Internal martial arts: a fiction?

[sanjuro_ronin]

[Scott R. Brown]

Once again my suspicions have proven correct!

[SPJ]

boots are made for walking.

but high heels and handcuffs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwtzY-dR0aU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYr9EFJkh-o

[Foiling Fist]

When water is rushing through a fire hose at a high pressure rate, and flowing out of the nozzle, it is nearly impossible to bend sideways. This is due to the internal strength of the water flowing within.

This is the same energy that is used in internal martial arts, and is strenghtened with the training method 'Unbendable Arm', made famouse by Aikido Grandmaster Uyshiba.
See : http://aikidoforbeginners.blogspot.c...dable-arm.html

[sanjuro_ronin]

When water is rushing through a fire hose at a high pressure rate, and flowing out of the nozzle, it is nearly impossible to bend sideways. This is due to the internal strength of the water flowing within.

This is the same energy that is used in internal martial arts, and is strenghtened with the training method 'Unbendable Arm', made famouse by Aikido Grandmaster Uyshiba.
See : http://aikidoforbeginners.blogspot.c...dable-arm.html

The unbendable arm is done by tension in the lats and should as opposed to simply the arm, ANY guy that has actually learned Aikido knows this.
That is how it was taught by O-senei himself.

[YouKnowWho]

'Unbendable Arm',

Anybody can learn this trick within 2 minutes. Does that mean anybody can be "internal" master quickly?

When fire fighters hold tarp for people to jump on it. It's the same explaination that "extension" force bounce vertical force back. In the "unbendable arm" example, the vertical force is bounced (transmitted) into the ground by both persons feet.

Even my female student could demonstrate this in public.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxazd0dK7EM

[SPJ]

soft vs hard.

1 if you are hard or strong enough, just outpower the opponent

heavy sword does not have to be sharp to have a devastating effect

2. if you are weaker in power, you may out maneuver with speed/timing

you may use a soft power or some yielding power and let the opponent's power (borrowed) to run its course but add your smaller power to divert or redirect

running water is a good analogy

internal and external both at work at the same time

smart force or use the force in a smart way

this is inherent in all doctrines, so called internal methods do not monoply the ideas.

or internal alone does not work.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LMmu-DKaQ0

notice how the heavy mother bear may slide her weight along without breaking the thin ice layer.

whereas the light baby bear broke the ice layer

why?

think about it.

[Scott R. Brown]

When water is rushing through a fire hose at a high pressure rate, and flowing out of the nozzle, it is nearly impossible to bend sideways. This is due to the internal strength of the water flowing within.

This is the same energy that is used in internal martial arts, and is strenghtened with the training method 'Unbendable Arm', made famouse by Aikido Grandmaster Uyshiba.
See : http://aikidoforbeginners.blogspot.c...dable-arm.html

No.....it is the ACTIVE FORCEFUL movement of the water through the hose that makes it impossible to bend.

Water is a REAL substance moving FORCEFULLY through a tube creating hydrostatic pressure. It is an example of ACTIVE, EXTERNAL forces, NOT internal principles.

The unbendable arm is nothing more than a parlour trick! Like an illusionist fooling the crowd because the crowd doesn't know how to do it, but once they learn, they say to themselves, "So what's the big deal!"

[Foiling Fist]

Responding to:
'Anybody can learn this trick within 2 minutes. Does that mean anybody can be "internal" master quickly? '

Yes and no. Anybody can get some strength by using this method, not likely most would have full strength though, unless facing death.

Everyone has Qi (Chi): it is part of the life force; without it you would be dead. When high in Qi, you have greater stamina, when low you are sick and/or tired. This essence is similar to the Indian Yoga concept of Prajna.

Infants flow their Qi better than most adults, are less uptight, learn faster, and more natural, animalistic as well as limber. As most are processed by overly structured education, religion, cultural and social constraints, blocks are put up to free expression. Just as un-oiled leather becomes rigid; so do our connective tissues, and most as they get older cannot stretch as far as when they were young. Any chiropractor will tell you how we loose joints do to lack of use, and when not bent; two connecting bones will fuse together into one.

Watch a tiger move, do you see an erector set, or a pulley system of tendons? I see wave actions, animals have unblocked Qi, and keep limber.

Place a penny in an infant’s (6 months) palm, in the middle and let him close his had over it to wrap the penny in a fist. Gently try and pry the fist open to get the penny, gradually and evenly exerting increasing pressure to pry the fist open with your fingertips. Even a full grown man will have difficulty opening the infant’s hand. Why: the man has more muscle, yet the infant is using his Qi intrinsically.

Does this mean that every infant is Qigong master; no. What it does mean that we all have some incredible power that we can tap into with training.

[Scott R. Brown]

Dude! You are using every platitudinous, stereotypical story in the book!

They are nothing more than stories and illustrations that do NOT illustrate your point. They don't illustrate anything.

A child can hold onto a penny because it is designed, through evolution, to cling to the hair of its mother's body. It is a safety response that is genetically coded. It has NOTHING to do with Qi!

