arrogance and the internal arts (A strait Rant)

Nei Jia: the Qigong and Taijiquan Forum Taijiquan and the Internal Martial Arts
1

I got the idea for this post from one of Fu-Pow’s quotes of Adam Hsu. I like how Hsu says that you can practice an internal art and yet not be internal. I agree with this 100%.

BUT… What I was originally going to post was a comment about seeing many other people who’ve been doing internal arts for years, but still don’t have internal power. The problem with this is that EVERYONE thinks they have internal power. And the fact that you can practice erroneously for years and never know it is cause for a lot of the smack talk and arrogance that pervades the internal martial arts. ((I’m pretty stuck up about my stuff too, so I can’t really talk)). Even if you do get a little internal power, many people feel content to rest on their laurels and lord it over others, rather than digging to the deeper levels.

To make it worse, many internalists come to consider their palms, etc to be “to deadly” to use, or if it comes to push hands, if they are imbalanced will complain about how the other person used “too much li” and didn’t follow “the principles”. Outside my circle of friends, I’ve only met one taiji person who’s willing to step up and “demonstrate” their internal power, and I’ve met many.

I am far from a humble person. In reality, I’m a jerk, and I act like it. Even so, this attitude seems pervasive and detrimental to the propagation and survival of internal arts. Even on this board there are people who clearly think that only they have been exposed to the truth of internal power, and there are cleary people who I think are chasing false dragons with complete faith.

Ah, this is more of a diatribe than anything else…

:frowning:

Merciless is Mercy.

2

great rant

“I am far from a humble person. In reality, I’m a jerk, and I act like it.”-D.M.

Thats just a funny quote, even funnier because it applies to me as well sometimes!

Too often we are all to quick to be AS#Hol#S about something when we should just be trying to further ourselves. We just have to keep it real and not let our own skill, or persuit thereof inflate our egos. Its soooo hard though when everyone else just sucks soooo baaddddd...J/K

Gary

“Of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong”-Dennis Miller
www.pressurepointfighting.com

3

You just stated the best reason that exists for full contact competition. It would be so refreshing to see people box with their hands instead of their mouths.

4

I am just a person, hopefully not a jerk.

But I have a keen interest in really finding and searching for the
ways and people to help me improve my understanding and skill.

Real skill is real skill it stands up on its own this is what I have found.

I think improvement comes from really looking and examining, cutting away until you find it.

many things that sound easy are very, very hard to really do :slight_smile:

Luck to all on this road

bamboo leaf

www.cyberkwoon.com

5

I like your honesty!

I agree, Daniel Madar.
I think it is normal to expect more than the usual degree of arrogance in the martial arts field. It is where you can’t hide what you are, and the usual tricks to do so become exaggerated. I used to be annoyed by it, but now accept that these people really don’t know what’s going on, or seek to dominate and impress others. While to some degree, the attitudes and the choice to impose them on others is their own, teachers can encourage such thinking and acting, by letting it go on, or giving those students authority over others. The people who have been working for years on the same stuff in the same Incomplete way and rave about their prowess provide their bread and butter. It’s the plain economic truth. And those who fall for the It takes 20 years blah blah, need to find something to justify all the time and money. It’s hard when all one has to show for 10 years of work is some leverage skills (if you’re lucky), the appearance of sinking that only goes so far, and a devotion to doing the form. It’s not enough, and it shouldn’t be.
So, while I too have little patience with this mindset – that of I know more than you do ya ya yaya; feel my Power… . – I think that the way internal arts are sometimes taught (not a reflection on the Knowledge of the Sifu), brings this out without recourse to anything else besides feeling and acting submissive. You can do that for only so long. Some can’t do it at all.

The teachers have a responsibility. These arts that they teach are based on real phenomena and they are dangerous. So, the work is presented in such a way as to ensure the highest degree of safety, and a possibility of mastery or real progress along the lines of internal power only if the teacher wants this for a particular student.
Hence, the frustrated student with a big yap.

Cody

6

I am full of internal energy . . .

. . . but only after a breakfast burrito with PLENTY of beans . . .

Daniel hit the mark. In all fairness, there are varying degrees of internal power. What I’m still looking to experience, anywhere in the country, is the kind of internal power that shocks and amazes me.

Now, I’ve come across a point about taijiquan that intrigues me. Hong Junsheng spent the longest time with Chen Fake of any of his Chen style students. Hong spent most of his life in Jinan, Shandong Province, quietly practicing and teaching, with his students and grandstudents doing extremely well in national tuishou competitions in the PRC.

