One of the underlying premises to how acupuncture works is the balance of Qi or energy force within the body. Qi is derived from the air that we breathe and from the food that we eat. It then circulates throughout the body giving us strength and vitality. Analogies to Qi appear in other societies including ka in Egyptian mythology, awen in Druidry and prana in Hindu philosophy (Source: Wikipedia) .

In order to help explain the context in simple terms, Felix Mann in his book, Acupuncture – The Ancient Chinese Art of Healing published in 1973 says:

“In Western medicine we have an intricate knowledge of anatomy, microscopic anatomy, the chemistry and biochemistry of the body but little knowledge of what actually makes us “tick”. It was this energy at the roots of all life which was the primary interest of the ancient Chinese.” It is this Life Energy that is “Qi”.

In Chinese medicine and philosophy Qi is a fundamental concept and it is believed that the body is nothing but a vortex of Qi. What makes Qi a difficult concept for people in the West to grasp is that it is both material and immaterial. The Chinese character for Qi portrays this using two symbols combined, the upper symbol representing ‘gas or vapour’ and the lower symbol ‘uncooked’ rice.

Problems occur when our Qi is out of balance and in these cases, you’ll hear practitioners talk about Deficient Qi or Stagnant Qi.

When our Qi is deficient we will be tired and lethargic as there is not enough energy flowing through the body giving us the strength to carry out our day to day activities.

Qi can also stagnate if the normal flow of QI is blocked. This can occur due to a physical injury or trauma but also if we repress our emotions – particularly anger.

One of the aims of acupuncture is to restore our natural balance of Qi and bring us back to optimum health and well being.

 The ancient Taoist sages who mastered mind and body had many different insights and techniques to have a healthy life and as a plus Self Realization.  It is said that some of the teachings of Taoism originally come from India. This all makes sense if one investigates into the nature of Sanatana Dharma (hinduism) and Taoism. One can see the similarities between them. In particular I want to note is the use of energy in both systems. Not only this but both systems aim at Self Realization.

 With that said breath work has been very instrumental to healthy living and enlightenment in both sciences. Many are familiar with the Yogic use of breath and energy work. The same thing is found in Taoist Yoga. What is deeply interesting to me is the technique of no breath. In Taoism this is called Embryonic Breathing. In Sanatana Dharma and Yogic paths one can achieve such a state in which no breath is necessary and yet the practictioner is able to control energy throughout his or her body and remain healthy and ALIVE!

 In Taoism and in particular the practice of Qi Gong (sometimes spelled as Chi Kung) there is a use of Embryonic Respiration.  It is the breath of no breath. This is possible when both the mind and body are fully relaxed. The mind and body must be relaxed and filled with Qi (Qi is life force, in yoga its called prana).  Focusing on breathing is an easy way to relax not only the body but also the mind. A great method is focusing on the lower abdomen or the dan tian.

 The lower dan tian or abdomon is about three inches below the naval. This is natural respiration. If you observe an infant you will notice that the infant breaths from this region. Overtime due to stress on the body and on the mind we forget this form of breathing. This breathing is very instrumental to good health and also mental clarity.

 In order to begin Embryonic Respiration start breathing naturally. Just let the air come in and out. Watch the rise and fall of the lower dan tien (you dont have to look down). Have your eyes closed gently. You can sit in a chair (preferably on the edge of the chair with feet firmly on the ground and back straight but not rigid). You can sit cross legged if you like just make sure the spine is straight yet not in a rigid way. You are not trying to be a tough guy or woman let it be natural. Your right hand should rest gently on your lap and your left fist gently closes on the thumb of the right hand. This is a special mudra or hand gesture called the yin-yang mudra.

 Let the breath be very natural. Have a few minutes to relax into simply allowing the rise and fall of the lower abdomen. After you have done this for a few minutes begin to visualize Qi (life force or energy) entering your body entirely. Let every part of your body be fused with this life giving Qi. Let no cell be without this Qi. The Qi pervades every part of your body. Every organ, vessel, cell, everything. As you breath out visualize stale Qi leaving your body. Do this set 9 times.

