What is Chi?

Here I will generally describe what people think "chi" (aka "ki" aka "qi") is, then what I think it is, and then my experience with its limitations as far as martial arts is concerned. In general there are three main explanations of chi: Religious, Alternative Medicine, and Practical.

1.Religious is "chi as life force":

• When someone says "chi is the life force in every living thing" that means almost the same thing as the "soul" of any living thing, and is one baby step away from talking about the afterlife or animism.
• The Founder of Aikido had a view of Chi that was very similar to the "holy spirit" in some forms of Christianity, "I felt the universe suddenly quake, and that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body... my body became light. I was... clearly aware of the mind of God, the creator of the universe. At that moment I was enlightened: the source of [the martial way] is God's love ..." I have had similar experiences through participation in religion (as lots of other people have,) but I can't say they made me a better fighter. 
• "No touch" martial arts techniques called "Chi" could be the result of intentional or unintentional psychophysical contitioning from poor martial arts instruction. See my post on Psychic Martial Arts.
• When you encounter someone with cult like devotion to chi, you are talking to someone who views chi from a religious perspective.

2. Alternative medicine is where chi theory overlaps with kundalini theory in yoga: 

• Supposedly there is some kind of energy in the body which you can train to enhance your physical performance. 
• Some describe this as a some type of bioelectic power running through your nervous system, like an electric eel. 
• In the very worst cases people think they can use chi to resist martial arts attacks or light stuff on fire with their bare hands. 
• I first saw this documented in the series "Ring of Fire: An Indonesian Oddesy" (1988), in Part 3: "East of Krakatoa".

3. Practical is seeing chi as something all people have and most athletes develop without necessarily using he word "chi" for it: 

• Tai Chi intentionally focuses on good posture and physical balance. Doing Tai Chi standing mediation makes you focus on how your spine is aligned with gravity and can be painful if you do not. Forms force you to practice good blance in a similar way, and even have moves that require you to practice balancing on one leg. Stationary push hands is litterally a balance drill with resistance. Moving step push hands is focused sparring concentrating on maintaining and disrupting balance. IT IS NO SUPRISE THEN THAT THE PEER REVIEWED LITERATURE RECOMMENDS TAI CHI TRAINING FOR INJURY PREVENTION (specifically because of posture control and falling prevention) IN OLDER ADLUTS: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1724328/pdf/v035p00148.pdf If we consider how much perfect posture can improve the maximum weight of a squat or deadlift, a combination of good posture and balance could explain the phenomenon the internal martial arts call "chi."
• When I discussed chi with BJJ  black belt (a purple belt at the time) and Wu Tai Chi lineage master Dmitri Gak, he thought that it chi was simply developing all the small connective muscles between the major muscle groups, especially stabilizer muscles. 
• The literal translation of "chi" is "air" or "breath" so that any time in athletics when we consciously focus on our breathing, that could be seen as "chi." When I hear BJJ black belts talk about developing a superior sense of balance by way of focusing on their breathing, I am hearing a practical view of "chi." 
• Some traditional martial arts see chi as "mental focus," or visualizing in your mind what you want your body to do, and/or bringing your mind and body together as one in the moment to be able to react without hesitation. The same concepts exist in western sports psychology.
• Some see chi as that secret sauce, the combination of body structure, adrenaline, and emergency stores of chemicals pumping into muscles and the nervous system that allow people to do extraordinary things in emergencies.
• Others see chi as type of sensitivity that can be trained by being aware of how your body feels, and by trying to "feel" the intentions of the opponent when you are in contact with them.

None of these practical views on chi excuse the participant from training to learn martial arts technique and sparring, but they do suggest that sparring itself could be a chi-enhancing exercise. These practical views of chi are compatible with each other. I have done Tai Chi standing meditation, the ultimate chi-building exercise, for 30 minutes every day since 2004. I find I am much less likely to get injured the rest of the day after doing it than before doing it. I have also noticed people doing this kind of training continuing to train in full contact martial arts later in life than their peers - and I myself am an example of that, as I did my first full contact martial arts in the late 80's (though I have not trained continuously that entire time.)

In the case of stationary push hands (a blance resistance drill) competition, people who do standing meditation are generally a lot better at stationary push hands than people who don't do standing mediation. I saw this play out at a Tiger Balm Internationals in the early 2000's, and after the push hands competition it was clear that the people who were better at it had about as much experience doing those drills as everyone else, but they also did their standing mediation daily. This is what stationary push hands drill competition looks like:

However, stationary push hands drills-with-resistance should not be confused with push-hands sparring, which is basically no-gi Chinese wrestling, not entirely unlike Sumo, where the objectives are to throw your opponent on the ground or out of the ring:

In 2006 I managed to get myself invited to an in-house push hands tournament for the Wudang Dan Pai, an older form of Tai Chi that is historically parallel to Chen style. WDP teachers train students to fight in Chinese Kickboxing and push hands sparring. I had done the kick boxing side of Tai Chi before, but I hadn't seen the no-gi Chinese wrestling push hands before. The first guy I went up against had a very similar back ground to me, had done some Tai Chi and some kickboxing. I used a lot of "parting the horses mane" type of trips, and beat him by a comfortable margin, 10 to 7. But the second trash talking wrestler had a significant weight advantage on me, had a wider range of grappling experience than me at the time, and had more experience in this type of push hands. I was brutally slammed on the ground several times, and by the end was just keeping my balance to prevent that from happening, which made it easier for him to push me out of the ring... second worst beating of my life, 0 to 10. He was finally beat in the final bout by someone who weighed slightly less than him but had a lot more reach.

In full contact weapon fighting I have found that relaxing before the sparring makes the whole experience a lot less exhausting and more enjoyable. HOWEVER one time I took this too far, and did standing mediation, yang forms, and deep stretching right before taking on a very-worthy opponent. THIS "CHI TRAINING" IS HOW THE NAGINATA KNOCK OUT HAPPENED:

It can feel nice to get your chi flowing. Your mind relaxes so that you can appreciate life, smell the roses and listen to the birds chirp. HOWEVER I am telling you THAT is the LAST thing you want to do in combat. You WANT your adrenaline going, you NEED your mind to suddenly become hyper vigilant... it's NOT SUPPOSED TO BE COMFORTABLE, IT'S A FIGHT!

However Chi training helped me learn to fight as it improved my mental focus and sense of balance. I have used PRACTICAL Chi training to help myself and others to be better at fighting. Though I am generally skeptical of the above religous and alternative medicine views of what chi is, I generally agree with the practical theories of what chi is.