[taai gihk yahn]

Place a penny in an infant’s (6 months) palm, in the middle and let him close his had over it to wrap the penny in a fist. Gently try and pry the fist open to get the penny, gradually and evenly exerting increasing pressure to pry the fist open with your fingertips. Even a full grown man will have difficulty opening the infant’s hand. Why: the man has more muscle, yet the infant is using his Qi intrinsically.

um, no;

before you go spouting silliness, you might want to actually read up a little on infant development, specifically how the developing nervous system is biased towards flexor tonus in the hand (and body overall) especially up to six months, to understand why infants have relatively strong grips; initially, at birth, babies are biased reflexively into flexion; by the 2nd month, that remnant of in utero flexion diminished, but the system is stil biased into flexion, and the infant uses it as its first means of generating antigravity movement of the head and arms in supine; at around the 3rd month, antigravity extensor tone in the head and neck in prone is developing, and the infant is propping on forearms, but with hands fisted - for the next several months, the hand begins to open in this position for weightbearing, but the bias still exists into flexion, in order to enable the baby to pull to sit (and eventually to pull to stand);

this grip "strength" is not an expression of qi, it's an expression of an immature, NON-integrated nervous system; throughout the first year of life, controlled extensor tone is still developing, and as such, the infant has no capacity to engage in complex, dynamic movement, because he is lacking balanced co-contraction between flexors and extensors, said co-contraction being the primary necessary ingredient for functioning adaptively in gravity and engaging in ANY sort of skilled performance; meaning that while the infant is very good at making a fist, it is essentially a primitive reflex that has nothing to do with qi - in fact, over the course of normal development, if the infant doesn't loose that flexor tone bias, he will have difficulty doing more advanced things such as crawling, transitioning to standing and walking;

your analogy is incorrect and misguided, and uses a falsehood to support a spurious argument; additionally, your grasp of physics is pathetic - you should stick to your qi and TCM metaphors to back up your clearly subjective bias towards fantastical phenomenon, and not try to utilize objective scientific knowledge about which you clearly have no clue;

[Scott R. Brown]

um, no;

before you go spouting silliness, you might want to actually read up a little on infant development, specifically how the developing nervous system is biased towards flexor tonus in the hand (and body overall) especially up to six months, to understand why infants have relatively strong grips; initially, at birth, babies are biased reflexively into flexion; by the 2nd month, that remnant of in utero flexion diminished, but the system is stil biased into flexion, and the infant uses it as its first means of generating antigravity movement of the head and arms in supine; at around the 3rd month, antigravity extensor tone in the head and neck in prone is developing, and the infant is propping on forearms, but with hands fisted - for the next several months, the hand begins to open in this position for weightbearing, but the bias still exists into flexion, in order to enable the baby to pull to sit (and eventually to pull to stand);

this grip "strength" is not an expression of qi, it's an expression of an immature, NON-integrated nervous system; throughout the first year of life, controlled extensor tone is still developing, and as such, the infant has no capacity to engage in complex, dynamic movement, because he is lacking balanced co-contraction between flexors and extensors, said co-contraction being the primary necessary ingredient for functioning adaptively in gravity and engaging in ANY sort of skilled performance; meaning that while the infant is very good at making a fist, it is essentially a primitive reflex that has nothing to do with qi - in fact, over the course of normal development, if the infant doesn't loose that flexor tone bias, he will have difficulty doing more advanced things such as crawling, transitioning to standing and walking;

your analogy is incorrect and misguided, and uses a falsehood to support a spurious argument; additionally, your grasp of physics is pathetic - you should stick to your qi and TCM metaphors to back up your clearly subjective bias towards fantastical phenomenon, and not try to utilize objective scientific knowledge about which you clearly have no clue;

YEAH.....!

[taai gihk yahn]

As far as physics is concerned, an external blow is a physical fracture or cut.

as far as physics is concerned, you have no idea what you are takling about

A fifty caliber (.50) aircraft machine gun bullet; will kill you without contact, if it passes within two inches from your skull, without touching you, due to the concussion and/or hemorrhaging.

what in god's name is your point? that air-pressure beyond a certain PSI can damage human tissue? derrrr....

Hung Gar is mainly based on a skeletal-linear leverage of muscle tendon based movement.

you throw around very "scientific" sounding terms, but you clearly have no concept about kinesiology, biomechanics or muscle physiology;

A test of an internal punch is not moving the sandbag, but in focusing the blow so one does not break one's own wrist with a strong strike.

because hitting a sandbag with "external" energy typically results in a fractured wrist

A true internal test is to hit a concrete or brick wall without breaking it or your hand.

so let's see - I hit a concrete wall, it doesn't break, and my hand is not damaged - so, basically, hitting the wall so soft that nothing happens; yeah, that's a great way of "testing" so-caled internal power

A bell ringer uses an internal concept.

so does a proctologist...

As far as an internal blow is concerned, the best documented case was:

basically a fabrication

The famed Eagle Claw master, Lau Fat Meng, witnessed the postmortem on the horse. He observed that there was no external wound on the horse but that inside there was a large bruise on the horse's back and some of the horse's internal organs had been badly damaged .'

um, you realize that sometimes someone can be in an MVA, have no outward signs of trauma, and drop dead from internal hemorrhaging - all this from an "external" blow, according to you - not that I believe the horse story, just that your example of so-called 'internal" power is something that can occur as the result of "external" (by ur estimation) force;

Back in medieval times, most city people rarely traveled as much as twenty six mile in one direction. The curvature of the earth is not apparent unless over twenty six mile, so in Galileo's time, for most people, the world was flat.

wrong; you may want to read a bit up on the "flat earth" myth before citing it's supposed predominance - it was clearly understood as far back as 300 BCE that the earth is a sphere;

For those uneducated, un-experienced or unskilled; there is no internal.

you are a pompous, self-lauditory asz, and representative of the self-serving pablum that is rotting TCMA from the inside out

[pazman]

...cool stuff about the grip strength of babies...

Cool, I actually learned something from a KFM forum thread.