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~ My Personal Thoughts About The Art of Tai Chi Chuan as Philosophy and Martial Art

Thoughts On Tai Chi

Tag Archives: Internal Kung Fu

Is There Any Internal Standard?

13 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by David in Basic concepts, General Tai Chi, Personal reflections

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

intent, Internal Kung Fu, neijia, Yi

Again and again, in forums, chats and discussion groups, I see questions asking about if there is something general, common or universal in the so called “Internal Arts” where Tai Chi belong. There will probably always be questions about an “internal standard.”

There are a few things that are always mentioned. “Qi” and breath, intent or “yi”, whole body movement, ground force, shen or spirit etc. What makes an art “internal”? The obvious answer for most people would be “Qi” and “Yi”. But the thing is that these very vague concepts are very common. All Chinese martial arts speak about qi in one way or another. Every art speak about yi, intent and using mind. These concepts are not a denominator for internal arts. Not even the the focus on neigong, or internal skills practice, is a common denominator. Some explicit hard styles have a great focus on neigong.

Some people say that hard styles focus on hard methods first and soft later, Internal arts focus on soft and internal first and moves toward the external and add hard method later. This is absolutely not true for many schools usually getting a label of hard, external or soft and internal. Some soft arts starts quite hard. Some hard styles are in their nature quite internal. And I would not even say that everything called Tai Chi today is “internal”.

Other people say that Shaolin is a hard style, but there are many different things called Shaolin. Some of these arts and methods are very soft and internal, just as internal as any other “internal art”.

So is there any kind of standard or common denominator? I would not try to answer that question myself. The reality of Chinese martial arts is complex and varied. Mostly, what people see and get are quite simplified versions of more original traditions. Some of the more modern “traditions” could be generalised. But not the old, general tradition. People didn’t practice the same way as in newer times. There were no real fixed styles four hundred of years ago. People practiced methods, forms or “daolu” practice had individual names. There were sets with labels and different kind of neigong and waigong practice. People ususally practiced what they found, took parts here and there, what they found and focused on what they liked. The very fixed way we think about “style” didn’t exist. So there were internal and external methods, but not really fixed styles.

So we can speak about internal practice and internal practice, but arts usually have both internal and external practice. What is internal and how depends on the specific method or exercise. But there are no real way to define internal practice in a more general sense and there is no way to define “internal arts”, especially how people use it to day. As the term “Neijia”, or “Internal Family”, which was invented probably more than four hundred years ago, we can define what it was originally meant. But then a whole lot of things called internal today falls out of that definition. (I wrote a post recently about this, defining what belongs to”neijiaquan.”)

If people ask me, I usually just say that if the focus of practice is on internal aspects, it’s internal practice. If the practice focus on external aspects, it’s external practice. Maybe I could also say that focusing on developing internal awareness is a must in order for anything to be called internal practice. My question to you now is: Do you believe that learning Tai Chi movements, a form, to memorize movements and practice them in a learned sequence is enough to be called an internal practice? Think about it. What in your own practice is specifically internal and how do you deepen the internal focus in your own practice?

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More on Internal vs External Martial Arts

20 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by David in Basic concepts, General Tai Chi, Personal reflections

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Tags

Bagua, Internal Kung Fu, neijia, neijiaquan, Tai Chi, Taiji, Taijiquan, Xingyi

It’s somewhat wrong to call Tai Chi Chuan an “internal” art. Tai Chi focus on internal aspects and is commonly understood as Neijiaquan, this is true. But still, the concept of internal arts is a bit misleading. The discussion on nei (internal)  vs wai (external)  is actually a bit confused. A common question amongst practitioners of Chinese Martial Arts is about if there are internal and external arts. This is a false dichotomy, still, the term “Neijiaquan” is still a valid concept. Bagua, Xingyi, Yiquan, Liuhebafa and a few more arts are indeed related to Taijiquan, but they are related in a very special way. They share a history together and have often been practiced together. So what is the confusion? I have written about this problem before, but wanted to add some thoughts as I promised in this post about the same subject.  Are there internal arts or not? What is the false dichotomy about? Well, let’s see… First,

the question:

“Are martial arts either internal or external?”

is not the same as:

“Is this an internal martial art?”

There’s a difference here and they should be responded differently. A martial art can belong to the tradition of Neijiaquan (, the Internal Arts Family of Pugilism, commonly abbreviated as IMA,) but a martial art is not external art or an internal.

Martial arts are not divided into internal or external, all Chinese martial arts are both internal and external in various degrees. Much of modern wushu practice, as pure sanda practice, is mostly only external, but all traditional martial arts are both. So martial arts are not internal or external. But there is a special tradition in Chinese martial arts and certain styles that are born from this tradition, a family of styles.

Internal Martial arts, or Neijiaquan, is a definition on Chinese Martial arts that

  • Are based, and have a strong focus, on Neigong (internal skills practice), internal practice mostly developed from Daoist practice.
  • Have a terminology based on Daoism and Neidan.
  • Focus more on internal aspects than external.
  • Blend health practice, meditation and martial arts practice together.

