You'd think a two year time difference would kill a thread

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genitals are a good source of body energy called Jing;

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Now I know where the term "chi balls" comes from.

If all the ya-ya-ing is over on this, I'll try to answer the question in a civil manner...

The chi ball is a training technique for keeping the shape of your arms and hands rounded... much like the purpose of the taiji ruler. Think of it like holding a basketball, and then rolling it left and right, up and down... keeping your hands at the same distance apart. The purpose is apparent when someone grabs your wrist or arm, and you rotate to gain a mechanical advantage and disrupt their balance.

I know this current chi-ball panacea came from the anime' cartoons, but the anime' cartoonists got it from conversations about the training techniques... it's been around as long as I've been training, and while we used to joke about throwing chi balls at people, it seems that it was a natural progression to be "done" in the anime' cartoons... I'm just surprised that people who actually train using chi principles think they have to make a sideshow out of it.

If you want to practice using a chi-ball, simply do "kokyu ho" in an Aikido class...

exactly. just like the literal interpretation of the other Chinese metaphors such as chi flow and meridians.

Here's a good one for the metaphor of chi flow--you always read that the body has to be relaxed for chi to flow. If you think of chi simply as physical energy, this statement rings true. For example, if you throw a punch with a rigid arm, the energy generated from the hips will stop at the shoulder. The chi (energy) will not flow (transfer) if the body is not relaxed. Make sense? The more I train, the more of this I discover. Anyone else come to similar conclusions?

The common misconception is to mistake "chi flow" with force, when the actual "impact" of a punch is force + outflow of chi. We generate a lot of forces mechanically, and some are generated "positionally", some with timing, contact surface, etc. When breath and timing are exactly "on" the target at the same time, we have an outflow of chi as well... if they're not, we see tremendous differences n the amount of force generation of punches, or throws for that matter.

The "chi ball" is a "positional metaphor", but chi flow and meridians are totally different concepts, not metaphors for structural movement.

Think of the number of things that must be correct for a "correct" punch...
stance
breath and exhaling on contact
timing
structure
contact with the target
movement into the target
hikki-te (drawing back of the opposite arm)
full body contraction
"sinking" of the "center" (dropping your hips as you rotate them)

Now, you can have a punch where any one of those elements are missing, and you have a totally different punch than when they are all there... a sort of force + chi but - structure, which is a different equation than when all the elements are there and working. Dynamically, it causes a major difference in power generation... same with throws... a missing element will make the throw more difficult or not work at all. When it's all there, there is an outflow of chi and a dynamic difference.

As for the meridians, Ed, they're there... try the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and lymph systems. While it's a "combination" of those systems, they work pretty much as advertised and perform pretty much as the Chinese defined them thousands of years ago. Only the language has changed.

Grady -

I agree with almost everything on your list of good punch attributes, but not this one:

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hikki-te (drawing back of the opposite arm)

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Unneccesary, and not even a good idea against a resisting opponent, IMHO.