Who Switched from External to Internal Martial Arts and Why?

[YouKnowWho]

In longfist for example you can find schools that incorporate qigong, ...

It's so funny that I had learned my qigong 大内呼吸法 (Da Nai Hu Xi Fa) from my longfist system instead of from my Taiji or XingYi systems.

[Miqi]

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.

I don't know what 'internal cultivation' means. After a very long time of listening to people say they have it, or that others have it, I have yet to meet or see anyone who can demonstrate what it actually means. As far as I can tell, it simply means 'you are an ignorant idiot if you can't see the internal cultivation clearly demonstrated here'.

[MarathonTmatt]

I don't know what 'internal cultivation' means. After a very long time of listening to people say they have it, or that others have it, I have yet to meet or see anyone who can demonstrate what it actually means. As far as I can tell, it simply means 'you are an ignorant idiot if you can't see the internal cultivation clearly demonstrated here'.

These guys "have it" :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuHs_...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zblzq...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1FY...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdFMT...yer_detailpage

[Miqi]

These guys "have it" :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuHs_...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zblzq...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1FY...yer_detailpage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdFMT...yer_detailpage

They can keep it. That aside, this is the other thing I've noticed - 'proofs' by analogy, either to other things, or to other people/skill sets. Which aren't proofs at all, but rather, simply stealing other people's credibility and spuriously bolting it onto themselves or their hero/master. But, whatver, as the young folks say.

[Bob Ashmore]

But that was a LONG time ago.
I started out training Karate when I was eight years old. I took classes at the local community center. I couldn't, not even to save my life, tell you what style of Karate it was. I only remember the teachers first name so that doesn't help any. Not that it matters. I took those classes for a couple of years, eventually earning a "brown belt" but not really learning much in the way of fighting. It was all kata, really, with only enough basic punches, blocks and kicks thrown in to keep us kids interested.
I only stopped going when the teacher stopped teaching at the community center as I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I didn't do anything else until I was 13 or so, when a good friend of mine started training in Tae Kwon Do. He seemed to be having a lot of fun so I convinced my father to pay for some classes there. Again, I don't know if there was a particular "style" name for what I learned. I wasn't really all that interested in that kind of thing at the time. Master Yu was very nice but I rarely saw him, I trained with several American teachers in his system, eventually reaching a blue belt status in his system, which did not correlate to the systems I see now so I can't really compare it to anything meaningful. Master Yu was ex Korean military and taught the TKD as he learned it from them, not the "sport" kind. For the record I have no beef with sport TKD at all and neither did he. We sparred regularly with the group down the street and we all had a lot of respect for each other. Military TKD was what he knew so that's what he taught us, along with a healthy respect for ALL styles of martial arts. He tolerated absolutely ZERO disrespect towards anyone, actually.
I trained TKD with Master Yu until I was 17 which is when he retired and the school closed down. Most folks went to the group down the street after that but I couldn't afford to do so.
Shortly before Master Yu retired I participated in a tournament where I got my ass handed to me by a guy who came in all by himself and was using what he called "Tai Chi Chuan". I'd never heard of it before, don't know his name, don't know which style he used and it doesn't matter. All I know is he stomped me flatter than a pancake and did it faster than anyone I'd ever been up against.
I wanted to learn what he knew, however I couldn't find out anything about Tai Chi Chuan.
This was long before the internet and I was a poor boy with few resources.
The library had some books that mentioned that art but nothing about it, just that it existed and some very faint details about its origins.
So I let my training languish for a number of years.
Flash forward to 1985, so about six years later, I was standing in line at a grocery store. I was bored and so I was reading the fliers posted on the cork board.
Imagine my surprise to see a flier that said, "Tai Chi Chuan taught in the Tradtional Manner: Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy is now taking students".
That was it. Nothing else but a line of those cut outs at the bottom where you pulled the phone number off to take with you.
I did and called the number as soon as I got home.
One training session with Sifu Britt and I was hooked. After I meet Si Kung Eddie Wu and trained with him at my first seminar I was even more hooked.
That was a LONG time, a whole bunch of personal insight and another whole style of TCC ago for me.
However, my only real motivation to pick up TCC didn't have anything to do with "internal vs. external" (let's get ready to RUMBLE!!!!!) at all.
My motivation was much more simple than that:
The guy kicked my ass in record time. I wanted to learn how to do what he did to me so I could do that to other people.
Simple as that. No philosophical meaning or deep rooted desire to learn to fire magic chi balls out of my arse.
Which is good, because I never did learn how to do that.

Hope this helps the original poster in some way.

Bob Ashmore

[YouKnowWho]

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

Me too.

This Qi discussion just bother me quite a bit. Allow me to ask a simple question. If Qi works in combat, do you think Chinese government would find the best Qi masters in China to train their

- Olympic boxing team,
- Olympic Judo team,
- Olympic wrestling team,
- soldiers,
- police force,
- secret service,
- ...?

I had a long discussion on this subject with Chinese Olympic Judo/wrestling coach 王德英Wang De-Yin in Beijing Physical Education University many years ago. This was what he said, "If Qi works in Judo/wrestling, what do you think that I'm still doing here?"

To say that "Qi works in combat" is the same as to say "Chinese government is stupid". Since China has endless supply of Qi masters, it's shame to see that Chinese government cannot make a good usage out of it.

[Lucas]

To me, all styles have 'internal cultivation'. I put pretty much any labels i dont particularly subscribe to in quotations, but use the label because they are common.

