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Thread: Who Switched from External to Internal Martial Arts and Why?

  1. #31
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonzbane76 View Post
    nope... although I did learn pai lum. Never liked glenn Wilson's stuff. arrogant ass that he is. He's a perfect example of whats wrong with Kung fu these days IMO.
    Fair enough. But if every time someone says something like you're saying here - which seems a pretty accurate assessment from what I saw on that website - someone then closes it down by saying it's petty bickering, then nothing ever gets properly discussed and aired.

  2. #32
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    the title of the thread is "who switched from external to internal martial arts and why?" Not hey your teacher is a joke blah blah blah....you suck type of things. I didn't come on this thread to hear about what ever disagreement you 2 have and honestly I don't care what disagreement is there. If you wanna air it, IM them. Airing it does not mean I want to sort through your guys crap to actually read what someone has to say about the actual topic.
    Last edited by Dragonzbane76; 02-20-2014 at 06:27 PM.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i had an old taichi lady talk smack behind my back. i mean comon man, come on. if it was 200 years ago,, mebbe i wouldve smacked her and took all her monehs.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i am manly and strong. do not insult me cracker.

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by mooyingmantis View Post
    The two are not related. My friend, Will Willams, who studies Taiji Mantis under Zhou Zhendong in Yantai, China has this to say about Taiji Mantis on his website:

    The name Taiji has nothing to do with the style Taiji Quan, it is merely a nod at the philosophical principles of Yin and Yang which are present in every aspect of the style.

    http://www.monkeystealspeach.co.uk/taiji-mantis.php

    However, I have studied Taiji Meihua Mantis forms under three instructors.
    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.
    Studying Chen Style Hunyuan Taiji under Master Wang Feng Ming
    http://www.worldtaiji.com/

    "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
    --- Bruce Lee

  4. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by air View Post
    I started my training as a child in Judo and Karate (goju ryu)

    I've been doing kung fu for the past 19 years..

    I started out more as an external martial artist. Over the years and through a lot of study with Tai Chi, I would say I have
    a little bit of external with a lot of internal in my martial art.
    Thanks for the response. How do you compare Judo and Tai Chi? Pros and Cons of each style? I have no experience in Judo.
    Studying Chen Style Hunyuan Taiji under Master Wang Feng Ming
    http://www.worldtaiji.com/

    "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
    --- Bruce Lee

  5. #35
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    How do you compare Judo and Tai Chi
    not much to compare between the 2. They both have totally different training styles IMO.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i had an old taichi lady talk smack behind my back. i mean comon man, come on. if it was 200 years ago,, mebbe i wouldve smacked her and took all her monehs.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i am manly and strong. do not insult me cracker.

  6. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonzbane76 View Post
    the title of the thread is "who switched from external to internal martial arts and why?" Not hey your teacher is a joke blah blah blah....you suck type of things. I didn't come on this thread to hear about what ever disagreement you 2 have and honestly I don't care what disagreement there. If you wanna air it, IM them. Airing it does not mean I want to sort through your guys crap to actually read what someone has to say about the actual topic.
    Well, I think part of the sub-text of this thread, as John Wang has already pointed out, is that people take up 'styles' or 'switch styles' because they buy into the claims made by particular groups. Let's face it - no one 'switches' to a so called 'internal' style because that style has proven its ability across a wide range of martial arts combat platforms. Except for the most exceptional cases, other reasons are always more important - including the sales tactics of the teacher or group.
    Last edited by Miqi; 02-20-2014 at 03:46 PM.

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by taiji24 View Post
    Thanks for the response. How do you compare Judo and Tai Chi? Pros and Cons of each style? I have no experience in Judo.
    The average judo player is far and away a superior martial artist to the average taiji player. At the 'highest' level, however, I would say that a different principle comes into play - my coach said once that at the highest martial art level, there is no difference between styles, because 'highest level' implies that an individual has achieved a significant ability to use their system. It might be that a partucular system produces no such indivduals, or few, as in taiji, or many, as in judo - but that is a problem with training methods in the case of taiji, not a problem with taiji per se.