In one of the articles I’ve read on Hong Junsheng’s teaching, he distinguished high-level taijiquan from xingyiquan and baguazhang by stating that taijiquan’s primary training aim is to learn to neutralize and turn the opponent’s force against them, NOT to develop striking power a la xingyiquan or baguazhang. Now, I don’t think that Hong was saying that taijiquan training doesn’t develop fajing, only that taijiquan doesn’t place as great an emphasis on training fajing as other arts.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a reference to that article as I write. Those people who were interested in Fu-Pow’s earlier posting of an article on Hong Junsheng might also appreciate this other article by Peter Wu, a student of Hong. It discusses some of his principles, and my observations above make more sense in the context of Wu’s article.

http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/4189/hong-v33.html

Chen Zhonghua (Joseph Chen) teaches Hong Junsheng’s system in addition to Feng Zhiqiang’s system. I for the life of me don’t know why he doesn’t just go in-depth on Hong’s system, as it seems more no-nonsense and focused on practical application. Chen recounts one of his experiences with Hong Junsheng in an article at his website www.hunyuantaiji.com, excerpted below:

"When all the joints are moving either in positive or in negative circles, the whole body will become a “gear box”. When all the gears in the gear box engage, not one gear can move without involving all of the other gears. When all gears are disengaged, the movement of one gear will not affect the other gears. When one can transform the body into the above described gear box, one will possess the ability of “one part moves, all parts move.”

In the summer of 1994, I had a chance to push into Grand Master Hong’s chest during a learning session. I issued power suddenly and felt as if my hands had entered a gear box. They were chewed up and thrown out. I was thrown out downward so quickly that upon landing, I hurt my hip. I suffered over ten small fractures to my fingers and wrists and did not completely heal until three months later. The hand injuries were from Master Hong’s chest and the hip injury was from my own falling. At the time, Master Hong was 88 years old and was paralyzed from the belt down. He was able to stand on his feet but could not walk."

Something to think about.

7

Is this the skill we talking about winning full contact competitions?

just wondering.

bamboo leaf
www.cyberkwoon.com

8

What?

Wujidude wrote:

In the summer of 1994, I had a chance to push into Grand Master Hong’s chest during a learning session. I issued power suddenly and felt as if my hands had entered a gear box. They were chewed up and thrown out. I was thrown out downward so quickly that upon landing, I hurt my hip. I suffered over ten small fractures to my fingers and wrists and did not completely heal until three months later. The hand injuries were from Master Hong’s chest and the hip injury was from my own falling. At the time, Master Hong was 88 years old and was paralyzed from the belt down. He was able to stand on his feet but could not walk."

End quote:

Stories like this are exactly what is seriously wrong with internal arts. If your reading this and don’t understand what I’m talking about, then you need to think long and hard about the many stories like this that abound in internal arts.
Ask your self “do these sound real?”

I’d like someone to give me the final end all to end all answer to the Question" what is internal power?"

I bet no one can

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I can. There is no end all and be all.

Merciless is Mercy.

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Also

There was a few posts about full contact fighting/sparring in the internal arts.

I fully support this. full contact fighting would seperate the huksters from the legit.

spanky

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Daniel

Are you sure?

I think you know what it isn’t

Don’t you?

This is an experiment in who really knows what internalism is.

I’d love to have a legit answer

“if anyone seriously has one?”

12

Sure I’m sure

I actually do do some full contact fighting and I’m adding more. Mainly sparring, since people tend to react oddly if you try to join a fighting tournament or MMA thing and say you do taiji. :frowning:

Sometimes though, to get an answer to a question you need to ask the right question. You can’t just walk into a room of people and say “Tell me about ‘it’!”, and expect to get anywhere near the answer you seek. And that’s not even considering if anyone in the room knows the answer at all.

I can answer your question like this for example:

Car’s are powered by an internal combustion engine that is fueled with gasoline. This fuel tank needs to be refilled on occassion, and the efficiency of the engine varies from car to car.

Oh, wait. I forgot about electrical cars and electrical gas hybrids. Funny, this is harder than it seems…

Merciless is Mercy.

13

I’ll bite,

IMHO these skills are a completely different set then those required in the ring.

On the other hand most people that I have met are quite happy to let you taste their art outside of one.

As for an answer, I have found the only ones that really matter are those that you answer for yourself

bamboo leaf
www.cyberkwoon.com

14

On the subject of arroagance, I once heard a chinese quote that blew me away…
The more I learn the less I know… how true is that?

http://www.kungfuUSA.net

15

Me!!! Me!!! I want to rant too!!!