After you have completed the above cycle move on to visualizing Qi entering the upper dan tien or heart area of your body. Allow Qi to pervade the entire heart area of your body. As you breath out imagine this energy or Qi moving down into your lower dan tien or lower abdomen. Let this Qi pervade the lower region. Return again with another inbreath visualizing Qi entering into the heart area, then breath out vizualizing the Qi going down into the lower abdomen. Do this also for 9 times.

After that simply vizualize the Qi in the heart area as you breath in, then imagine the same energy staying inside your body and moving down into the lower abdomen. Then as you breathe in again vizualize that energy in the lower abdomen rising up to the heart region. Do this for 9 sets.

 After the above cycle simply visualize the Qi staying in the abdomen. See it rising up in the abdomen with each in breath. Watch the Qi fall to the lower abdomen with each out breath. Do this 9 times.

Gently as you complete these cycles you will notice your breath getting quiet. It is getting very deep. Deep and slow. Breathing in you know that you are breathing in a long gentle compassionate breath. Breathing out you know you are breathing out a slow breath. Soon the breath will be without effort and you will not even know you are breathing! Don’t panic your still alive just enjoy this simplicit natural embryonic breathing. A gentle peace will definately come over you.

 Never rush this or expect anything. Simply let the Dao or lot God or Emptiness or the Universe do it for you. Don’t let your ego parade over what is happening or what is not happening. Don’t let the ego tell you when you should be experiencing this stillness. When you find that your ego is trying to rush the process simply say to yourself “I will let the Dao do it for me”.  The Dao is the Formless Reality or your Deepest Nature. It is Siva, it is God, it is ULtimate Reality. Allow this life force or the One Life to do it through you. So don’t beat yourself up. In Taoism a let of emphases is on NON EFFORT!

Enjoy be healthy and be love

Peace and love for eternity always

-Juan

NOTE:

 Much of this technique was taken from the book “The Way of Qigong-The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing” by Kenneth S. Cohen a western Taoist. I have worded the technique in my own wording.

L’intelligenza emotiva è un aspetto dell’intelligenza legato alla capacità di provare emozioni.

I limiti che si sono dimostrati nella riuscita sociale di un individuo con un quoziente intellettivo QI elevato, spiegano pertanto come l’aspetto emozionale di una persona, anche non dotata di capacità logico-matematiche, verbali e spaziali (su cui si basano i test per misurare il QI) determini, spesso, il vero successo.

Saper utilizzare intelligenza emotiva significa avere capacità empatiche che ormai sappiamo essere condizione necessaria per rimanere in comunicazione con gli altri, tanto più con i ragazzi adolescenti.

H. Goleman è sicuramente il più conosciuto esperto in materia che distingue due sottogategorie:

1. l’intelligenza emotiva personale (conspevolezza di sé, controllo/autocontrollo delle proprie emozioni, capacità di motivazione, spirito di iniziativa…)

2. l’intelligenza emotiva sociale (empatia, comunicazione, ascolto…dell’altro).

La cosa che mi rincuora sapere rispetto a tutto questo discorso è che se l’intelligenza legata al QI tende a stabilizzarsi intorno ai 16 anni per poi affievolirsi con l’ avanzare dell’età, l’intelligenza emotiva, che nella nostra cultura è una novità, può essere migliorata negli anni, non è legata ad un’età, al contrario cresce e migliora nel corso della vita.

Può essersa aiutata a svilupparsi?

Secondo Goleman si, con un allenamento rivolto a cogliere i sentimenti nostri e degli altri, a saperli riconoscere, anche nelle accezioni negative (ansia, rabbia) e soprattutto a saperli verbalizzare.