    I had a chance once to experience the level of a judo player who had been on Britain's national squad. To look at him, he looked nothing - like a nerd. His strength and speed, however, were phenomenal. Beware appearances!

  8. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Miqi View Post
    David, if you're happy to claim things such as that you have authentic lineage taiji, AND at the same time admit that your teacher just made up his taiji from a book, then at some point I suspect you're going to have to decide in your own heart if you're really being honest with yourself and others. For me, Shaolin Wah Nam is just the martial arts system your brother invented when he was 12 combined with the business plan of Scientology.




    Actually, I just find it trivial. Anyway, if the horse stance looks like this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGuPxXj1I0 - than that's not really a big deal, is it?




    David, as I think you understand clearly enough, I didn't go down to one of your classes to 'try' it - as I've already told you, I went down and asked the instructor, directly, why your school is so obnoxious about its clearly comically low level. I did this following a published invitation from your school to do so. You understand precisely what I'm telling you.



    Well that's a good example of your ignorance, right there. There again, I understand 'Shaolin' to mean 'having some connection to Shaolin', lol - which you obviously don't.



    What you mean by 'know about kung fu' is just that you compare things to your own school, and if they don't look the same, then they aren't kung fu. Most of us have been at that stage of development. It'll just take some kind of reality check to make you see that that's not quite the way to assess it.




    Yes, but who are you to judge?



    Well, you've admitted that its claim to any authentic 'lineage' is rubbish.



    Ah well, plans are funny things. If I were you, I wouldn't get a Shaolin Wah Nam tattoo just yet.
    It's ok, I know I'm not going to change your view about my school, its no biggie.

    However a couple points, there is a wide range of opinion in Wahnam about how the horse stance can be practiced, personally I practice it a fair bit lower than my Sisook Leo in that vid you linked, who's horse stance is closer to that of GM Lam Sai Wing. Mine is not quite parallel, but with a slight pyramid shape like in a picture below of another Sisook.

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    Neither is wrong, and both have wonderful benefits within the spectrum of flow and consolidation respectively.

    So...you simply asked an obnoxious question, I understand now. Nothing was really accomplished.

    My schools shaolin lineage is quite direct I assure you. Not that it matters to anyone.

    Wanna keep going? This is entertaining for sure.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonzbane76 View Post
    the title of the thread is "who switched from external to internal martial arts and why?" Not hey your teacher is a joke blah blah blah....you suck type of things. I didn't come on this thread to hear about what ever disagreement you 2 have and honestly I don't care what disagreement there. If you wanna air it, IM them. Airing it does not mean I want to sort through your guys crap to actually read what someone has to say about the actual topic.
    My apologies, I was simply defending my training from a public attack.

    But on-topic:

    My reason is the same as before, I switched to internal martial arts because muay thai even though its a great system that quickly produces combat efficiency wasn't giving me what I was looking for in terms of a holistic development of my body, and mind. Nowadays I only use it if training partners want to practice against it. I still practice it just enough to keep the techniques and footwork fresh.

    "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
    - Sun Tzu

  9. #39
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    Well, I think part of the sub-text of this thread, as John Wang has already pointed out, is that people take up 'styles' or 'switch styles' because they buy into the claims made by particular groups. Let's face it - no one 'switches' to a so called 'internal' style because that style has proven its ability across a wide range of martial arts combat platforms. Except for the most exceptional cases, other reasons are always more important - including the sales tactics of the teacher or group.
    hey if you have an issue with someone IM them. You might say "sub-text" but honestly it was a b!tchfest.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i had an old taichi lady talk smack behind my back. i mean comon man, come on. if it was 200 years ago,, mebbe i wouldve smacked her and took all her monehs.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i am manly and strong. do not insult me cracker.

