaxed, you will become aware of the energy flowing, sometimes feeling warm, sometimes tingly, sometimes puffy, etc and then once we are aware that we feel it, we will start to notice where else it is and has been, but was unnoticed. Then we feel the energy around us, and through us, and eventually how the mind can lead it. Again, not magic, as the mind sends energy continuously though the body in the form of bioelectric signals, therefore affecting energy is really not such a foreign concept after all, once you accept just how amazing the mind truly is. Finally once you realize this, you become aware, not of the limits of the mind, but rather remove your self imposed barriers and begin to see that you may never find the actual limit in your allotted lifetime.