tRANSFORMING EXTERNAL TO INTERNAL

[gwendolyn]

Ive spent most of my time working in the external MA, with little bit of dabbling in Yang. I hve now decided for several reasons to focus my training on the internal namely HsingI / Bagua. Ive read that HsingI is a good crossover from external to internal, then into Bagua. Just want to hear from people who have made the journey before me, any advice, experiences,etc.
Thanks

[Ray Pina]

I'm doing it now.

I find my external training is a great foundation from which to build on. You don't need to be taught how to punch, bridge, roll, stick, ect. Just how to do it with a better power source, how to isolate the sections that you want to generate power, so then when you incorporate your whole body into it the moves are super charged so to speak.

The concepts, to me, are simply a natural progression from the external. A higher-education so to speak. Grammer school was my Isshin-Ryu, HS was my Hung Gar/Wing Chun, College was S. Mantis and now E-chuan is my PHD.

Of coarse, this is not to label these arts as higher or lower, just my understanding at the time of studying these arts. It could just have easily been S. Mantis to Hung Gar to Isshin-Ryu.

Ba Gua is quite amazing. Very complex, a lot in there. Hsing-I fits my personality, and E-Chuan is simply what I hope to become.

Step by step. Have fun. The thing I enjoy most about studying internal is the newness of it all. I feel like a white belt again, where everything blows my mind.

[batesy]

I would agree with the comments that external gives you a good foundation ie you already know how to throw a punch etc. For me the hard part was the whole relaxation thing. Having spent too long rather erroneously equating power with tense muscles the road to relaxation was and still is a hard one. For what it's worth my teacher encouraged me to study bagua first rather than Xing Yi. He believed that the twisting and tendon stretching of bagua would do more to help my body relax, whereas with Xing Yi he thought I might be more tempted to just turn it into a poor low level karate. Hope this was of some interest. Good luck.

[Ray Pina]

Good point. I'm still too tense on my punching when push comes to shove -- sometimes.