  10. #40
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    It's ok, I know I'm not going to change your view about my school, its no biggie.
    David, it's not your school. It's the school of the person who makes all the money. Schools, styles, systems, forms, stances - all just points on the journey that we try for a while, looking for where wushu really is.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post

    However a couple points, there is a wide range of opinion in Wahnam about how the horse stance can be practiced, personally I practice it a fair bit lower than my Sisook Leo in that vid you linked, who's horse stance is closer to that of GM Lam Sai Wing. Mine is not quite parallel, but with a slight pyramid shape like in a picture below of another Sisook.

    Name:  golden02.jpg
Views: 501
Size:  24.5 KB
    vs
    Name:  Lam_sai_weng2.gif
Views: 565
Size:  15.4 KB

    Neither is wrong, and both have wonderful benefits within the spectrum of flow and consolidation respectively.
    One of the difficult things to get across to people in Chinese wushu is not to 'fetishise' particular postures or stances. This is a particular problem in yiquan with the fetishisation zhan zhuang - something that has spread quite widely now, including to Shaolin Wah Nam. A horse stance is really just a basic stance - if you practice basics extensively for years, then no surprise, you will become good at basics. That is, assuming you practice the basics correctly - a lot of people practice poor basics for years, and end up with double nothing.

    More usefully, I would suggest that what you consider to be a basic in the first place should continue to evolve - otherwise, you become very scelrotic in your progress. But - I've been where you are, and I understand that we get caught in the fetishisation period, simply because we're looking for the 'secret' of wushu, so we get distracted down all kinds of side alleys - the funniest of which is probably doing horse stance/toilet sitting for an hour

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    So...you simply asked an obnoxious question, I understand now. Nothing was really accomplished.
    No, nothing was acoomplished, and nothing was learned. However, it is typically despicable of Shaolin Wah Nam to invite people who don't believe the hype to come down and test it, and then when people do, then attack people for doing so as 'obnoxious'. The only thing that makes that even worse is the corrupt pretence that it's actually you who are the honourable school. But if that's what you think wu de is, then that's up to you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post

    My schools shaolin lineage is quite direct I assure you. Not that it matters to anyone.
    Well, I think Wong Kiew Kit has some kind of folk wushu lineage - but it is pretty difficult to get round the fact that he admits - and you admit - that he made up his taiji. Can you explain, in that case, in what way he has an authentic taiji 'lineage' - i.e. when he didn't actually learn from a human being?

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    Wanna keep going? This is entertaining for sure.
    If I didn't want to chat about this stuff, I simply wouldn't. I suppose more interesting is why you want to chat about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    My apologies, I was simply defending my training from a public attack.
    Lol - why apologise to him? He's 'b!tching' in precisely the same way that he's accusing us of. Besides which, these are relevant issues.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    But on-topic:

    My reason is the same as before, I switched to internal martial arts because muay thai even though its a great system that quickly produces combat efficiency wasn't giving me what I was looking for in terms of a holistic development of my body, and mind. Nowadays I only use it if training partners want to practice against it. I still practice it just enough to keep the techniques and footwork fresh.
    This use of terms like 'muay thai' etc. is another concerning issue - particualry with Shaolin wah nam, but across the CMA world more generally. Doing a bit of training once or twice a week at the local club does not make one a 'muay thai' fighter, any more than teaching someone to jab, cross, low round kick makes one a muay thai instructor. More on topic, your school, as many others have done, shows a lot of techniques which are supposedly useful against 'muay thai' and 'boxing', to encourage people to think of your art as superior - and yet the demonstrations are never actually with people from those arts. Which is at best dangerous, and at worst nothing but a con.

  11. #41
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    He's 'b!tching' in precisely the same way that he's accusing us of. Besides which, these are relevant issues.

    here's an idea, create your own thread and slander each other to death in it.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i had an old taichi lady talk smack behind my back. i mean comon man, come on. if it was 200 years ago,, mebbe i wouldve smacked her and took all her monehs.
    Originally posted by Bawang
    i am manly and strong. do not insult me cracker.

  12. #42
    internal training plus external training

    they lead to the same goal or endpoint.


  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by SPJ View Post
    internal training plus external training

    they lead to the same goal or endpoint.

