 The first important point to make is that these methods of ch’i kung do not produce immortal beings! All these methods were created by a pre-scientific society. [i] The ancient Chinese had some very odd ideas about the structure of the human body, their physiological knowledge was limited and they really did not understand the functions of the major organs of the body or the circulation of the blood which they thought moved around the body at a rate sixty times slower than that discovered by William Harvey. Part 2The first important point to make is that these methods of ch’i kung do not produce immortal beings! All these methods were created by a pre-scientific society. [i] The ancient Chinese had some very odd ideas about the structure of the human body, their physiological knowledge was limited and they really did not understand the functions of the major organs of the body or the circulation of the blood which they thought moved around the body at a rate sixty times slower than that discovered by William Harvey. According to Dr. K. Chimin Wong and Dr. Wu Lien-Teh ‘Like anatomy, the physiology of the Nei Ching [Canon of Medicine] was mostly a product of imagination’ and ‘Knowledge concerning the nervous system is practically nil.’ [ii] Dr. Joseph Needham has pointed out that during the T’ang dynasty [618-960] Chinese anatomical illustrations were ‘ahead of anything in Europe, but such illustrations continued to be reproduced, mainly in books on forensic medicine for the use of magistrates in the Chhing dynasty [1644-1911] long after European anatomy had passed forward out of sight.’ [iii]
Social values prevented Chinese doctors from actually dissecting human corpses to further their knowledge and so anatomical and surgical skills were not of a high order. The stress on ch’i was also a limiting factor. There has never been any objective evidence for the existence of this energy, but somehow it continues to attract a certain type of martial artist.
If we look at one aspect of ch’i kung practices we will see the limitations of the traditional reasoning. The Taoists practised a type of sexual yoga in which they refrained from ejaculating in order to absorb the ching into the body and so promote the development of ch’i. Actually they did not realise that the method they adopted simply meant that they lost their ching through urination: it was not a method of ‘making the semen return to nourish the brain’ as they believed. This point has been made very clearly by Huai-Chin Nan when he explains that ‘The production of sperm and eggs in the body is a natural phenomenon. It is supposed that if one believes suppressing ejaculation could possibly enhance health and add to long life, this person is suffering from illusions arising from an abnormal sexual life and strange mental states. Such claims, it is believed, are merely innocent lies.
These theories involve physiology, sexual psychology, neurology and biochemistry, but although they give numerous clues, they lack final conclusions. However, it is believed to be impossible that a pure and simple man might never ejaculate in his entire lifetime or could live a life that is healthier and longer than that of most other people. On the contrary, people who refrain from ejaculating are often melancholy due to abnormal sexual and mental states and die of cerebral apoplexy or cancer. Therefore, from the viewpoint of modern medical science, theories that advocate ‘renewing the brain through returning ching so that one can live longer’ and ‘the transmutation of ching into ch’i ’ are sheer nonsense.’ [iv]
Actually most cultures have at some time produced similar ideas to the Taoists. In India the Tantric traditions were based on achieving spiritual insights through conservation of the practitioners sexual energy, and in the West there was a belief that ‘of all the diseases or derangements which affect, or can affect the generative organs, there is none equal, nor half so bad as Spermatorrhea, or involuntary emission of semen’. This declaration was made in 1875 by Dr. C. Bigelow of Chicago, who further warned that ‘it is a direct draught on the vital energies of life itself, destroying both body and mind as it goes! And the longer it continues, the more difficult it is to overcome.’
According to another nineteenth century expert Sylvester Graham [1794-1851] one ounce of semen was equivalent to forty ounces of blood. Some Western physicians, perhaps influenced by oriental ideas, came very close to the idea of ch’i. Dr. M. Venel wrote that sperm contained ‘the most ethereal or subtilized portion of the blood.’ Perhaps one of the most important propagators of these ideas at the beginning of this century was Bernarr Macfadden. In his massive five volume work Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of Physical Culture published in New York in 1912, he promoted many of the ideas and values which led to the modern sports of bodybuilding and weightlifting, but above all he promoted the idea of health as well as strength. Although eccentric in many ways, some of his ideas are still relevant, but his comments on ‘vital force’ and ‘energy’ belong strictly to the nineteenth century. Here are a sample of Macfadden’s ideas from his Encyclopedia :-
* Vol. 1 page 521. ‘We believe, then, that the seat of human power is within the brain and spine. In other words, the power that you have in your muscle is not contained in the muscle itself, but is a species of electric energy that is stored away in the brain and spinal column and that is released when the mysterious something we call will or the mind sets the brain in operation and tells it to command the muscles to do this, that, or the other.’
