Who Switched from External to Internal Martial Arts and Why?

[Neeros]

Well let's face it - you're not on the road to doing that now, are you? I suspect that there is zero chance of learning how to cope with those guys at SWN.


No there's no shame at all in that. There would be shame, however, for an instructor, if they trained you in a way that totally didn't prepare you, and then put you in the ring under the dogmatic belief that their 'traditional' training can help you protect yourself, when in reality it had no chance. I rather suspect your Muay Thai firend's training will be of far more use to you when you do do this.

I suppose we shall see.

[Miqi]

I suppose we shall see.

Eventually, you will.

[Miqi]

In terms of the original question, 'internal' and 'external' don't mean the same things to me as they do to the question poser. 'Internal', to me, means what Wang Xiang Zhai described as 'proceeding by intuition'. And I can say that I certainly did 'switch' to this method of training at a very distinct and particular point. The reason was simply that I finally understood why I had been practicing martial arts all these years. The 'why' isn't important now, and nor is why I came to make the realisation - the only important thing was that the 'why' wasn't because I wanted to know the real meaning of wushu. When that changed, and my reason for training became solely that, then I understood the 'internal' method almost instantly, like something really obvious that for various reasons I'd refused to see for a very long time. Unfortunately, understanding it is not correlated to being very good at it.

[Dale Dugas]

There is no such thing as internal and external.

there is only whole body.

[Miqi]

There is no such thing as internal and external.

there is only whole body.

While not arguing with this, I also note that 'whole body power' is the buzz phrase that is overtaking, replacing, and actually in most cases acting as simply a new name for 'internal' in much CMA discussion. Different name, but in most cases, all the same problems of definition, demonstration, etc.

[mooyingmantis]

Ok, so there is also a Taiji Meihua Mantis, in addition to Taiji Mantis. Is it safe to assume that Taiji Meihua is also more closely related to Mantis than to Tai Chi? Thanks for sharing. I didn't know the difference.

Yes, it is just mantis.

However, you may enjoy the following story.

As I mentioned previously, after my heart surgery I took up Yang style Tajiquan for a lower impact workout. My sifu has a female student, who has trained taijiquan under him for years, lead the class. I explained to her that my knowledge of taijiquan was limited to what I had read in books and videos that I had seen on Youtube. So, I was less than a novice. After a couple classes of watching me move and realizing that I understood how to apply the movements in fighting, she eyed me with suspicion and asked me why I had said that I didn't know taijiquan when she felt I clearly had a background in it. When I sheepishly shrugged, my sifu explained to her that I had decades of Chinese martial arts experience. And since both taijiquan and mantis were both influenced by changquan it was easy for me to understand the applications and move properly based on universal TCMA principles.

The moral of this story is that kung fu is kung fu. Each style may have a unique emphasis, but the core principles should be the same.

Unfortunately, my taijiquan still sucks in my opinion.

[Dale Dugas]

While not arguing with this, I also note that 'whole body power' is the buzz phrase that is overtaking, replacing, and actually in most cases acting as simply a new name for 'internal' in much CMA discussion. Different name, but in most cases, all the same problems of definition, demonstration, etc.

It is not a buzzword but a concept that is easily demonstrated, defined and taught compared to people who want to think their qi moves them and not their structure.

No Qi just me.

[Miqi]

It is not a buzzword but a concept that is easily demonstrated, defined and taught compared to people who want to think their qi moves them and not their structure.

No Qi just me.

Well, it doesn't matter what you think moves you, nor how you describe it. Only what you actually do counts - and many now use 'whole body power' to describe what they do simply because it's the latest buzz phrase. Like everything else in Chinese wushu, it's actual, true meaning is now mostly obscured in the slew of misguided individuals claiming to have 'it'.

[taiji24]

Yes, it is just mantis.

However, you may enjoy the following story.

As I mentioned previously, after my heart surgery I took up Yang style Tajiquan for a lower impact workout. My sifu has a female student, who has trained taijiquan under him for years, lead the class. I explained to her that my knowledge of taijiquan was limited to what I had read in books and videos that I had seen on Youtube. So, I was less than a novice. After a couple classes of watching me move and realizing that I understood how to apply the movements in fighting, she eyed me with suspicion and asked me why I had said that I didn't know taijiquan when she felt I clearly had a background in it. When I sheepishly shrugged, my sifu explained to her that I had decades of Chinese martial arts experience. And since both taijiquan and mantis were both influenced by changquan it was easy for me to understand the applications and move properly based on universal TCMA principles.

