I recently placed a video on my Facebook page that showed some of the nonsense that gives martial arts a bad reputation. That triggered the idea to write a series on Martial Arts Myths.

Why? Because no matter how hard you squash those myths, like cockroaches, they crawl from under your foot and multiply once again. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to eradicate them so that leaves educating people, hence this article and the following ones on other myths.

That said, let’s start by defining our terms.

Martial Arts Myths: Chi projection

It’s not necessary to define “martial arts”, but aA “myth” however can be defined as “any invented story, idea, or concept.” In other words: a lie, an untruth.

The concept of “chi” is more difficult to explain. The most common translation is “vital energy” though that is not entirely accurate either as in the ancient Chinese world view ghosts existed and had “chi” too. “Energy” might be a better translation but that doesn’t really work either for Western minds as science has a classification for the different types of energy we can measure. So we’re a bit stuck here.

“Projection” in this case means transferring the “chi” without physical contact.

Bringing all this together, here’s the claim some people make:

There exists a skill that gives you the ability to transfer “chi” from one person to another in a combat or self-defense situation, without making physical contact.

Supposedly, you can learn to control your chi and then throw it across a distance at an attacker to incapacitate him. They call this chi projection, kong jin (empty force), ki power, and a host of other names.

It’s all the same thing though: a myth.

Here’s a typical demonstration: [Read more…]