That Burning [from Chi] Ring of Fire

I came across this clip with convenient timing, given Gary's recent posts on The Power of Belief and No Touch Knockouts—perhaps all of these "externalized power" ideas are just knocking around the martial arts community this month.

It is a nice excerpt of an internal power guru demonstrating bio-electric healing touch and fire-starting which was posted on the blog Martial Development (linked to from Boot to the Head)

This clip is from "Ring of Fire", a documentary from 1988 where some guys wander around Indonesia search for the exotic mysteries of the East (in the grand tradition of wide-eyed Western orientalists). It is a charming series, but the youthful enthusiasm and credulousness of the filmakers is apparent. To quote the marketing literature, they become focused "on the inner journey which leads them ever deeper into the forgotten wisdom of the island peoples."

Anyway, the video can speak for itself. But I will note that the master has a cigarette in his hand in the scene before he lights the paper on fire (not that I'm insinuating anything). And why do internal power masters always talk about electric eels?

But don't ask me for the deeper understanding, I'm a knee-jerk skeptic and Materialist. It's all that pesky scientific education that gets in my way.

Ring of Fire: East of Krakatoa