Is internal energy the same as "feel" in grappling

[Brad Souders]

A question that has been on my mind since befriending many KF/internal MAist is is the internal power you speak of the same a what grapplers call feel. From what i've read/ in conversation it seems the same.

I can't speak for the internals but let me give you some personal experiences from grappling end. Lets start with clinch. I like to "feel" my opponents energy. His energy lets me know how to approach my game. If he is pushing in and low centered i go into judo sweep mode. Most wrestlers use this energy cause of their low shooting feel and fear of a shoot. I use this energy to off balance their centerline forward and use my feet to sweep the legs. I mostly use a pushing in energy for a few seconds then pull back. Also standing straight up balances my internals to be balanced accordingly. Alot of judo players stand straight up with me. Here i give alot of high energy so i can change levels quickly to attack the legs. Also gotta watch my energy not to fall asleep and get swept.

Now on the ground. Mostly feel/energy comes from transition during submissions. The feel of the hips moving into place for an armbar or the pecks tighting before the hips even move. Also you can use this to your advantage. Faking the hip movement one way then bang the hips swing opposite. Actually just transition from positions is an energy type deal. Keeping your weight down when passing. Feeding your internal energy into their hips to make their hips feel heavy and weighted down.

These are a couple things i could think of from a live situation based example. What do u guys think?

Later, Brad

[Repulsive Monkey]

the feel and internal energy are not really the same thing. Having a feeling is not as tangible as Qi.

[Prairie]

When I initially read your question, Brad, I thought you were referring to ting jin or "listenning energy." This is an ability to guage an opponent's intention by feel.

You may well be referring to "qi" but my opinion remains that you refer to ting jin.

[Brad Souders]

One reason i ask is because of stories i've heard of Morihei "rooting" himself to the ground to knock off attackers. Well in the same sense its the same when passing an opponents guard. You send that "qi" energy through their hips and "root" it to the ground. Thus making their hip and extention of your body.

[count]

Keep talking, it's interesting. But in my opinion we are all doing the same thing internally and externally. Doesn't matter what style. The only thing that is different is the methods of training. The real test is what you can do when you are 80.

Repulsive Monkey, I'm surprised at your post. Usually I agree with your posts but this one lost me. Words, like religion, are man made. "Having the feeling" IS as tangible as Qi!

[Shooter]

Brad, I think you're describing a fairly cohesive over-view of many of the ideas contained in so-called 'internal' MAs. Prairie and Count are correct.

Yours is a practical understanding where the theories are born of your experiences....time spent. We both understand these things from a utilitarian perspective...living it as a matter of necessity. More and more 'internalists' are going to begin realizing that their respective art(s) contain, as I've been saying for years, the universal principles of any good fighting method.

Your understanding is the result of having trained with bigger guys most of your life, and acquiring those qualities as a matter of course and necessity.

Staying relaxed yet remaining pliant and strong is the basic energy-management principle of Tai Chi. It's called, "peng"...a spring-like quality of whole-body 'strength'. Peng is refined by consolidating a network of other physical principles which are practiced separately in a typical TCC approach. This is why most Tai Chi folks will never know the perspective you describe...because they want form before function...which is fine, but it's the reason most TCC players never learn the combative side.

I spend at least a year showing people how to develop the same overall skills-base that you've developed before I show them the form. When they begin learning the form, they immediately recognize the movement patterns it contains because they've used them hundereds or thousands of times in their sparring. The training in that first year is carefully structured around different traditional sparring formats and chi kung, as well as lots of mat time and pressure...the same pressure you're familiar with I'm sure. LOL They never hear a single Chinese word when we train, yet they can discuss and demonstrate the concepts on a much deeper level than most TCC 'teachers' I've met.

Thus making their hip an extention of your body

This is called 'finding the opponent's center'...'blending'. Blending is the skill of 'sticking and following'. Again, TCC players explore these concepts through very narrow, specific training methods. Only after they 'get it' do they begin consolidating them into a cohesive Tai Chi unit. And even then, it's the furthest thing from what we recognize as real fighting skill. No wonder it takes 5 years before they can apply their TCC on even a basic level!

...end of rant...

[Brad Souders]

Count:

Thanks for the words my friend. Just like i stated the first time i came here i'm here to learn and share. I don't troll but give you information i've gathered thrugh the years. I've never really studues "qi" just in what i've heard. But the prinicples seem very similar to my thoughts on grappling. Making yourself become one unit funtioning together. Internal and externally funtioning as a unit and nothin more. Like water when something enters it, it engulfs the object. Just like when i grapple i engulf the opponents enrgy and sumerge their being. I soke up what they give me and flow around it. And water in a stream flows into the ocean, the energy they flow into me eventually flows into their end

BTW When i'm 80 i hope i'm in a retirement home pimpin the ladies.


SHOOTER.

Brother what can i say. As always your correctness makes me speechless.

Later, Brad "MMA EGO DRIVEN A**HOLE" Souders

[Repulsive Monkey]

Hmmm, well maybe I was being too literal here. Feeling Qi can be tangible but having A feeling about someone may just be that i.e. an accentuated thought or idea in the head which subconciously could be an amalgamation of past experience or subtle cues which the subconscious picks up on. Even, as convoluted as it may sound, this is different from feeling someone eles qi.
However maybe I'm not myself this New Year, I had a flu all Xmas and got dumped by my girlfriend so excuse the uneveness of my usual replies.