    Do they? Really? Or is this just the story that CMAists tell themselves before sleep? Is there even anyone - I mean, even one, single, CMAist who can demonstrate a realistic achivement of this 'end point'? I don't mean to be mean, but one would have to start defining the 'end point' to answer this - but CMAists don't like to do that, because they can be measured against it. They like to talk about 'achieving it', and slag off anyone who doesn't believe that they or their master has achieved it, but they don't like to define it. If you say fight skill they say health, you say health they say fight skill.

    Personally, I don't think there is an end point - there's only the 'da cheng' - the 'ultimate achievement' - i.e. you, the ultimate product of what you did, learned, and are. And this is usually a cery long way from the ultimate achivements of other MA in most so-called 'CMA'.

  14. #44
    Quote Originally Posted by Miqi View Post
    David, it's not your school. It's the school of the person who makes all the money. Schools, styles, systems, forms, stances - all just points on the journey that we try for a while, looking for where wushu really is.



    One of the difficult things to get across to people in Chinese wushu is not to 'fetishise' particular postures or stances. This is a particular problem in yiquan with the fetishisation zhan zhuang - something that has spread quite widely now, including to Shaolin Wah Nam. A horse stance is really just a basic stance - if you practice basics extensively for years, then no surprise, you will become good at basics. That is, assuming you practice the basics correctly - a lot of people practice poor basics for years, and end up with double nothing.

    More usefully, I would suggest that what you consider to be a basic in the first place should continue to evolve - otherwise, you become very scelrotic in your progress. But - I've been where you are, and I understand that we get caught in the fetishisation period, simply because we're looking for the 'secret' of wushu, so we get distracted down all kinds of side alleys - the funniest of which is probably doing horse stance/toilet sitting for an hour



    No, nothing was acoomplished, and nothing was learned. However, it is typically despicable of Shaolin Wah Nam to invite people who don't believe the hype to come down and test it, and then when people do, then attack people for doing so as 'obnoxious'. The only thing that makes that even worse is the corrupt pretence that it's actually you who are the honourable school. But if that's what you think wu de is, then that's up to you.



    Well, I think Wong Kiew Kit has some kind of folk wushu lineage - but it is pretty difficult to get round the fact that he admits - and you admit - that he made up his taiji. Can you explain, in that case, in what way he has an authentic taiji 'lineage' - i.e. when he didn't actually learn from a human being?



    If I didn't want to chat about this stuff, I simply wouldn't. I suppose more interesting is why you want to chat about it.



    Lol - why apologise to him? He's 'b!tching' in precisely the same way that he's accusing us of. Besides which, these are relevant issues.



    This use of terms like 'muay thai' etc. is another concerning issue - particualry with Shaolin wah nam, but across the CMA world more generally. Doing a bit of training once or twice a week at the local club does not make one a 'muay thai' fighter, any more than teaching someone to jab, cross, low round kick makes one a muay thai instructor. More on topic, your school, as many others have done, shows a lot of techniques which are supposedly useful against 'muay thai' and 'boxing', to encourage people to think of your art as superior - and yet the demonstrations are never actually with people from those arts. Which is at best dangerous, and at worst nothing but a con.
    Actually my goal right now really is to go back to the basics, to consolidate the very most basics to a really deep level, to build a better foundation for the higher level training.

    He never claimed to have an authentic tai chi lineage, but to have created a system of authentic tai chi based on shaolin principles. Huge difference there. It is a "Once you have the map, all paths become clear" type of thing. Earlier a friend who learned from a Yang Tai Chi school in china taught me single and double push hands in about 2 minutes and I was able to do it fairly well(though probably quite bad really XD) by applying the basic principles of waist rotation and sinking/redirecting incoming force.

    I do agree with you quite a bit about "I would suggest that what you consider to be a basic in the first place should continue to evolve" that is quite a profound point.

    You may believe me or not, but for the muay thai (and some very basic ground game) I was training 6 days a week with my very good friend and a professional fighter. This continued until my friend went into the navy, and our coach disbanded our training group. It was amazingly intense, and often painful training, but I still feel like it gave me a very good foundation for determining what has the potential for working. It is still my biggest regret that I never got the chance to take my training to the cage.