Daniel, as usual you hit the right mark…but if I might add, your comment regards ALL martial practice: you can teach something to an ignorant, but you cannot teach anything to someone that is sure he knows…that is why it is said that in martial arts, you should keep a beginner’s spirit, because the day you think you know or master something, you stop learning about it…
I totally agree with the saying that you can practice internal arts without being internal…first, the problem lies in these so many “experts” that claim to be experts after one or two years in China. They are the guys plaguing internal arts, the ones that denature taiji and bagua: they bring us practices that have been robbed of their internal and combat content and pass it on, spreading it like a virus…
After one year of observing my bagua teacher (who really emphasizes intention, relaxation, moving as a whole, internal over external etc…) and helped by my experience in external arts, I can see so many bagua or taiji flavoured arts that are in the end empty…some guys do bagua, twist, do fancy moves…but when you look at it, their tailbone pops out, their shoulders raise, their walk is just like everyday walking except it’s circular, their techniques are not connected, their body structure isn’t set (if I were to push on their arm, the elbow would bend instead of the whole body absorbing the push)…same with taiji…they look like internal arts, but their nature is an ersatz…yet these guys are persuaded they practice a deadly internal art…all they do is practicing an external art with moves copied on the internal ones…All the new students coming to my sifu that claim having practiced internal arts are asked to show their moves…they do and most of the time my sifu tells them they have to forget everything and relearn from the start because their whole form is broken and their ways of moving is not internal, it’s like everyday moves…and most of the time they practice a little bit the new things shown, but then revert to their old ways of moving, because it’s easier, because they think they are in control…most of the time, they never come back and I suppose they go back to their old schools where they even might be considered senior students…my sifu is too nice (uh, I mean, when he’s not after your training heheheheh), he doesn’t say anything, but when I see these guys asked to do something and who do it like 3 times then decide they do not like it and revert to their old ways and forms and do what they want my blood boils…what a lack of courtesy, of patience, of dedication…it’s an insult to the sifu, and a proof of their emptiness…
Our biggest problem on the way of martial excellence is ego: we cannot truly face our mistakes without feeling uneasy…illusion is much sweeter than harsh truth, being faced with our limits scare us, we close our eyes on them…when events force us to open our eyes, it’s tough…lucidity hurts…but growth is the reward…
That is why a nice hard combat is good: you know that if you miss this block, you’ll take the blow…when you just bock the air or a cooperative partner it’s just not the same…
Gosh, I’d better stop the rambling now :slight_smile:

16

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=“-1”>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by EARTH DRAGON:
On the subject of arroagance, I once heard a chinese quote that blew me away…
The more I learn the less I know… how true is that?

[/quote]

Not true AT ALL, in my opinion.

In the internal arts and kung fu in general, one never stops learning. The reserve of knowledge does not go DOWN as one adds to it via training. Otherwise why train if downhill is the only way to go?

Certainly training opens one’s eyes to an ever-increasing realm of possibilities, hence the “less I know” part. It’s all about semantics to me.

There are many people who practice with 100% intent to varying levels of success for whatever reason.

The true internal stylist accepts this and uses his observations to make HIMSELF a better martial artist.

17

With respect to Chen Zhonghua’s recollection of an incident involving his Chen style taijiquan teacher Hong Junsheng, Spanky wrote:

>Stories like this are exactly what is seriously wrong with internal arts. If your reading this and don’t understand what I’m talking about, then you need to think long and hard about the many stories like this that abound in internal arts.
Ask your self “do these sound real?”<

Well, actually, Spanky, it does sound quite real to me. In fact, it sounds a whole lot more credible to me than kneejerk cynicism, which is as much of a barrier to the serious study of the internal martial arts as New Age mysticism. The reason Chen Zhonghua’s account sounds credible to me is that I’ve met him and he exhibits a degree of the same skill when pushed. I’ve met his current teacher Feng Zhiqiang, and he shows even more skill in neutralizing attacks of the kind Chen Zhonghua described. I think if I had made a more serious, focused attack on Feng Zhiqiang I probably would have been shocked and amazed.

The reason serious students aspire to mastery of taijiquan is because of real incidents like Chen Zhonghua described. Again, your own experience may be very limited in that regard, but don’t totally discount the experience of others. Such skill may be rare, but that’s why they’re called “masters”.

18

The more I learn the less I know… how true is that?

It’s very true. The more time you have in, the more of an understanding you get. You start to pick up on all the little things you never noticed before. After a while you realize you’re never gonna get it.

But that’s OK. Because by this time you can knock the hell out of people if you train hard. The less you know just gives you more to train.

19

huangkaivun

I think you misunderstand the meaning of the quote. It is saying that the more you learn about yourself and what you are doing, the more you didnt really know that much about your self and what you thought you were doing.
In other words you train to be good at something and then just when you think you know it all and that you are good, someone proves you wrong by showing you a better way. ie a master showing you the same tecnhnique that you have done 1000’s of times an he shows you once and you now understand it better.
That is what is called a humbling experience and if you think that you know it everything then actually you know nothing.
I once had a student that street fought all his life and he always said; that he was the toughest guy he knew, I said then you dont know many people do you.
I have talked with a lot of people on this board who indeed are true martial artists, and I have also talked with people on this board who’s ego was filled more than their notebook. Have you had the pleasure of looking at the main forum page topics yet? these kids talk out their a** and brag about alot of nothing and then post topics like who would win in a fight? the guy from my video game or bruce lee. But yet they question peoples knowledge and experience! I once had a rant with some kid that insisted that its done his way only and that I was wrong and didnt know what I was talking about, I said how long have you been doing that in your training he said I have been training for almost 6 months now. After laughing outloud I didnt have the heart to tell him that My training years are 4 years older than his age on this earth but I realized that you cannot win internet arguments with uneducated or know it alls, cause to them you are WRONG and thats it!.. so when I realized this the more that I learn the less I know quote fits like a glove.

URL=http://www.kungfuUSA.net]http://www.kungfuUSA.net

[This message was edited by EARTH DRAGON on 11-15-01 at 08:22 PM.]

20

funny how everyone is convinced they are receiving the true transmission

I can’t imagine anyone not believing that and still training…

“If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?”