To me, internal cultivation, from a combative perspective, breaks down into training methods designed to internalize techniques. To me, this means that we maximize your reflex response to minimize time and incorporate as much full body movement as possible. Reinforced by training method specifically designed to help with this response.

But like i said i believe all styles do or should have this as part of the over all training. This is not to take away from internal health cultivation, but not every style will or even needs a big focus on organ health.

[YouKnowWho]

To me, all styles have 'internal cultivation'. I put pretty much any labels i dont particularly subscribe to in quotations, but use the label because they are common.

That's also why I always use "internal". To be honest, even today, I still don't understand the meaning of "self-cultivation" and "inner peace". To cultivate for what? Peace is peace. There is no inner peace and outer peace.

If your heart is not like a mirror, there is no way that any dust can attach on it, you don't need to clean it everyday. Water doesn't need to cultivate anything. It just flow wherever the ground is lower. If you just follow the law of nature, there is nothing that you will need to "cultivate".

[Lucas]

You just Tao'd my face.

[Miqi]

To me, internal cultivation, from a combative perspective, breaks down into training methods designed to internalize techniques. To me, this means that we maximize your reflex response to minimize time and incorporate as much full body movement as possible.

This pretty much confirms what I said a few posts back: that 'whole body movement' - in this case the slightly differently phrased 'full body movement' - is simply the new way of saying 'internal'.

However, I reject you interpretation, for the simple reason that 'internalise techniques' is just another way of saying 'learn techniques', and so negates the need for the term 'internal' entirely, and so doesn't actually add anything interesting or useful to the definition or discussion of the meaning of 'internal' other than to say that it is a meaningless euphemism for "learning a technique properly so that you can use it".

And what you mean by 'full body technique' in this case, therefore, appears to mean simply "learn a technique properly so that you can use it" - and so, again, is merely a pointless euphemism.

However, I do get that you're trying to tie this stuff to reality in some way - which I appreciate - and I also apreciate that that is often not very easy, as people do talk in circles with these terms. I'm not dissing what you say - just saying that I think there is more to it.

[YouKnowWho]

And what you mean by 'full body technique' in this case, ...

The way that I look at this is the "body unification" is the opposite of the "muscle group isolation". The human body is like 3 springs. Without training, all 3 springs will be compressed and released independently. With proper training, all 3 springs can be compressed and released at the same time. When I learn a move, I like to understand when I move my left leg like ..., I should move my right arm like ... This way I can coordinate one part of my body with another part of my body in order to achieve the 3 external harmonies (the 3 "internal" harmonies is a bit too abstract to me).

To me, there is only the right way and wrong way to do thing. There is no "internal" way or external way to do thing. Even today, when people talk about brute force, I still don't understand what they are talking about. I assume since I had trained Taiji since I was 7, things like relax, soft, sticky, yield, follow, ... are just common sense to me and there is nothing to brag about it.

[Dragonzbane76]

There is no "internal" way or external way to do thing.

I don't think anyone could have said it any better.

people get too wrapped up in this "internal/external" crap. Putting a label on something does not define it.

[Miqi]

I don't think anyone could have said it any better.

people get too wrapped up in this "internal/external" crap. Putting a label on something does not define it.

Well, maybe, but for me what you've said here is the second pitfall: the "oh it's all meaningless terminology let's not think about it", which is in many ways just another version of "all roads lead to Rome so just crack on with training and you'll get there".

I would argue, contrarily, that what matters is to find meanings for these terms that actually advance people in their training and/or understanding. To say that internal is a meaningless side-issue leads nowhere. To say that internal means whole body power leads no where. To say that internal means to finally access your own intuitive skills, and to begin to explore and work with the intuitive method, significantly helps people.

[Dragonzbane76]

"oh it's all meaningless terminology let's not think about it",

I never said it did not have meaning, only that its a dead horse that's been beaten to death and then again. It's the same old tired argument about internal this external that. I agree with dale and YKW, there is no internal/external. They are both in the same and one. To separate them is stupid because you cannot have one without the other. Giving them labels like "internal/external" is only that, a title that to me honestly is stupid.

[Miqi]

I never said it did not have meaning, only that its a dead horse that's been beaten to death and then again.

Again, many people think like this - but only because they're trapped into using the terms in the same old tired ways that lead nowhere, and give nothing useful. But I don't.

It's the same old tired argument about internal this external that.

Those arguements never really had any meaning - but they're always a potential doorway into realising how trivial and superficial most people's interpretations of these concepts are. Everyone is just on the threshold, all the time, of realising that wushu is at least half natural, innate ability, that has to be unfolded via intuitive method. But that will only appeal to like 0.01% of people who are otherwise claiming to have 'internal' skill. For various reasons. For most of the majority, it would mean a realisation and acceptance that they're actually very, very far off the path.

I agree with dale and YKW, there is no internal/external. They are both in the same and one.

The problem with these arguments is that they render the terms superfluous, and so cancel them out in a zero sum game - and so render the people who made this argument irrelevant to any further discussion of the meanings of the terms. I tell you, they are not one and the same; or rather, that conception is meaningless. But - who you 'agree' with will depend on where you're at, rather than the merits of the various standpoints.

To separate them is stupid because you cannot have one without the other. Giving them labels like "internal/external" is only that, a title that to me honestly is stupid.

Sometimes things seem stupid because we don't understand them. I tell you, what I say is not stupid, although I fully understand that it might seem like it is at first. However, that's because it's actually a very simple idea. It's impications, however, are potentially very deep indeed.