They also tend to:

  •  Use whole body connection and whole body movement to generate strength rather than from isolated limbs and isolated muscle strength.
  • Generate strength from softness and from emptiness.
  • Approach the attacker not directly strength against strength, but rather from an angle and the distance is carefully cared about.
  • Trying to hide the body mechanics and attack from a neutral posture.

There are a few misconceptions about “internal arts”. One is that Internal martial arts goes from soft to hard and external ones from external to internal. This is partially wrong. So called external, non Neijiaquan arts can have a very strong focus on internal concepts right from the beginning. And certain schools and lineages of IMA starts off with external, apparent expression as well as focusing on hard conditioning. They don’t necessarily go towards hardness. Traditional Tai Chi does not go from soft to hard, it teaches how to generate hardness from softness and teaches how to fight while maintaining stillness.

The common denominators often used to distinguish IMA as Qi, Yi or internal practice are also not enough to distinguish “internal” from “external.” All Chinese martial arts are concerned with Qi, on a deeper or more shallow level. Yi, or intent, as well as shen and Yanshen are all very common concepts in both traditional and modern Chinese Gongfu. But in IMA, or Neijiaquan, we have a certain view on Qi and Yi that is slightly different from other martial arts as we interpret these concepts not in a general manner or in the way they are understood in Traditional Chinese Medicin, or in modern Qigong, but rather in an older way, the way these concepts are understood in Daoist practice as Neidan and Daoyin. We don’t really aim for developing or circulating Qi in general, instead the arts of IMA has an aim to develop, use and refine Post Heavenly Qi, or Xiantian Qi. It’s rather difficult to describe this briefly, but you can find more about it in this post. And more about Neidan in this post.

So, not all arts that claim to be “internal” can be completely compared to an art as Taijiquan. Southern Styles, even though some schools are very soft and have their own take on internal concepts, are not Neijiaquan as they do not share enough of the history and tradition. Some Wing Chun schools claim to be internal. They can continue to do so. But still, they do not belong to Neijiaquan. Aikido also have claims on being internal. It does share a whole lot with IMA, but is not a member of this family. So again, when people speak about an art is internal, they might have valid reasons for doing so, but this still doesn’t mean the art belong to Neijiaquan.

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Important points on Yi and Intent in Tai Chi and IMA

20 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by David in Advanced Tai Chi Theory, Basic concepts, General Tai Chi

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

intent, Internal Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Yi

Lately, I’ve seen a lot about “Yi” and “intent” in social media and forums discussions about the internal martial arts and Tai Chi. When I started practice tai chi, almost no one spoke about intent. In texts and books, there was the common sayings as “Yi leads Qi” and “To lead movement, use Yi (intent), not Li (strength).” But the last fifteen years “yi” has become a fashion word in IMA, or in the Chinese internal martial arts, Neijiaquan.

Why the term has become so popular I don’t really know. One part of why tai chi practitioners speak so much about it might have to do with cross-training in other arts as Xingyi, bagua and Yiquan. In Xingyi and Yiquan especially, the character has a natural place as it’s a part of the names of the arts. Sometimes, people say that it is Yi as in “intent” that makes a chinese martial art internal or not. This is clearly a mistake, as a trained intent is an integral part of any chinese art, internal or external, and even in other arts except martial arts, as for fine arts as calligraphy and forms of handicraft as cheramics. This is also why I don’t make a great deal of this word. Of course it must be there, but it’s a rather basic concept, just like balance or using the dantian.

The problem of the popularization of the term, or character of “Yi”, as I see it, is not that people regard Yi (as intent) as an important concept, sometimes as the most important concept in IMA. The problem is that you really can’t use “Yi” in the same general way that people tend to do. In the chinese language, a character can be used for many different things depending on context. The fact is that “yi” is sometimes used for “intent”, sometimes for “intention” and sometimes for “focus”. A translator of classical texts on chinese martial arts would need to know an art well and have a very good practical skill to understand what an author exactly meant in what context. A translator who had practiced tai chi for 30 years but not xingyi would not be as good as translate xingyi texts as good as taiji, because terms are sometimes used in different ways and in different contexts in both of the arts. Trying to interprete taiji in a bagua or xingyi manner is also bound to have mistakes.

Intent is not the same as intention. Focus is also something else. Sometimes, even teachers are not really assure with what is meant by Yi, they might confuse terms or mean different things at the same thing. The term that seems most important for various practitioner is what people translate as “intent”. I am not willing to give an answer what the general meaning of intent is. But to give a hint on what it might be, you could call it “thinking energy”, a term that a qigong expert used. What people usually mean is something between thought and doing, like the impulse that makes your arm do something, like reaching out to grab something. This could, according to theory, be developed into a stronger form of intent that could be called “thinking power”. I am not willing to answer more clearly, because it might be understood as a general rule. If you want to get a more clear picture about a general view, What could be understood by “yi” or intent as a general concept, I suggest that you read this article, an excerpt from a book by author Jonathan Bluestein. There are many things that I don’t agree with. But it’s a well written and interesting text with a lot of thought behind.

