A dose of woo: Martial Idiocy
October 1, 2007 6:00 PM, by Evil Monkey
Recently Orac took apart the findings of another acupuncture study. Those who administer acupuncture typically insinuate that a mysterious vital energy known as "chi" travels along meridians in the body, and that normal flow of chi is necessary for good health. Orac pointed out that this recent study effectively disproved the notion of meridians in traditional Chinese medicine.
Similar woo also permeates the martial arts. If one's chi is properly aligned, supposedly the practitioner can make their body do amazing things such as selectively exploding an opponent's internal organs when struck, or sometimes inducing a time-delayed killing sickness. My old kung fu instructor even tried to demonstrate that chi existed by having us hold our hands right up next to a mirror after a workout, supposedly when our chi is flowing maximally. He claimed you could see the visible effects of chi which manifested as a mist traveling up the mirror away from our hands. He was right: the mirror did fog over. I imagine it had more to do with the mirror being at a significantly lower temperature than our hands, which were sweaty and radiating heat, which caused condensation to appear on the mirror and radiate upward away from our hands with our body heat. Oh well.
So in the Philippines, which is home to one of the arts I currently train in, they don't necessarily believe in the Chinese concept of Chi but they do subscribe to just as much martial woo. From oración to anting anting, by aligning one's energy and going through ritualized moves, objects, chants, and breathing, one can prepare his or her mind and body to ward off blows. From swords. It works. Right.
Incidentally, if you don't like blood, don't watch. However, you'll also get a brief dose of Filipino martial history and one of its main figures, Lapu Lapu.
I think we can consider Chi and the like one more debunked philosophical construct. Just because you believe something, that doesn't make it so. Any nice sharp sword will demonstrate that concept. Interestingly, Tara at Aetiology finds that HIV denialists have the same mentality. Hopefully they'll learn a thing or two from this video; HIV can be every bit as dangerous.