How To Put Out A Candle Using The Martial Arts!
I can put out a candle with a martial arts power at about two feet now. This article is about the techniques I have been working with. I’m hoping other people out there will want to share their methods, and we can all start putting out candles from across the room.
Now, just to be clear, it is a trick, but there are benefits behind the trick. Mental concentration skyrockets, and you learn different things about how to use the body. The body and the mind are things that we have barely begun to understand.
First things first, there is a very cheap shot way of putting out a candle. If you flick the finger in front of the flame, the flick is enough to disrupt the oxygen and make the flame die. Try it, just hold the hand a few inches back of the candle, then flick the finger as if you are merely snapping the fingers, as if you are flicking off water, and do it on the flame.
Next, I worked on the fist stopping in front of the candle. While there is mental focus involved, this is still a simple rob the flame of oxygen trick. You are robbing oxygen, but it takes mental control of the body to make it work just right.
You have to stop the body precisely, exactly, and with no shake or shiver. This leads one to the conclusion that it is not muscle, but control of muscle, that is important. All those hours of standing in a horse stance in front of a candle do have their physical benefit, but it is the mental benefit that is most real.
When I put out a candle at two feet I use a tai chi stance called Brush Knee, and I work on shifting weight, turning hips, and using all parts of the body as one unit. The most important thing, the thing that showed me gradual and increasing success, was to take all the energy out of my strike. I do it karate style, and I used less force and more mental focus, I do it tai chi style, and my success comes when I can take almost all energy out of the body and move the body from outside.
Yeah, it takes me a while, but as I remove energy from my body, concentrate on not snapping muscle, but emptying frame, I tend to get a little back of my body. I’m not out, a floating, disembodied intelligence wafting through the universe, just a little removed, comfortably removed, seeing my body from a viewpoint a little behind my eyes. The patience and mental resources are quite pitched at this point, because I am trying to move a body without using muscle, except at the lightest points.
Now, there are still problems with what I am doing. In spite of the mental acuity involved, it doesn’t feel efficient. Also, there seems to be a limit, and I can’t get beyond about three feet. But at least there is some success, and time and patience and dedication will give me more.