You must understand that Yi as intent is used differently in different arts and that there is a different focus on intent in different arts. So, before continue with examples, I will just give you the advice to not let other people confuse you. And don’t take what others say too seriously. Follow your own path and take what you find is useful for yourself. Don’t try to copy what someone else does or how someone else explain the term, especially if he cross-train and is influenced by other arts. The chinese martial arts are learned by doing, not by thinking. So don’t let any term make you think too much or intellectualize what you should learn by doing.

In Xingyiquan, xing means shape or form and together with yim the name means that you must have a very strong focus on the five elements and that the intent must be solely on this. I remember that I attended a Wingchun seminar, and I did that only because I was invited to show some xingyi for the same class. In a two man exercise, we were meant to break a punch/deflect flow, and the other one should improvise a response. Because my mind these days was only focused on xingyi, the five elements just happened to be there as an automatical response in the drill. It was an interesting experience and taught me something about how movements can be drilled to form automatical responses. In Xingyi, there are only five simple, basic movements and all of other movements as the twelve animals and every application are regarded as aspects of these elements. There must be a very focused, single minded view on intent in xingyi. It must also be very strong and vitalized throughout the practice.

In Tai Chi, yi is something slightly different. We strive towards emptiness, sometimes explained with “wu” or nothingness, sometimes as “wuxin” or “no heart/mind”. The first expression is derived from the Daoist Wu, “Non-being” and Wuji or non-polarity in Neo-Confucianism, The last expression is the same mind set as the Samurai used and is called Munnin in japanese and has Buddhist origin. Regardless what term, it’s the same, a feeling of emptiness in mind and body. There’s no feeling, no thought. There’s not any place for “animal intent” or any other intent. The body respond accordingly to the opponent and the practitioner gives up his own want and own intent.

“after long experience, even intention does not need to be applied, for the body standards will always be conformed to.”

–   Hao Sharu

Even when we practice “Yi”, or “intent”, it’s mostly practiced as “anti-intent”, to place intent on something else or opposing to what we do, sometimes to forget intent and that someone is attacking us. It is said that “Yi leads qi. Qi leads movement”. We use intent, practice it, but we don’t focus on Yi, nor Qi, nor movement. This can be hard to understand and it’s hard to explain. But for example, you can visualize someone holding your arm with one or both hands. Maybe your opponent grabs it as you holdyour arms up in a guard, or when your are ready to strike. When someone holds you with a very strong grip, maybe a monster grip, there’s no point of trying to move the arm or fight yourself from the grip. Now you can only use whole body movement. So what you do is that you root your stance firmly into the ground and lock the angles from the hand to the waist and then use the whole body to move. But you must forget about his grip, trying to relax the whole side, consider it dead. This is a hard thing to do. To be able to relax and move this part, you look away, to another side, maybe to a tree far away, and just let your whole body follow the movement of your eyes. So here, you use your intent to focus on something else so your body can follow without being distracted of someone holding you in a monster grip. This is one example of the use of intent in tai chi. There are other examples, but they are all about not directly being concerned about yi and often about using using yi in quite a creative and different way than people normally do, or compared to most other arts. Therefore, don’t confuse Yi in the art of Taijquan with yi in other arts. One of my teachers said that you must be able to think a bit crazy in order to understand Tai Chi. How true isn’t that?!

What yi means in other arts, I am not the expert to claim enough knowledge on. It is said that in Baguazhang, the intent is on “change”, but I sm not sure that what is meant here is the same as the “general” intent in Bagua. In any art, you need you need to learn what intent is by practice. Personally I don’t like to intellectualize too much. Everything in chinese martial arts is doing. What you think is not important. If you believe that “Yi” is something you need to “think” before doing something, you are on the wrong track. Why? One of the reasons is just because when something happens in a fight, thinking is too slow. When you see a threat or an opening, you must automatically and instantly react. After all, it’s martial arts we are discussing here.

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Internal vs external method – An observation

13 Saturday Jun 2015

Posted by David in General Tai Chi, Personal reflections

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Tags

Internal Kung Fu, Tai Chi

I am not going to dwell on what the term “internal” means or from where it comes. I just want to make one point clearer. This is a bout one difference between internal art and the external arts of Kung Fu.

There’s something quite obvious actually I am going to state. But it’s a very important thing and I am going to try to say it slightly differently. The external methods deal foremost with working on things you already can do and do all of the time. It’s about refining skills and to do things “more”.

The internal arts do something else. They teach you to move and work with your body in ways that you are not used to. You need to learn to work with your balance, body movement in ways that will feel completely new and unexperienced by a beginner. They will work with different muscles and bod movements when it comes to striking, throwing and defensive maneuvers.

If you look at clips by certain practitioners from the internal arts, you might have a feeling that you witness certain qualities that external practitioners don’t have. Your feeling and your eyes does not deceive you. Only years of certain ways of practice can develop these qualities.

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