The moral of this story is that kung fu is kung fu. Each style may have a unique emphasis, but the core principles should be the same.

Unfortunately, my taijiquan still sucks in my opinion.

Excellent insight! Thanks! Your previous training in other martial arts will definitely show, as the way you move will be very different from complete novice. They won't be wasted.

Maybe someday, instead of Taiji Mantis, you can develop a Mantis Tai Chi

[No_Know]

My impression was that taiji- could be applied to a pre-existing style much as drunken had been and the pre-existing style would be performed with taiji flavor, as-it-were. Although some just were not done. As to one and two push hands in minutes quite well, I think that people can be in relationships for years and not know the person they were with--the appearance might be great but the mechanics, and benefits theoretically were not. And to proceed with Looks-great but not studying the mechanics is a show and Proud and Fun, but absent of the truth of the act.

From External to Internal... I started Hung style Tiger-Crane-Bucksam Kong green and white covers book. went to blue book Shaolin Internal Kung-Fu, five animals and then Multi-color cover Hueng Family Five pattern (five animals as the Shaolin book. Hung and Shaolin referenced the same animals but wit different aspects. Big Note:The order of learning hit me Big.The Shao lin book had basic excerpts from what I refer to as Da Mo one seventy one. And had six exercises/styles of each animal. Heung Family Had straight form for that animal but linked the end to elevate conditioning and skill sort of thing. New Note: do the basics it not just doing that thing. The talk of foundation might refer to conditioning and strength only gained from practiced doing--by developing one set of conditioned response I can rely on a quicker start time when reacting to something different but that will follow that conditioned course. And with the foundation as with tree roots the tree trunk. From a practiced established tree trunk-strong branches.-No_Know

...Shaolin went Dragon, Snake, Tiger, Leopard, Crane. Five pattern went Tiger Leopard, Dragon, Snake, Crane. The Shaolin went with Spirit Breath Bones-Tendons, Ligaments/...sort-of-way. Five Pattern--Strength, Power,Grappling, Sneak attack,~Intimidation.

When I heard about chi I looked at the big three then- The Internal arts-Tai ji chuan was popular so I stayed away from that. I might have come to Pa Kua Chang first liked to greatly--the Original school with animal transitions Bear Phoenix Unicorn? Monkey Hawk Dragon [not in this order] But starting with Single palm Change and then Double Plam Change. There was an instruction that might benefit your study of other people's study in their journey--it said that the Snake change is sometimes called the Crane. The name doesn't matter[the book said] The technique does (so learn it.-ish.-No_Know

I was all about the internal while practicing the external. I cheated my external practice not getting its full benefit of muscles and strength and powerful, yet I liked the result way nice for me go through External motions but have Internal mechanics-ish.

I went on to attempt a Breathing of my own--Ernie Moore Jr.'s Kung-Fu (attempt) Squirrel. I noticed after two decades I could use the hard of External--it can literaly hold my flesh in place and fast quick hard has a place in breathing and moving; getting me through where soft gets bogged down.

If you were all thought you'd have no body, not even a brain for it too is physical. Losing the vehicle through which to transmit your self you lose yourself. If you were a body with no thought, emotion or soul you'd be a corpse/stump/ soulless mass...Internal and External seem to benefit from each other however one should learn their parts completely and separately. Combining while learning is as attaching ether to nothing--doing without knowing...Without a sticky frictioned foundation, sticky doesn't stick.

No_Know

[Lucas]

Internal and external are simply labels used to describe communalities and differences between training methods.

At the end of the day a martial artist, in large part, are students of movement. Efficiency, applicability, and control are what every martial artist strives to have in their movements.

As the old saying goes; All roads lead to Rome.

In this case Rome is your training goals.

The way i see it, there are 3 goals for a martial artist. Some aim for all three some go for just one.

These are:

Combat proficiency
Health and body mind awareness
Improved quality of life

It doesnt matter what label or "road" you use, all "styles" can get you to Rome provided you have the desire, drive and dedication to see your journey through until you quit or you die.

/step

[YMAA_com]

There's a saying:
"External arts train from external to internal. Internal arts train from internal to external."

Eventually, as Dale and Lucas are saying, there is one body.

We don't get to decide what internal or external means. They are clear concepts devised long ago.

An external art is like Shaolin. Train the physical body to punch and kick with brute force, and withstand blows with conditioning. External styles use hard jing, which is like getting hit by a car. I was too old, injured, and lame for Shaolin at age 30, so I switched to tai Chi.

