Sunday, December 16, 2018

Funtional Qi - aka "The Suit"

A recent explanation by Mike Sigman:

Generally speaking, the functional "Qi" or "suit" of the human body tends to be all of those things that are under control of the subconscious (or unconscious; it's just vague terms) mind. So your functional qi tends to be things like the involuntary muscles of the vascular system, the involuntary muscles of the skin (think of goose bumps and hair-raising) and subdermal layers, sheets of fascia that are connected to each other, to muscles, to bones, etc., by myriad small involuntary muscles, and so on. When you look at this whole involuntary system as a whole, it is a supplement that can assist your muscular strength, your physical structure, it can affect involuntary control of balance forces within the body, and so on. That's the functional "qi" and the more important qi because all the other things called "qi" tend to be what that functional qi/suit can do.
There is a belief in an etheric or energetic form of qi that travels through the body and that etheric qi is always related to strength and where it goes. The etheric qi was probably (IMO) postulated as a form of fudge-factor, long ago, to make up for incomplete understanding of physical and chemical processes within the body. The existence of an etheric qi is what a lot of people argue about ... but most people are simply unaware of the functional qi as an artifact/process within the body.
The functional qi (or "suit") can be thought of an overlay of the muscle-skeleton-organs-tendons of the body. For a simplified illustration model, let's think of a coherent (connected from end to end) "suit" as being like layers of Saran-Wrap (Polyvinylidene chloride wrap) that go length-wise through the body and which can stretch and also close/contract. So, in other words, imagine a muscle-skeleton-organs body which can Open and Close, but all the muscles, skeleton, organs, etc., are wrapped and connected by a "Saran Wrap" that can also Open and Close, if we take the time to train it and strengthen it.
Training it and strengthening the imaginary Saran Wrap and its association with the Subconscious mind is what qigongs do. Since good and complete 6H CMA's use the qi and 6H movement, such arts are technically just a "moving qigong" (a lot of westerners mistakenly translate that as "moving meditation", but it's really a qigong that involves, yes, the Subconscious mind).
If we go back to our visualization the functional qi as being in some respects like length-wise layers/sheets of Saran Wrap that interpenetrate and cover the body from head to toes, there should be a way to walk and move with the body that optimizes our ability to utilize the imaginary Saran Wrap that can Open and Close. That optimal way of utilizing the length-wise Saran Wrap is mapped in the channels/meridians of the body and the central control point is the main dantian just below the navel.
Secondary dantians and anchor points for the imaginary Saran Wrap are found at other points: the top of the head, behind/between the eyes, the juncture at the lower throat, the meeting of layers at the sternum, and also the nexus/junction inside the perineum between the legs.
If the layers of imaginary Saran Wrap are used most efficiently, the body must be re-trained to use as a unit and the muscles of the body have to be re-coordinated to move in that manner. Yes, you can move the body without so much patterning away from "normal" strength, but you will be leaving money on the table by not maximizing the available power in the head-to-toe imaginary Saran Wrap.
BTW, you should be able to extrapolate why doing the magical appearance and choreography of some form like Taiji, Xingyi, Bagua, etc., doesn't really do anything qi-wise. Doing a bunch of powerful and impressive martial techniques, etc., has nothing to do with qi-development, either. The whole of Chinese/Asian martial-arts is built around the existence and utility of qi and the subconscious ...

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