This is similar to the idea found in the Chinese internal arts of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Pa Kua, and Hsing I that the mind directs the ch’i to various parts of the body to achieve its purposes.
* Vol. 5 page 2449 ‘Conservation of Vital Forces. Supporting what I have said in regard to the importance of health and all round physical vigour, I would say that the keynote of sexual hygiene in its larger aspect is the conservation of energy or vital force, as it is expressed through this particular channel. As I have said, waste or dissipation in this direction is far more disastrous than any other form of dissipation, except perhaps in the habitual use of the poison alcohol.’
So again we find the idea that sexual activity depletes the ‘vital force’, the keystone upon which many of the ch’i kung practices are based. This kind of thinking prepared the way for the oriental ideas which arrived in the West after the Second World War, particularly those concepts associated with the Chinese internal arts and the Japanese art of Aikido.
Western athletes of various kinds became influenced by these ideas, believing that celibacy was the sine qua non of success. For example George F. Jowett in Sex and the Bodybuilder published in 1952 warns us that ‘Spermatorrhea, better known as nocturnal emissions, occurs during the hours of sleep, and has a most weakening effect on the body...Your sex energies, like your other physical energies, are created to be conserved and not dissipated. The energies can be absorbed into other channels where real good is done, or conserved for the periods of propagation...Some of the world’s greatest scientists have proven that longevity is greatly influenced by the conservation of the sex fluids. The greater the conservation of those fluids the better and longer will physical perfection last.’
Here we have a 20th century American making statements that would not sound out of place in the writings of a Chinese Taoist of the 15th century! Of course Jowett is wrong: experiments performed on the testosterone levels in sexually active and inactive males have shown that inactive individuals have a low level of the hormone which is associated with health and strength in men. [v]
The value of ch’i is obvious to a martial artist. Here is an energy which could make a fighter invulnerable to physical harm and confer immortality at the same time! As Michael P. Staples, a teacher of Chinese internal systems, explains ‘Many stories of those who succceeded in achieving a high degree of Ch’i-kung [Ch’i ability] are found in the annals of ancient China. Stories of invulnerable bodies, punches and kicks capable of causing great destruction, levitation, and many other phenomena were considered attributable to proper Ch’i-kung.’ [vi]
One teacher of Chinese martial arts wrote when explaining a demonstration of ch’i-kung by a group of ‘Shaolin monks’ that ‘Ch’i Kung training can give the users a kind of ‘forcefield’ when summoned...such a ‘forcefield can be channelled to any part of the body in order to repel any heavy attack.’ [vii]
However there is a limit to the degree of protection offered by internal energy. The April 1998 UK edition of Sports Illustrated magazine features Indonesian pencak silat masters demonstrating their inner power or ‘tenaga delam.’ They do all the usual tricks, but when asked what would happen if a bapak [master] tried to use his force field or ‘invisible shield to stop an oncoming truck?’ According to one master Ibrahim Adie, the answer is easy ‘He would die.’ [viii]
It seems likely that the internal systems of Chinese Boxing resulted from a fusion of older Shaolin based methods with the ch’i kung practices of the Taoists. Certainly T’ai Chi Ch’uan utilizes many ch’i kung ideas. For example Cheng Man Ch’ing, the famous master of T’ai Chi Ch’uan explains how to use the ch’i to develop an indestructible body ‘How then should a novice begin his training? The answer is that he should relax. The relaxation should be overall, that is throughout the entire body. And it should be thorough, that is without the least strain anywhere. The aim is to throw every bone and muscle of the entire body wide open [as a thoroughfare for the ch’i] without hindrance or obstruction anywhere. When he has done this, he will be in a position to talk about ch’i. To start with, he should let his ch’i sink right down to the tan-tien...In the next, more advanced stage, the ch’i may be ‘occluded’ i.e. absorbed and stored in the bones, causing the latter to become what is technically described as ‘essentially hard and indestructible’. [The essence of hardness is seen in steel. Steel is pliable and resilient yet essentially hard and indestructible]. How can ch’i be occluded in a bone? This is not easy to explain, but I shall try. Every piece of bone in a living person is seamless; and