Indigenous Ability

Cards on the table, I am a card-carrying skeptic, well, former card-carrier. I allowed my actual membership in The Skeptic’s Society to lapse as, true to form, I am skeptical of organized groups, even those who hold many tenets that strike me true or true-ish. In my old age I’m more of a “ love ya from afar ,” skip the meetings and team-jerseys to simply live whatever eternally roiling credo seems on point at the time. With that skeptical throat-clearing out of the way, let’s address chi, ki, prana, qui, puha or any of the other labels that have been given to a purported “life energy” or intangible “life-force.” Many esoteric martial arts and mystical traditions have suppositions for an energy force that has gone by the aforementioned names [and many more besides.] I will not mention these arts by name as the purpose here is not to point fingers but to test hypotheses. The validity of these “forces” have not survived controlled testing conditions thus far. These p...

There are so many examples of blind training, or blindfold training that the paltry examples below don’t even scratch the surface. ·         Blindfolded Chi Sao [“Sticky Hands”] training among Wing Chun practitioners. ·         Blindfolded disassembly and re-assembly of the M-16 by armed forces cadre. ·         Blindfolded judoka and jiu-jitsu practice. ·         Emperor Joseph I, challenging the young Mozart to play the violin with one-finger, and to play the clavichord with a cloth lain on top of the keyboard. [BTW-The young prodigy did both unerringly.] And perhaps most intriguingly, to me, at least… ·         There was a “war game” engaged in by many American Indian tribes to prepare the young for all contingencies. The Comanche called the practice Pui Wha’i . Essentially, Pui Wha’i invol...