Yiquan/internal sparring

[Matthew]

There is no "external" and "internal"

They both exist - IME they have overlap and are not mutually exclusive practice methods as many on this forum suggest - but there are definitely internal and external practices （内功／外功）

Even the right way to do thing such as to let your body to push your arm will need to be modified in combat in order to gain speed.

I won't comment as I don't practice in your lineage of Xing Yi Quan (that you may be misquoting here either way). Either way - if you are truly practicing Xin Yi (心意）, the predecessor of Xing Yi, it's said that subconscious/habitual and intentional movement are united - so how can there be a delay of a hand or a body? If united, what is there to delay?

Let me borrow Adam Hsu's definition here.

http://imageshack.us/a/img534/2232/internalb.jpg

Ahh - okay finally you define it in Chinese terms.

Note that you are using 内家／外家 (Nei Jia and Wai Jia) terminology which is obvious are not practice-related terms. I don't think your terminology (NeiJia/WaiJia) are even relevant when discussing YiQuan sparring methodology. They are merely geographic/locational indicators and not practice methods.


IT is possible you have confused the terms you are using with those others here are using - which is "Internal and External Practices" (Nei Gong 内功 / Wai Gong 外功）

NeiGong (not Nei Jia) may be relevant to the thread though, as YiQuan focuses on some varied form(s) of NeiGong training according to Wang Xiang Zhai's disciple son:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTM2MDI2ODcy.html

[YouKnowWho]

if you are truly practicing Xin Yi (心意）, the predecessor of Xing Yi, it's said that subconscious/habitual and intentional movement are united - so how can there be a delay of a hand or a body? If united, what is there to delay?

Unless you can move your hip, knee, foot, shoulder, elbow, hand all at the same time, as long as your:

- hip coordinate with your shoulder,
- knee coordinate with your elbow,
- foot coordinate with your hand,

there will be some delay between your shoulder and your hand. If you look at CXW's clip, you can see that delay.

[Dragonzbane76]

I don't believe in "internal".

agree with you on that. It's a modern term in practice.

[Robinhood]

I already did.


There is no "external" and "internal" but the "right way to do thing" and the "wrong way to do thing". Even the right way to do thing such as to let your body to push your arm will need to be modified in combat in order to gain speed.

Let me borrow Adam Hsu's definition here.

http://imageshack.us/a/img534/2232/internalb.jpg

Translated:

The word "internal" was invented by a none TCMA guy (a scholar) Hwang Zung-Si at the end of the Ming dynasty.

External is a term to look down upon others. At the end of the Ching dynasty, XingYi and Bagua guys treated every other styles as "flower fist". Later on they accepted Taiji as one of them. ... Nobody want to be "external" ... The difference between external and internal is not the difference between styles but the difference between training level ... Every style when you started it, you are training external. When you get into detail, you are training internal ... Since all TCMA systems take this path, there is no such thing as "internal" and "external".

Adam Hsu and I share the same views on this subject.

I don't know what you call detail, but most styles don't even get close to practicing internal, maybe they don't have what you call detail, I think I have seen some clips of Adam even trying to explain his view of internal

[SavvySavage]

Since there's a Yiquan history thread going on I decided to look up some Yiquan sparring, which there is a surprising amount of on the web given that in most ICMA, free-sparring clips nearly non-existent.

Let's talk about this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNZGWFVyjw

What do you think about this clip? What's good? What's bad? What can you see in this clip that represents internal martial arts?

A couple of things to keep in mind:
1) They are hobbyists, not professional fighters.
2) It's clearly friendly/practice.

All this clip is showing is a man who is too shy to hit his female sparring partner in a boxing match.

[SavvySavage]

Since there's a Yiquan history thread going on I decided to look up some Yiquan sparring, which there is a surprising amount of on the web given that in most ICMA, free-sparring clips nearly non-existent.

Let's talk about this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNZGWFVyjw

What do you think about this clip? What's good? What's bad? What can you see in this clip that represents internal martial arts?

A couple of things to keep in mind:
1) They are hobbyists, not professional fighters.
2) It's clearly friendly/practice.

All this clip is showing is a man who is too shy to hit his female sparring partner in a boxing match. It's hard for men and women to do this kind of training together. In terms of internal sparring...it looks a lot like external sparring.

[Miqi]

[2] Interviewer: What is the basis of combat science?

Wang Xiangzhai: What is, after all, the basic principle of combat science? Different people have different answers to this question, but studying boxing routines, forms of movements, fixed techniques, and training hits and beats, all fall into the category of superficial, and although the boxing routines and forms of movements have been popular already for a long time, they are, indeed, extremely harmful to the people.

[3] Interviewer: ‘Xingyi’, ‘Taiji’, ‘Bagua’, and ‘Tongbei’ are considered to be schools of internal boxing, what are the differences of all these branches?

Wang Xiangzhai: People often say that ‘Xingyi’, ‘Taiji’, ‘Bagua’ and ‘Tongbei’ are internal styles, I do not know how the names of internal and external came about, so I cannot comment on that.