where bones join together, they are connected by soft tendons or cartilages. [Therefore the ch’i gets in or out of a bone by a process somewhat similar to osmosis, through the sheath and substance of the bone without having to perforate them.] When the ch’i has reached a certain stage of fullness as it accumulates in the tan-tien it begins to overflow. This overflowing ch’i is physiological, commonly known in China as ‘hsueh ch’i’, literally the ch’i of the blood. Overflowing the tan-tien, this sanguinary ch’i, under the joint influence of the mind and the ch’i itself, accumulates and generates ‘heat’ in the neighbourhood of the spine [cf. Indian tantrism]. As a result, more ch’i is generated. When this stage is reached, the sanguinary ch’i may be directed to propel the tsing ch’i [meaning the essence of life], causing the softer tendons and sinews etc. to conduct the heat through the bone sheaths into the bones. The lower spinal vertebrae being thus heated up, the humour in them begins to ‘sweat’, just as the wall of a test tube filled with warm air sweats on cooling. On cooling, the ‘sweat’ congeals as marrow, tightly adhering to the inner pores of the bones. In time, the bones will be filled with this kind of marrow, which on repeated heating and cooling will consolidate into something hard, tough and indestructible [like resilient steel]. When the ch’i has entered, and rendered the bones consolidated and indestructible, the learner has reached the highest level at which the ‘body’ and the ‘function’ of T’ai Chi Ch’uan can no longer be separated...The bones are now indestructible, tough and resilient, not brittle or weak, but [strangely] as S.P.L. as an infant’s! This is rejuvenation; at least the possibility of it. When one has achieved this advanced status of maturity in training or exercise, one has gone beyond the point of [slightly] prolonging life and warding off disease. It is not pure nonsense that we speak of the extreme longevity of P’eng Ch’ien or Wu Hsien in Chinese legends.’ [ix]
These words of Cheng Man Ch’ing express clearly the concepts used in T’ai Chi Ch’uan. Of course from the point of view of modern thought it is all gibberish. The bones cannot be made as hard as steel by filling them with some kind of condensed ch’i, but to followers of the internal, these words are very profound. They also believe that a persons ch’i can be mobilized to push an opponent backwards with apparent ease. According to a Western teacher of T’ai Chi Ch’uan, J. P. Allard this has nothing to do with any type of internal energy. He believes that the opponent flies backwards due to a muscular reaction of the psoas muscle induced by pushing on the correct point. It is simply a question of correct leverage and timing and has nothing to do with any mysterious force. This mundane approach however is less appealing than the mysterious power of ch’i, which has the potential of conferring almost god-like qualities on the practitioner. In Gateway to the Miraculous [1994] Gene Lowenthal reports a conversation he had with his teacher Cheng Man Ch’ing about the Boxers who rose in an anti-Western and anti-Manchu rebellion at the beginning of the twentieth century. According to Cheng Man Ch’ing the Boxers ‘had the faith of the people they led...because they had demonstrated their ability to withstand bullets. They would let a rifle be shot at them, and the bullets would bounce off.’
‘The trouble was’, Professor went on to say ‘that these Boxers could only do it they were focusing their attention right at the gun. When the battle began, it was all the rifles shooting at them from various angles that nullified their power and killed them.’ [x]
[i] As science developed in the West many strange ideas evolved to ‘explain’ why certain events occured. In the 18th century Georg Ernst Stahl said that combustion occured in various materials due to the presence of ‘phlogiston’; thus wood for example was actually a mixture of ashes and phlogiston, so that when the phlogiston was removed by burning all that was left was the ashes. Over a period of time various factual objections arose and so the concept of phlogiston changed until it became thought of as a principle or an immaterial force rather than an actual substance. The role of oxygen in burning was not understood, and when hydrogen was discovered some hailed it as pure phlogiston! Eventually Karl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786) and Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) discovered oxygen and Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) elucidated the process of combustion and chemists realised that the idea of phlogiston was incorrect and unnecessary. However due to the conservative nature of human beings some people still clung to the phlogiston theory, even though all the evidence showed that the concept was redundant.
