Kuk Sool Won of St Paul | Twin Cities Martial Arts with Classes for Kids, Adults, Families, and Workouts

The second Ki trick is useful in educating students on the benefits of relaxation and intent.

First have a student place their hand palm up on your shoulder. The crook of their elbow should be facing upward at this point. Now tell them to keep their arm straight while you pull down at the crook of their elbow. The arm should bend fairly easily.

Now have your student do the same thing, but this time have them relax their whole body. Now have them envision their arm as a hose with water flowing through it. Make them aim that water at the wall behind you. Their arm should be very solid at this point. It should take you considerably more effort to bend their arm, if you can at all.

The explanation for this trick is that Ki follows intent. As you relax and let your energy flow, your intent (the mental image of a fire hose) brings our Ki into your arm and lets you “resist” without resisting.

This second Ki trick is much more difficult then the first. I would recommend practicing it until you can do it easily. Then use yourself as the example to the students. Remember to relax your whole body as much as possible. I find that the biggest impediment to understanding this technique is random tightening of muscles. It is really hard to let go and trust yourself.

Once your students have the idea, make sure you tie the ideas back to our techniques. Probably the easiest way to relate these ideas is to the three technique principles: Soft-Circle-Harmony. Another satisfying way to illustrate the use of relaxation and intent is to apply it to a palm strike. You should be able see noticeable results within minutes.

Practicing shiatsu and teaching Kuk Sool Won, I have come across a lot of skepticism concerning the concept of Ki (or Chi).  So I would like to share some tricks I have learned that help demonstrate the concept of Ki. 

For the first trick we will disrupt the flow of Ki in one part of the body to weaken another part of the body.  First have your skeptic stick out their hand directly in front of their body and make a fist.  Push down on the fist.  This is just to give you and your skeptic a baseline.

Now on the opposite wrist, rub up from Lung7 (Maek Chiggi 1) along the lung meridian for a short distance (about 3 or 4 inches).  Do this a few times.  Now have them stick out their original hand in a fist, and push down.  It should take considerably less force to push their fist down.  I usually use just two fingertips. 

The skeptic at this point is usually strongly resisting but completely unable to muster any strength.  Now to convince them further rub the lung meridian on their wrist the opposite way (toward the hand) and try to push down again.  You should find that they have most of their strength back.

So what are we doing here?  We are showing two things, one is the interconnectedness of the body, the other is the flow of Ki throughout the body.  We are pushing against the flow of the lung meridian to disrupt Ki in the body, then we are smoothing the flow of Ki in the lung meridian to give some strength back.  Just imagine the effect of the strong shot to Lung7 in our technique sets.

Want to really make your skeptic a believer?  Try the same trick with a chain of people.  Have a small group of people hold hands, Push down on the hand of the person at one end of the chain.  Now use the wrist of the person at the other end of the chain for the disruption portion.  You should get the same effect.  I generally find that the smaller the chain is the greater the effect.

Once you get people past their skepticism there is another useful trick you can do to educate your classes.  Instead of disrupting their Ki with your fingers, use a packet of sugar.  Have one of your students ingest a sugar packet, and you will see the same weakening. (Make sure you ask the parents if you are using a child).  This is a great segue into talking about the nutrition and the body.

Finally, you will find people with some immunity to this weakening process.  These tend to be the people with the most Ki training experience.  So if you get a chance and a patient instructor, see what the effect is on high level Black belts.

Have fun with this. Next week I will elucidate a more difficult Ki trick you can try.