That's a quote from my former Sifu. Imagine it in a North Little Rock twang and you'll understand the effect such a sentence may have years after actually studying Kung Fu. It's not something you forget.
The thing is, Sifu was totally right. Chi is as good a metaphor for some sort of physiological processes as I've ever heard of, and I'm a devoted allopath. 10,000 years of anecdotal evidence must mean something, right?
In Kung Fu class we'd occassionally do Chi Gong exercises to build up our chi; I think the idea was eventually, once you build up enough, you can release it at your opponent much like in Mortal Kombat. We'd stand totally still, knees slightly knocked and bent, tongues at the tops of our mouths, arms rounded like we're trying to keep a bubble in them without popping it, and let the chi build up. That I, skeptic former Magician's Club member, could feel the popping and snapping in the tips of my fingers was kind of a surprise.
I took a Tai Chi class at the Y and it just isn't the same thing when a crunchy person teaches it. Of COURSE crunchy people believe in new age hokum like chi. I needed a church-going redneck to confirm it really existed.
There needs to be a name for the physiological processes that made Eric and Jesse, two 18-year-old, high-energy wild guys, such good kung fu fighters. Eric (who got a Decepticon tattooed on his arm before anyone else was getting Decepticon decals and tattoos) said when he was fighting he pictured "a little Chinese dude" (again, in an Arkansas twang) doing all the moves in a movie. Basically, he acted the part of a kung fu fighter and became one. What do you call that sort of mind over matter?
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