[ii] History of Chinese Medicine K. Chimin Wong and Wu Lien-Teh National Quarantine Service Shanghai 1936 p 37
[iii] The Grand Titration Joseph Needham George Allen & Unwin 1970 p 150. This work is an excellent investigation of the reasons why the Chinese failed to develop modern science. The advocates of of internal energy still propose some very strange physiological ideas. For example, Michael Tse, the editor of Qi [Ch’i] magazine teaches that fear is ‘caused by weak kidneys. The kidneys give you the energy to maintain your daily life, so if you have weak kidneys, you will be nervous, lack confidence and be afraid of anything you do not know...’ The answer to this problem is to exercise the legs! As Mr. Tse explains ‘If you can develop your kidneys and make them stronger, then your energy will be stronger. Normally, to develop the kidneys we develop the legs. If your legs are strong then your kidneys must be strong as well.’ Qi magazine # 22 Oct./Nov. 1995 p 1
So complex psychological problems can be reduced to a simple factor; weak kidneys, which in turn can be ‘strengthened’ by exercising the legs! Of course if you ask how this mechanism works, the answer is always the same ‘ch’i’.
[iv] Tao and Longevity: Mind-Body Transformation Huai-Chin Nan trans. Wen Kuan Chu Ph.D Element Books 1984 p 88
[v] Medical evidence appears to flatly contradict the idea that celibacy is valuable in prolonging life or promoting a youthful appearance. According to research carried out by Dr. A. Ismail and Dr. R.A. Harkness in Edinburgh in 1967, celibate males have a lower testosterone level that sexually active individuals. Testosterone is a natural hormone involved in building muscular tissue, oxygen uptake, healing wounds and other bodily functions.
[vi] Official Karate magazine Vol. 8 # 57 March 1976 p 34
[vii] ‘The Roots of Kung Fu Shaolin Martial Monks’ Leung Yan Lon Combat magazine Vol. 21 # 8 August 1995 p 39
[viii] Sports Illustrated magazine April 1998 pp 33-34
[ix] Tai Chi Chuan A Simplified Method of Calisthenics for Health and Self Defence Cheng Man-ching Shih Chung Tai-chi Chuan Center, Taipei, Taiwan 1961 pp 33-34
[x] Faith in physical invulnerability was a cornerstone of the beliefs of the Boxers. Dedicated to freeing China from the pernicious influence of the Western devils the Boxers used a combination of incantations, charms, and martial arts to immunize themselves against the harmful effects of lethal weapons. The Reverend Arthur H. Smith in his China in Convulsion, published in 1901, tells us that many of the Chinese people were convinced that ‘the Boxers could do all that they claimed - and more. They could resist swords, were impervious to bullets, could emit fire at will, and could fly.’
However a Chinese magistrate in Shansi province was profoundly sceptical of the Boxer claims and challenged the Boxers to prove their abilities. A Chinese eye witness describes what happened ‘By this time it was late at night - nearly midnight - but, the story having got out, the whole city was there with torches and lanterns to see the spectacle. There was a Chen Wu Temple on the city wall, and in front of that the Boxers were drawn up making their passes in the air and otherwise practicing for the trial.
Most of the many onlookers were below the wall in a good position to see. The four yamen men that the magistrate had appointed to guard me wanted to see and loosed me, so that we could all look on together. The Magistrate had given careful directions and looked after the loading of the guns himself with balls as well as powder. Foreseeing that there would be trouble he had engaged two hundred experts who could fight, wrestle and shoot, to be his guards, and it was these men that he set against the Boxers. They waited until the Head-master [ie. the Boxer leader] cried ‘Shen lai, la’ [The spirits have come], when the Magistrate, who had a gun himself, gave the order of ‘K’ai ch’iang’ [Open fire]. Four or five of the Boxers were killed outright, six or seven were hurt so that they fell over the city wall, and not a single man among them was without a wound. Then they all scattered.’
According to his followers Morihei Ueshiba had better developed bullet deflecting skills than the Boxers. He is supposed to have told a group of Japanese military sharpshooters that he was impervious to bullets, and so a test was arranged. In Three Budo Masters Kodansha International, 1995 John Stevens reports that ‘On the day of the showdown Ueshiba’s wife pleaded with him not to go through with it. Ueshiba told her not to worry, and of he went to the firing range, seemingly without a care in the world. At the range he calmly placed himself as the target some seventy-five feet from the six marksmen. As they aimed and fired, several of them were immediately knocked off their feet, and Ueshiba inexplicably stood unharmed behind them. Everyone was dumbstruck and asked Ueshiba to repeat the miracle. ‘Of course’ he replied and once more set himself up as the target, again seventy-five feet away. Aware that something supernatural was about to occur, Shioda glued his eyes to Ueshiba’s figure. The guns went off, the marksmen went flying, and again Ueshiba ended up behind everybody, laughing. Shioda had not been able to discern a single thing.’ p 121
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