Sforzarci di manifestare i nostri sentimenti, anche nei confronti dei nostri figli, non significa rendersi ai loro occhi vulnerabili, ma al contrario aiutano alla comprensione e aprono al dialogo.

E in una situazione ormai compremessa da uno sbagliato approccio (del genitore) nei riguardi di un comportemento del figlio  (un divieto al limite dell’ingiusto non rispettato dal  figlio stesso) diventa quasi l’unico canale per riequilibrare e ristabilire un rapporto inclinato senza entrare in un muro a muro che non solo non risolverebbe il conflitto, ma rischierebbe una chiusura definitiva della comunicazione.

Questa riflessione fatta oggi in un incontro (l’ennesimo rivolto ai genitori, sono ripetente, ma felice di esserlo) avuto sull’intelligenza emotiva, mi ha aiutato proprio a ristabilire il rapporto con mio figlio inclinato appunto da uno sbagliato approccio avuto con lui nei riguardi di questa occupazione scolastica.

Come a dire niente viene a caso!

Since at least Bill liked my QI installment last week, here’s more QI, this time on rabbits:

And spaghetti:

1. yuangqi – Ursprungs-qi

2. zongqi – Atmungs-qi

3. yingqi- Nahrungs-qi

4. weiqi- Abwehr-qi

Die vier Grundformen von qi können weiter differenziert werden. Jeder Funktionskreis besitzt sein eigenes qi, das in einer bestimmten Weise oder Richtung fließen muß: Das qi der Milz läuft aufwärts und garantiert damit die fünf Geschmäcker; das qi des Magens läuft abwärts und garantiert damit eine regelgerechte Verdauung. Das qi der Leber liebt es, sich auszubreiten. Wird es daran gehindert, ist es blockiert und verknotet, dann ist emotionaler Stau (unterdrückte Aggression) die Folge. Die entscheidende Funktion von qi ist somit, daß es immer in Bewegung ist. Stockungen und Blockaden von qi werden in der TCM als eine der wesentlichsten Krankheitsursachen angesehen.

(Thomas Ots, Medizin und Heilung in China)

If you reside in good ol’ blighty you will now find a channel called Shows located under the search bar on YouTube. What does clicking on it get you? An archive full of programmes, all for free. Too many to mention, but ill give you a few headlines just for tags sake. Peep Show, Nathan Barley, Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, Mr Bean, QI and Derren Brown’s sublime special, The Heist is also worth a shout for those who missed it a few years ago

Naturally, it’s all ad-supported. To those who say pff – I simply pass on the words of Louis.

click here or here but not here.

Dré

Baopuzi schrieb im 4 Jahrhundert: “Der Mensch lebt inmitten von qi, und qi erfüllt den Menschen. Von Himmel und Erde bis zu den Zehntausend Wesen, alles bedarf des qi, um zu leben. Wer das qi zu führen weiß, nährt im Innern seinen Körper und wehrt nach außen hin schädigende Einflüsse ab”:

Qi stellt – wie yinyang und die Fünf Wandlungsphasen – ein zentrales Konzept chinesischen Denkens und der traditionellen Medizin Chinas dar. Es beschreibt sehr komplexe und verschiedenartige Vorgänge menschlichen Lebens. Es ist ein ganzheitliches Konzept, das duale Denkmuster von Psyche und Soma transzendiert… – Ein paar Assoziationen lasse ich an dieser Stelle weg, um gleich zu folgendem Punkt zu kommen. Der Mensch wird mit einer bestimmten Menge qi, dem yuanqi, geboren, dem vorgeburtlichen qi. Dieses qi muss laufend ergänzt werden, durch die Atmung und die Aufnahme von Nahrung. Die Vereinigung dieser beiden qi formt das nachgeburtliche qi, houtian zhi qi. Hierdurch ist das Leben und die Abwehr übelwollender Einflüsse gewährleistet. Schlechte oder fehlerhafte Nahrung, falsches Atmen etc. führen zu einem schwachen Abwehrqi und Krankheit ist die Folge.