Source: http://taijijourney.blogspot.co.uk/2...xiangzhai.html

[pazman]

All this clip is showing is a man who is too shy to hit his female sparring partner in a boxing match. It's hard for men and women to do this kind of training together. In terms of internal sparring...it looks a lot like external sparring.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the video, but I get the feeling that either the man is the coach and he's eliciting a certain response from his student, or they are playing roles. This is more common than you think in gyms. I'm not exactly sure why you think it's difficult for men and women to train together, but I know maybe in some traditional environments there might be a lot of gender discrimination, possibly due to the fact that the men there are insecure in their own masculinity.

[pazman]

I don't know what you call detail, but most styles don't even get close to practicing internal, maybe they don't have what you call detail, I think I have seen some clips of Adam even trying to explain his view of internal

Hardwork, you seem to allude to internal, but whenever I read your posts I'm not sure exactly what sort of definition you got going on in your head. When Mr. Wang mentions internal, six harmonies, etc, it's much more lucid, and is more in line with what I've been told by "internal" masters, and read about in my own time. Who did you train under? This might clue in a little better as to where you are coming from.

[Dragonzbane76]

Hardwork, you seem to allude to internal, but whenever I read your posts I'm not sure exactly what sort of definition you got going on in your head.

everyone else knows he is, no use playing games.

[Robinhood]

Hardwork, you seem to allude to internal, but whenever I read your posts I'm not sure exactly what sort of definition you got going on in your head. When Mr. Wang mentions internal, six harmonies, etc, it's much more lucid, and is more in line with what I've been told by "internal" masters, and read about in my own time. Who did you train under? This might clue in a little better as to where you are coming from.

I am not Hardwork !, that morron in NY started saying that because he has no answers for anything.

I see internal the same as books like Tai Chi Classics and most other books on Tai Chi, most internal descriptions seem to be saying the same thing, all though English translations are not very good in all the books.

[Miqi]

Hi Robinhood,

Can you provide some videos that demonstrate the ideas you are discussing - it doesn't have to be of you, but it would make it much clearer what you are talking about. Otherwise, we're all condemned to endless argument over our misunderstandings of how each of us is defining terms.


*Personally, I think internal and external can have many different meanings. Old Wang rejected the terms. Old Yao thought 'internal' meant 'Chinese' and 'external' meant 'foreign'. Personally, I see internal as meaning to learn from intuitive practice, to unfold your personal ability, and external to mean copying other people (a combination of which is required, in my view). I don't, for example, connect 'internal' to 'relaxed, whole body power' - but I do strive to achieve the latter and accept its reality as a qualitatively peculiar shen fa. And I know that some people do connect that practice with 'internal' - it doesn't matter to me how people describe what they do, only what they can actually do.

[Robinhood]

Hi Robinhood,

Can you provide some videos that demonstrate the ideas you are discussing - it doesn't have to be of you, but it would make it much clearer what you are talking about. Otherwise, we're all condemned to endless argument over our misunderstandings of how each of us is defining terms.


*Personally, I think internal and external can have many different meanings. Old Wang rejected the terms. Old Yao thought 'internal' meant 'Chinese' and 'external' meant 'foreign'. Personally, I see internal as meaning to learn from intuitive practice, to unfold your personal ability, and external to mean copying other people (a combination of which is required, in my view). I don't, for example, connect 'internal' to 'relaxed, whole body power' - but I do strive to achieve the latter and accept its reality as a qualitatively peculiar shen fa. And I know that some people do connect that practice with 'internal' - it doesn't matter to me how people describe what they do, only what they can actually do.

It is as I see it, and also written and described in many books, the mind leads the chi, it is as simple as that, if you have chi built to a certain level, and you can lead it with the mind in application , then it becomes clearer , if you can't do it yourself, watching someone else do it will not make it any clearer or help you understand what is going on any better than before.

[Miqi]

It is as I see it, and also written and described in many books, the mind leads the chi, it is as simple as that, if you have chi built to a certain level, and you can lead it with the mind in application , then it becomes clearer , if you can't do it yourself, watching someone else do it will not make it any clearer or help you understand what is going on any better than before.

Dear Robinhood,
I won't press you to reveal your level.

Hmm... I'm not saying that 'leading the qi' isn't real, or that it isn't invisible - but what it leads to must be visible, or it has no point in martial arts. Whatever the method, whatever the language, whatever it says in the books, it must lead to ability of some sort. I think I know you mean - but if it isn't visible, then I very much don't. This is one example of one, style specific, correct slow movement training in Chinese wushu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOE9a48aYi

It is not invisible, and I recongise the correctness of this movement when I see it. Is this what you mean? Or something else?

[Robinhood]

Dear Robinhood,
I won't press you to reveal your level.

Hmm... I'm not saying that 'leading the qi' isn't real, or that it isn't invisible - but what it leads to must be visible, or it has no point in martial arts. Whatever the method, whatever the language, whatever it says in the books, it must lead to ability of some sort. I think I know you mean - but if it isn't visible, then I very much don't. This is one example of one, style specific, correct slow movement training in Chinese wushu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOE9a48aYi

It is not invisible, and I recongise the correctness of this movement when I see it. Is this what you mean? Or something else?

No, that's not it, that is body level mechanics. I have seen some videos that show results, but I don't have time right how to look for them.