    There are vids on youtube of some of my seniors doing some light sparring for fun with a muay thai school, they did quite well considering for most of them I think it was their first time stepping into a ring. I plan on competing in sanshou in the near future, so I suppose I shall see where my training has gotten me. Win or lose if I can hold my own I will be happy, no shame in losing to a better fighter regardless of system, just incentive to train harder and fight harder.

    I do apologize for being sarcastic towards you, but you must admit that insulting my sigung was bound to raise my hackles a bit.

    "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
    - Sun Tzu

  15. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    Actually my goal right now really is to go back to the basics, to consolidate the very most basics to a really deep level, to build a better foundation for the higher level training.
    If you fetishise horse stance etc., then after ten years you'll no doubt have a strong horse stance - but so what? When are you planning on being any good? When you're 80? That's not how people used to think in CMA.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    He never claimed to have an authentic tai chi lineage, but to have created a system of authentic tai chi based on shaolin principles.
    See - now he's got you saying things that tie the truth in knots. You mean that it's an authentic system simply because it 'starts' with Wong Kiew Kit? Sounds like a little bit of convenient double-think to me, mate - but, if you buy it, then you buy it. Literally.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    Huge difference there. It is a "Once you have the map, all paths become clear" type of thing.
    Actually, it's the other way, as Wang Xiang Zhai taught - once you finally get a hold of the map, all the falsehoods, and lies, and failures, and false paths, and ridiculous systems and teachers are revealed for what they really are, much in the same way that a small truth in science reveals billions of ideas to be total rubbish. What Wong Kiew Kit does is the total opposite of revealing the truth - mivh like JKD, he pretends that the truth of wushu is hidden in multiple styles, which one has to learn - and indeed pay for. Which is not the truth.

    Secondly, he makes the 'truth' of wushu into a grand, obnoxiously amazing thing that he has the keys to. The truth of wushu is just you. Or him. Or me. The great metaphysical 'truth' is just that you are the product of your training, coaching, ability, opportunity and dilligence. I mean - have you never seen The Silent Flute? Lol.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    Earlier a friend who learned from a Yang Tai Chi school in china taught me single and double push hands in about 2 minutes and I was able to do it fairly well(though probably quite bad really XD) by applying the basic principles of waist rotation and sinking/redirecting incoming force.
    Even if this were true, it would be you, and not your style, that adapted well. However, there are many degrees to Yang style push hands - from people with exceptional skill through to just doing a few basic exercises. Where are you on that scale? Are you sure you did it correctly? Don't over-value being able to do something very basic (remember I said don't fetishise basics? It's a route to corrupted progress).

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    I do agree with you quite a bit about "I would suggest that what you consider to be a basic in the first place should continue to evolve" that is quite a profound point.
    Well, thank you - but it's really just a basic of the correct training method of Chinese wushu.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    You may believe me or not, but for the muay thai (and some very basic ground game) I was training 6 days a week with my very good friend and a professional fighter. This continued until my friend went into the navy, and our coach disbanded our training group. It was amazingly intense, and often painful training, but I still feel like it gave me a very good foundation for determining what has the potential for working. It is still my biggest regret that I never got the chance to take my training to the cage.
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    There are vids on youtube of some of my seniors doing some light sparring for fun with a muay thai school, they did quite well considering for most of them I think it was their first time stepping into a ring.
    Well we would have to see the videos to comment on them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    I plan on competing in sanshou in the near future, so I suppose I shall see where my training has gotten me. Win or lose if I can hold my own I will be happy, no shame in losing to a better fighter regardless of system, just incentive to train harder and fight harder.
    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.

    Quote Originally Posted by Neeros View Post
    I do apologize for being sarcastic towards you, but you must admit that insulting my sigung was bound to raise my hackles a bit.
    I don't need anyone's apology. To see just how much someone really believes in what they are saying, you have to rattle the cage a bit.

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