Das Bild oben ist dem Buch “Die Erfahrung der Goldenen Blüte” von Mokusen Miyuki entnommen. (vgl. Jung/Wilhelm).

O cientista político americano Charles Murray tornou-se mundialmente famoso em 1994, com o polêmico livro The bell curve, intelligence and class structure in american life (A curva do sino, inteligência e estrutura de classe na vida americana). Na obra, escrita em parceria com Richard Herrnstein, psicólogo e professor de Harvard, ele discute o papel do QI (coeficiente de inteligência) na sociedade.

Segundo ele, o QI é mais eficiente para predizer como será a renda, o desempenho no trabalho e até chances de gravidez fora do casamento do que a escolaridade ou a situação socioeconômica da família quando comparam-se grupos.

Por sustentar que o QI dos brancos é mais alto que o dos negros, foi acusado de racismo.

Murray acaba de lançar um livro sobre educação (Real education: four simple truths for bringing America’s schools back to reality) e vem pela primeira vez ao Brasil para o seminário O Impacto dos Resultados Pisa e a Formação de Intelectuais na América Latina”, organizado pelo programa de pós-graduação em psicologia da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Aos 65 anos, Murray participa do American Enterprise Institute, um centro de estudos conservador sediado em Washington.

ISTOÉ - Se as escolas públicas americanas são ruins, como o sr. diz, que soluções existem para a educação em países do Terceiro Mundo como o Brasil?

Charles Murray - Não conheço as escolas brasileiras, mas posso falar em linhas gerais: se ainda há muitas escolas brasileiras que são fracas nas coisas óbvias – instalações ruins, poucos professores, poucos equipamentos -, é fácil fazer melhorias importantes, e ver os indicadores brasileiros de educação melhorar também.

Em um país como os Estados Unidos, os problemas são menos óbvios e mais difíceis de se resolver. Por exemplo, a burocracia educacional em muitas de nossas grandes cidades é incompetente. Como se dá um jeito em uma burocracia incompetente?

ISTOÉ - O sr. já foi acusado de racismo. Os brancos são mesmo mais inteligentes que os negros?

Murray - Fui acusado de racismo porque mostrei um indiscutível fato empírico: quando amostras representativas de brancos e negros são submetidas a testes que medem a habilidade cognitiva, os resultados médios são diferentes. Isto não é uma opinião.

É um fato, da mesma forma que medidas de altura mostram um resultado médio diferente entre japoneses e alemães. Eu não tirei conclusões racistas deste fato, não advoguei políticas racistas, e tenho escrito explicitamente que a lei deve tratar pessoas como indivíduos e não como membros de grupos raciais. Então por que me chamar de racista? Porque alguns fatos não podem ser discutidos – e os indivíduos que os discutem devem ser pessoas terríveis.

ISTOÉ - Até que ponto da vida é possível aumentar o QI?

Murray - É muito difícil aumentá-lo. Nos Estados Unidos temos muitos programas experimentais com o objetivo de enriquecer o ambiente de aprendizado para crianças pequenas. Eles mostram alguns ganhos a curto prazo, mas esses ganhos sempre desaparecem quando as crianças são testadas novamente anos mais tarde. Não temos nenhum programa que demonstre aumento de QI entre crianças maiores que sete ou oito anos.

ISTOÉ - Há pesquisas que mostram que é possível aumentar a inteligência. O que o sr. pensa sobre isso?

Murray - Estou sempre disposto a examinar novas evidências. Os trabalhos que conheço não dizem isso.

ISTOÉ - Existem diferenças no QI de homens e mulheres?

Murray - O consenso entre especialistas é que o QI médio de homens e mulheres é igual, mas o perfil de habilidades cognitivas específicas varia de acordo com o gênero. Uma minoria sustenta que existe uma diferença na média também, mas isso é uma questão extremamente técnica. Fico com a maioria até que surjam novos dados que provem o contrário.