Internal arts train qigong. Increase the quantity of Qi, improve the quality of circulation. Use soft whipping power to strike vital points, like Tai Chi. Internal styles use soft jing, which is like getting stabbed through your internal organs.

Eventually they both reach the same goal, or so I have read, but have barely actually seen. "kung fu is kung fu."
(My Tai Chi also sucks. I went to school to learn Qigong anyway in the first place, to stop getting sick.)

[Miqi]

There's a saying:
"External arts train from external to internal. Internal arts train from internal to external."

Eventually, as Dale and Lucas are saying, there is one body.

Yes but those are just words. Everyone is saying 'whole body' now - it's just a trivialised term used to describe the same old failed methods, and as a cop out for the otherwise useless techniques people demonstrate. One is expected to 'see' 'whole body power' or else, like the Emperor's new clothes, be called an idiot. Whole body power means something in yiquan, and in high quality versions of other CMA, but that meaning has been parasitised by all the same all frauds now.

We don't get to decide what internal or external means. They are clear concepts devised long ago.

This kind of fetishisation of an illusory past is pointless in my view. For one, you don't really know what people in the past thought - you only have the version of it peddled to day, mostly by people of very low level, end even then, it's just your interpretation of what they say. But for two, these ideas aren't dead and fixed, they are 'active' for people actively trying to unfold real insight. They are active, changing, growing concepts which mean different things - or rather, which increase in both simplicity and implication as you understand them. Nothing could really be simpler than the idea that 'internal' really means that you have to proceed via intuitive exploration and insight. But the implications are astounding - and very worrying for those whose 'systems' and position are threatened by this.

An external art is like Shaolin. Train the physical body to punch and kick with brute force, and withstand blows with conditioning. External styles use hard jing, which is like getting hit by a car. I was too old, injured, and lame for Shaolin at age 30, so I switched to tai Chi.

One can see 'external' in these terms - but as you have done here, it really just serves to set up some kind of aristocracy, with so 'tai chi' above Shaolin. To me, that is the most trivial use of the term. In fact, where 'internal' means intuitive knowledge, 'external' means following trainign programmes, copying movements, learning from others, videos, styles, coaches etc. It is the combination of these, I would urge you to consider, that opens up real knowledge of wushu.

Internal arts train qigong. Increase the quantity of Qi, improve the quality of circulation. Use soft whipping power to strike vital points, like Tai Chi. Internal styles use soft jing, which is like getting stabbed through your internal organs.

Eventually they both reach the same goal, or so I have read, but have barely actually seen. "kung fu is kung fu."
(My Tai Chi also sucks. I went to school to learn Qigong anyway in the first place, to stop getting sick.)

Actually, they don't both lead to the same goal - or rather, that saying is meaningless. The only goals achieved are individual ones - yours, mine, etc. In most cases, I rather suspect, both tai chi training and Saholin, outside of the elite schools, leads to nothing.

[Miqi]

Internal and external are simply labels used to describe communalities and differences between training methods.

Or, might it not be that that's just what they mean to you?

At the end of the day a martial artist, in large part, are students of movement. Efficiency, applicability, and control are what every martial artist strives to have in their movements.

That's not true at all. Most martial artists don't strive for these things - if they did, they would soon evolve real insight into 'internal'. Why people train in martial arts varies, but by far the most common reasons are ego, status, illusion and fear. The 'four great pests' of wushu.

As the old saying goes; All roads lead to Rome.

Similarly, evey single one of them also leads away from it. People don't give enough thought to that, in my view.

In this case Rome is your training goals.

The way i see it, there are 3 goals for a martial artist. Some aim for all three some go for just one.

These are:

Combat proficiency
Health and body mind awareness
Improved quality of life

It doesnt matter what label or "road" you use, all "styles" can get you to Rome provided you have the desire, drive and dedication to see your journey through until you quit or you die.

/step

True enough, people find precisely what they want. Which is why there are so many people with empty force and meaningless 'whole body' skills. 'Combat proficiency' is just something most people pay lip servce to. Their goals for begininng martial arts are far more trivial. None more than mine.

[Lucas]

everything i type here s purely from my experience and based on my opinion and humblingly little knowledfe. In a lot of good 'internal' or 'external' cma schools you will a fair amount of cross over. In longfist for example you can find schools that incorporate qigong, Controlled sensitivity drills, medicinal training, and other forms of specific internal cultivation methods. Likewise, imo, the best taiji shcools will have at least one heavy bag, and some free weights and hard regular contact sparring.

Keep in mind i view all martial arts first through a combat lense.