[Muppet]

Wing Chun has chi sao.

There are the close-contact external arts where the training emphasizes reading the intention of the opponent via body contact.

And then there are internal arts where feeling out via body contact is largely absent.

[count]

Originally posted by Brad Souders
Count:

Thanks for the words my friend. Just like i stated the first time i came here i'm here to learn and share. I don't troll but give you information i've gathered thrugh the years.

Well I for one, never accused you of being a troll and I'm not doing that here either. However, these threads of "internal" and "external" never seem to resolve anything in anyones mind and turn sour. I have seen so many since I have been posting here. I think it has to do with people thinking external implies on the surface, in other words no internal foundation. And internal seems to imply all soft and no obvious power. At the risk of sending this thread in that direction, I am from the school of thought that all martial arts are both external and internal. There is no distinction. I think grappling is a higher level than kicking and punching.

In the words of the immortal Human Torch, "flame on!"

I've never really studues "qi" just in what i've heard. But the prinicples seem very similar to my thoughts on grappling. Making yourself become one unit funtioning together. Internal and externally funtioning as a unit and nothin more. Like water when something enters it, it engulfs the object. Just like when i grapple i engulf the opponents enrgy and sumerge their being. I soke up what they give me and flow around it. And water in a stream flows into the ocean, the energy they flow into me eventually flows into their end

Well, if you haden't sold me before you have here. We use the same concept of water energy in baguazhang. But on the other hand, even Bruce Lee said, "be like water" and goes into depth in the Tao of Jeet Kun Do. Does that make JKD, an internal martial art?

BTW When i'm 80 i hope i'm in a retirement home pimpin the ladies.

Dude they got 80 year old ladies in the retirement home. When I'm 80, I plan to be tapping some 19 year old college cuties and still training baguazhang.

Repulsive Monkey, Cheers and Happy New Year! I hope things are looking up for 2003.

[Merryprankster]

Brad, I came to the same conclusion. I know nothing of tai chi, but everytime I read about it, it sounds exactly like what I'm doing. Or trying to do. Or not doing so well at all... Depending on who I'm working with.

I am continually annoyed/amazed/flabbergasted by those who like to insist that what they do is "special" in some way. You'll sometimes hear talks about "high level," and "low level." I find these conversations patently ridiculous. There is, IME no such thing. There is only understanding what makes something work and not understanding.

I definitely agree with count on internal and external. I think these distinctions were created to make people feel better about what they do.


Kinda like "90% of fights go to the ground..."

[Walter Joyce]

I think Brad is on to something, and I also agree with count, i.e. all arts have an external component, I'm just not sure if they all have an internal component. Fact is, the terms are artificial and as no one seems able to agree on a working definiton of either, I see their usefulness as extremely limited.

As to other similarities between grappliong and taiji, whole body power and quinna come to mind as well. Look at how Chen Fa Ke fought, if thats not grappling I don't know what is.

My question for the grapplers is, is there an equivalent of fa jin in grappling? I've seen and felt straight fa jin, either where the force passes through you and you go flying, or where trhe force is sent into you and it feels as if an inernal organ is about to burst. I've also seen and felt fajin used in combination with quinna techniques...can you say emergency room?

So, have you grapplers experienced or trained anything like this? Just curious, not challenging. Despite the fact that I train in CMA I have always maintained that wrestling and boxing are two of the most realistic and practical martial arts around, FWIW.

[Shooter]

Funny you should ask that, Walter. The first practical 'fajing' I show newbies is practiced in our fast-wrestling. the most basic ones are done with the 'body-lock' and 'gut-wrench'. I don't show them as throws or takedowns. I just introduce them as ideas of how to shock and upset the opp in different ways according to the grip configurations we apply.

The 'fajing' in these cases is a no-inch hitting force which is applied with your arms wrapped around the opp's torso. We expand on the idea by adjusting grips while having the body wrapped. A cross-over grip allows for good lateral/horizontal shock across the floating ribs, but the 'wrench' violently snaps the head by way of a wave-like action you create through 'fajing'.

Split-grip, oddly enough, uses the same jing as TCC's split. The elbow of the splitting/lower hand snapps into the opp's hip or pelvis and the upper arm of the split/upper hand hits into the diaphragm. It sends the shock down to the feet as the body is spun on its axis.

A hook-grip is used as a snap you apply by pulling into yourself while behind the opp such as in the classic gut-wrench or supplex.

There are more, but those are just a few examples of 'fajing' we practice in our fast-wrestling set. Each grip configuration optimizes different directional strengths and biomechanical advantages much like the wedge, lever, pulley, and wheel.

[Walter Joyce]

Shooter,
Good reply, but, you have trained in taiji, not a disqualifier really. However, I am curious if other grappling methods train in a similar fashion, that is do other grappling/wrestling methods teach fa jin. I said other because, as posted earlier I see grappling as central to taiji. In essence, I think any fighting system that doesn't address all basic methods of striking (using any part of the body) and grappling, or put another way, that doesn't cover figting methods through the various ranges(distances between you and your opponent) as incomplete.
I have a question for you though, how do you train your students to perform the no-inch fa jin, or fa jin in general?

Where did the fast wrestling set come from, and btw, are Bruce and Shooter one and the same?

[Merryprankster]

Walter-

Yes. We do train that way. Shooter translated the Taiji terms to wrestling for me. I am completely familiar with everything he is talking about. The technique may not be identical from place to place, but the concepts remains.