ISTOÉ - O que pensa sobre cotas para mulheres, na política, e para deficientes em empresas e serviço público?

Murray - Odeio cotas.

ISTOÉ - Qual o peso do ambiente na inteligência?

Murray - As estimativas são de que o QI é entre 40% e 60% produzido pelo ambiente e o resto é genético.

ISTOÉ - O sr. deve angariar inimigos por causa de suas opiniões controversas. Como lida com isso?

Murray - Quando The bell curve foi publicado, fiquei deprimido com as críticas e preocupado em como fazer as pessoas entenderem o que eu tinha dito de fato, em vez de o que os meus inimigos disseram que eu disse. Agora, aos 65 anos, não ligo mais para o que as pessoas pensam.

ISTOÉ - Qual é o seu QI? O sr. está feliz com ele?

Murray - O sistema escolar da cidade onde eu cresci aplicava testes de QI nos estudantes aos 13 anos, e os resultados eram usados pelas escolas para guiá-las. Os estudantes nunca sabiam os resultados, por isso nunca soube qual é o meu QI. Sou feliz com minha habilidade verbal e gostaria de ter mais habilidade matemática.

Fonte: Isto É!

This one goes out to all of us stuck in an office on this beautiful fall day. Hope this cheers you up.

Courtesy of HuffPo.

And, if Stephen Fry and Bill Bailey don’t cheer you up, I’m pretty sure you’re a lost cause.

The show QI (short for Quite Interesting) is the sort of thing that could probably only come from Britain. Stephen Fry asks bizarre and obscure questions to a group of comedians. Here’s one of my favourite exchanges:

Keeping up a blog is hard work once you leave college and have Real Life to deal with. Yeah. Same lame excuse as everybody else. When I finally have a spare moment to relax, I’d rather go on YouTube and watch episodes of QI than anything.

Oh, you haven’t heard of QI? Well, maybe I do have a topic to blog about for a minute! (I have mentioned it before, but what else am I to do on a Saturday night?) QI is a panel trivia show in Britain, (it stands for Quite Interesting) hosted by the wonderful Stephen Fry (Dr. Gordon Gordon Wyatt on Fox’s Bones to you kids who aren’t much anglophiles). Each season is a letter of the alphabet, and each episode is a take off from that letter. On one hand it’s a show to learn weird pieces of trivia, and on the other it’s just fine to listen to British comedians pretend they know something, and digress from there. You get some real gems floating around on YouTube, even if you don’t immediately recognize the comedians. For example:

The panel discusses British accents in Hollywood, and Alan Rickman.

How to defend yourself against an alligator.

A great story from Stephen about Dracula and Van Helsing.

Now you know why we say “hello” when we answer the phone.

Campy German words.

And my personal favorite, the Moonwalking Bird!

I totally blame Taylor for this, as I do most things I enjoy. This is why we are friends, because we can share a love for bizarre things like British quiz shows. I mean, really. I dare you not to get hooked!

By not riding the bus anymore I’ve found I have less time to things done. I’ll work on that for you. Until next time… ever wanted to know what the Queen has in her handbag?

Can you spot the Five Elements in this photo? Scroll down for answers.

Feng Shui is based upon the principles of Yin and Yang.  Yin and Yang are the parents of “the five elements”.  The five elements — fire, earth, metal, water, and wood are used in Feng Shui to create balance and harmony.   The elements describe different types of energy (qi) and can be thought of as ”five phases” because energy is constantly moving and transforming.  Everything in the world is created from a combination of the five phases.  They are the building blocks which create the quality of energy present in a certain space. 

Why is this important?  Because when energy is balanced, you’ll feel relaxed and comfortable in a space producing a higher level of satisfaction with life.

