Stricker,

Don't sweat the XY/BG/WCK similarity/difference thing. Some people see radical differences, others great overlap. PM me for some funny details.

I've had good friends who've trained in the neijia and have done a little time there myself, and have compared notes for most of my time training. It's good stuff, and if you have access to good people, get together, play around, and trade ideas every few months, it'll do nothing but good.

The hip-pop from k-bells is used in a variety of strikes in boxing, XY, and WCK. XY is supposedly derived from battlefield spear work with each of the fists relating to a spear exercise, which can serve as a conditioning tool. As there are a limited number of ways to move 10' of lumber around quickly, those people that think this is a good idea (XY, WCK, baiji, chen taiji, european long weapons work) tend to have core similarities of movement in my experience.

BTW- neijia/waijia= some guys in a house 100yrs ago with a marketing plan. It worked so well that most of CMA has had 'neijia envy' for the last century, trying to prove they're 'more internal' than the next guy. As Vince Black (one of the better 'neijia' guys in the western hemisphere) said of Tom Bisio (arriving as an excellent Phillipino martial artist) when he showed up at his TCM school to the rest of the class- 'this guy's already got it, I don't need to show him anything'- or words to that effect (though Bisio seems to have thought Vince had quite a bit to teach him).

QJC,

I'm up in LA- we should hook up and compare notes, and grab a beer sometime. There's a XinYi guy I've been putting off meeting for the last couple of months who might be fun to hook up with too. BTW- appearantly Hawkins Cheung has some pretty slick Chen taiji. . . it's a weird planet.

Andrew