I was watching Nima’s latest video and a few things came to my mind:
1) Use of multiple joints in multiple vectors simultaneously. This is so basic, it’s silly. This should have been obvious from the get go. Moving joints in multiple directions gives you more control and “spikes” your opponent. But only if he is unskilled. Also, the main idea is use of mind or chi. Joints can only accomplish so much.
2) The body must be stable. It cannot fall into the clutches of the point of contact. It should always remain in the spine; its base. If you are grabbed at the hand, can the mind dissociate itself away from the point of contact and come back to the base? A grounding of some sort, in some way is needed.
3) I don’t know if this is chi or nim tao. All I know is that it now feels tangible and the feeling gets shaper with each passing day. Words are merely tools for communication. I can only focus on increasing – and being in – the feeling. Whatever this is – it has to be effective. It has to have an effect that benefits me. If not, then one should not do such things.
4) Is there actual chi cultivation or is it accumulation or even refinement? By this I mean is the chi being “grown” from the inside like a small ember catching onto the straws and coal near to it?
Or is it a gathering from the outside such as collecting of things, first starting small but gradually increasing in size. Energy is being collected in this sense.
Or is it refinement like a block of ice being moved to vapor by first melting and then condensing? The vapor is what we are after. But first we have to pass through the stages of ice and water – solid and liquid. In this sense, everything we need is already inside of us. We simply have to refine ourselves for it to manifest in a form useful to us.