The Five Elements and their Characteristics

The goal of Feng Shui is to balance the elements in an environment so that they don’t conflict with each other.  Using color, shape, furniture arrangement and space planning, a Feng Shui practitioner arranges the elements a harmonious way and makes the unseen, seen.  The qualities of each element is manifested in its color, material, and shape.  However, you’ll rarely find an element that’s just a single element – most things consist of a combination of elements.  For example, when we use the term wood qi, it means that it has a preponderance of wood qi, not that it is only wood qi.  

How to Balance the Elements

The correct use of elements will create the productive cycle.  The productive cycle means the elements are not overpowering one another.  The space will feel comfortable and look appealing.   The productive cycle works like this: 

Water nurtures -> Wood nurtures -> Fire nurtures -> Earth nurtures -> Metal nurtures -> Water. 

In contrast, using too much or too little of an element causes conflict between the different energies which causes unbalanced qi.   This is known as the destructive cycle.  The destructive cycle works like this:  

Water weakens -> Fire weakens –> Metal weakens -> Wood weakens –> Earth weakens –> Water.  

Applying the Principles to a Room

At the most basic level, if you have a room with a pitched ceiling, painted red, with white furniture and white drapes containing circular-shaped pattern, the room will have a lot of fire and metal qi.  Why?  Because red is a fire color, and the pitched ceiling is a fire element (triangular), white is metal color and circles are metal shapes.  Fire is destructive to metal.  The elements are following the destructive cycle. This is undesirable and the unseen conflict between fire and metal can cause you discomfort in the room. 

How to move into the Productive Cycle?

Add rounded-leaf plants in square-shaped pots to add earth, wood, and water energy.   Earth energy is found in the dirt and the square-shaped pot.  Wood energy manifests from the color green and from the very nature of the plant.   Water energy is found in the curved shape of the leaves.   Adding the missing elements buffers the conflict between metal and fire and creates the productive cycle.

Going Deeper

A Feng Shui practitioner would go deeper and do more a thorough analysis before making recommendations by asking these questions:

• First, what type of inherent energy is found in the room?  This is based on the compass reading of the room and charting of the natal chart or flying-star chart.  (“Star” meaning energy) 
• Second, what is the room used for?  Recommendations for a bedroom will be different than for the dining room.  You need to determine the quality of energy needed  in the room based on its usage.  For example, earth energy in a bedroom is desirable because it is grounding and can help you relax.  In an office, too much earth can make you lethargic and not wanting to work.
• Third, what is the birth-year energy (or ming-gua) of the people who will be using the room?  If you are a water element the best elements for your bedroom are water energy and metal energy (metal creates water).   Yet that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to add these elements if they are already inherently in the room.

The goal of Feng Shui is to create balance and harmony through correct energy balancing. When a room is balanced energetically odds are you’ll feel it as you walk in.  If you get the feeling of peace and feel like relaxing your shoulders look around and see if you can spot how the five elements are used in the room.  Intuitively, we all can feel when a space is balanced.

Can you spot the Five Elements in this photo?

Water - the curved arms of the chair; the color of the floor (black).

Wood – the inherent material used in constructing the chair; the shape of the chair legs.

Fire – the color of the upholstery (orange).

Earth – the square-shape of the squares on the wall; the shape of the bottom chair cushion.

Metal – the color the chair was painted (white); the circular back of the chair; the color of the wall (grey).

I’ve practiced martial arts of various styles for 20 years, and in all that time I’ve heard a number of very strange & woo-filled explanations for why people can accomplish the physical feats they can.  One such example is breaking wooden boards with the bare hands & feet – often people provide an explanation by referencing so-called “chi, ki, or qigong energy”. The whole concept of chi is more of a philosophical concept than anything else, and it is little more than a “dragon-in-the-garage” (an untestable notion that cannot be verified through scientific means).

Well, I’m here to tell you that such physical feats as board breaking can be performed & explained simply by referencing the known laws of physics – no woo required.  Take a look at the video of me performing such a break with five pine boards at once…

How do I accomplish this feat?  Here’s how: I hit the boards really hard – the question is how do I generate such a large force of impact?  Read on…

1. Materials: First off, there’s a good reason why I’m hitting pine boards – they are a soft wood.  Whenever I’ve seen martial artists doing breaks such as these, they hit either pine boards or a brittle material like clay bricks or concrete slabs.  In addition, when striking wooden boards, successful strikes always go with the grain of the wood because the wood is structurally weaker in that orientation.  So, in a real sense, karate practitioners are kind of cheating by using these materials – if you really wanted to see something impressive & “supernatural”, perhaps someone could display slicing through a steel I-beam with the edge of their hand.  I think there’s a pretty good reason why we never see a “chi-master” doing that! 

2. Spacers: Notice the spacers that I’ve got placed in between the boards.  This is another common trick that is used whenever board breaking is performed.  By separating the boards like this, I really only have to break one at a time as opposed to one large, massive chunk.  In more technical terms, the momentum of my strike is slightly reduced by breaking only the top board, which allows the remainder of my hand’s momentum to continue to the next board, and the next after that and so on.  This works for the same reason why train cars are slightly decoupled from one another – once the engine gets moving, its momentum helps to move the next car when the coupling catches, and their combined momentum help to get the third car moving when its coupling catches, and so on.

3. Impulse-Momentum Theorem: the rest of it has to do with the physics of impulse & momentum. In equation form, this theorem (which is another way of expressing Newton’s 2nd Law) can be written as follows:

F Δt = m Δv

or

F = m Δv / Δt

where F is the force of impact, Δt is the time of impact, m is the mass behind the strike, and Δv is the change in velocity of striking hand (or foot).  In order to break the boards, one must maximize the force of impact, which can be done in a variety of ways…

*Maximize the mass: instead of merely hitting the boards with my fist, I turn & twist my entire body into the strike.  By doing so the mass (m) is greatly increased, and so too is the force.

*Minimize the impact time: the boards are placed onto solid supports (in this case the stools) which do not give under the impact.  Because the supports are not excessively elastic or bouncy, the time of impact is reduced to a minimum, which has the effect of greatly increasing the force of impact.

*Maximize the velocity: by dropping my body mass so dramatically, I convert a large amount of gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy. And since kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity of an object, by doing so I provide a great deal of velocity (and therefore momentum) which can carry all the way through all five boards as previously mentioned.

So there you have it, folks – a thorough explanation of how such board breaking feats are done, without a mention of chi/ki/qigong or any other supernatural woo-woo.  This is a very good example of applying Occam’s Razor, and I thoroughly enjoy sharing this lesson with my students.

Sadly, there are those who would rather deny scientific reality & the laws of nature in favor of the delusion that they have some kind of mystical power over “chi energy” and can therefore do physically impossible things.  And even more sadly, these delusions can lead some people into serious injury.  Here are two examples of what I’m talking about…

*The first is of one of these so-called “chi-masters” who believes that he can throw people merely by “projecting his energy” at them, but – interestingly – he only seems to be able to perform these “throws” on his true-believing students.  What happens when he encounters someone who isn’t a true-believer in his abilities?  Take a look at this video to find out:

There is an entire group, almost cultish in nature, called Yellow Bamboo that purports to teach people how to “focus & project their chi” with equal levels of failure.  Just search Youtube and you’ll find plenty of videos of the Yellow Bamboo woo-meisters getting pwned.

*But if that isn’t bad enough, here’s a whole other level of fail… this next clown is so far down the “chi-master” rabbit-hole that he actually believes that by “focusing his chi energy” he can make himself impervious to blades. And to prove it, he hacks into his own arm with a razor-sharp machete!  How do you think it went? (Warning: not for the squeamish)

Folks, in my opinion, it just doesn’t get much more stupid than that.  The moral of the story is simple: when it’s you and your beliefs vs. the laws of physics, physics always wins.

One of my hero’s:

Stephen Fry’s Scottish accents:

Stephen Fry on the joys of swearing: