They didn’t use Noi Ga or any direct equivalent? How did they categorize their martial arts then? How very primitive! 
Seriously though, I have heard that the question was posed to Leung Sheung. Does anyone know what his answer was?
Atleastimnotyou - Interesting. I’ve always heard that too, yet I’ve heard some say the opposite (that it can stretch and limber muscles). Do you have a medical background? If not, does anyone hear have a physio/medical background and can you give us the scoop?
Also, what about base fitness, and what about injury rehab? In some cases, weight bearing/training, even body weight training, is required in life beyond MA. Also, in the ‘good old days’, many MAists were farmers who routinely used nice heavy metal tools and did grunt work on their farms, and even MA weapons like the Kwan Do could weigh a ton (or just feel like they do). Did that make the Chen villagers poor martial artists?
While I don’t personally weight train (though I have done BWE in the past for rehab), I often wonder how much is true about weight training being hazzardous and how much is just BS passed down through suceeding generations.
I’m pretty sure WCK doesn’t require weight training, but I’m not yet convinced its detrimental. Either way, I’d like to know more.
RR
[Censored] - No, to the best of my knowledge the vocabular was quite different and those terms came South with Taiji and the like. How did they catagorize their arts? Probably Bak (Bei, North) and Nam (Nan, South), with Northern being anything from a village even 5 miles higher up 
They may have used Noi Gung and (Ng)oi Gung, but I’m not sure those were distinctions of art or just aspects of them.
Did Leung Sheung train Wudang Neijiaquan? If not, how would his answer be different than yours or any other WCK lovers? 8)
RR
RR
developing muscle as a result of work, like farming or anything else isn’t very bad. what is bad is acuiring muscle through resistance training. in the former you can relax much easier and to a greater extent because you haven’t been training your self to resist force. but in the ladder you have been training yourself to resist force. so relaxing will be more difficult and it is harder to relax back down to the same extent.
Note: i am not saying weight lifting and muscles are bad… just from an internal martial arts point of view it is. It is very good for external martial arts.
Rene,
you know my views on the subject.
At least,
put bluntly you’re wrong and a hypocrite. You’re manipulating a 35lb iron weight for training and claiming you don’t lift weights. You do lift weights, using a movement pattern commensurate with your taiji (hence the ‘no arm thing’, though you are going to have to use the shoulders and upper back as stabilizers in certain positions), and with a rep and rest protocol also commensurate with certain training goals.
Use some common sense and kindly call a 30 some pound iron ball a weight.
Later,
Andrew
Could Leung Sheung, living in HK, be qualified to address the question? I think so, and certainly more qualified than most of the posters on here. His answer could be different, for all the usual reasons that different people give different answers. Greater skill, greater experience, greater insight, etc.
So lifting weights is OK, if you use your legs, or if you are a farmer. LOL. I’ll keep that in mind when I’m working with my hoes. 
AndrewS - Yup, though I don’t recall if we ever discussed free weight or machine training vs. body weight training? I have a friend who used to coach national level power lifting who now does MA and says he finds BWE better suited to the demands of MA (I wonder if that’s a range of motion thing?)
ALMNY - I would say my views on the subject are much like my views on Hei Gung. If you know how to relax and align, you can probably lift what you want in a relaxed, aligned manner. If you don’t, probably doesn’t matter what you lift (or don’t lift.
Rgds,
RR
andrew. I was talking about lifting weights, not an object that has weight. the point of the tai chi sphere isn’t to give you muscles and make you a buff adonis.
Censored. you obviously didn’t get the point.
developing muscle as a result of work, like farming or anything else isn’t very bad. what is bad is acuiring muscle through resistance training. in the former you can relax much easier and to a greater extent because you haven’t been training your self to resist force. but in the ladder you have been training yourself to resist force. so relaxing will be more difficult and it is harder to relax back down to the same extent.
At least,
from what I understand, the point of the taiji sphere is to give you a heavy weight to play with which will require you to use body to support and manipulate according to the mechanics of taiji.
It’s a form of resistance training. Resistance training should be manipulated according to one’s goals- speed-strength, strength-endurance, power, hypertrophy, cardio, etc.
An olympic class runner, shotputter, wrestler, boxer, powerlifter, and gymnast are all trained with weights, just in different ways.
Rene,
right now I do kettlebells and low rep bodyweight exercises, and plan to cycle back to some freeweights in a month or so. I got up to 340 hindu squats and 85 hindu pushups on the Furey routine and I rocked my joints. Hi-rep anything is dangerous. I’m working with a trainer who learned from Furey and Tsatsouline (Mike Mahler)- his experience, and that of Frank Shamrock and the Lion’s Den, is that the very hi-rep stuff may build good condition but it will mess some people up very badly.
I think I’ll eventually settle into a cycled program of kettlebells, bodyweight exercises, free-weights (low rep), and olympic lifts. Right now, I’m really only just learning how to train.
Later,
Andrew
[QUOTEis that the very hi-rep stuff may build good condition but it will mess some people up very badly.
[/QUOTE]
as well as being very boring!
I was talking about lifting weights, not an object that has weight.
About to paint himself into a linguistic corner.
A weight is a weight is a weight. You lift it or you don’t.
The Wing Chun pole is specialised and specific resistance training. If that “violates internal principles” or some such pseudo-esoteric rubbish, then someone’s about to hit a big existential crisis when his training reaches that point. Either that or accept unadorned reality.
The taiji sphere sounds like a big kettlebell.
Andrew S and Rene are correct. atleastimnotyou is incorrect.
I trained in taiji/xingyi/bagua for a bit over five years.
We used to run and do truckloads of calisthenics as part of our training, including thousands of the pushups that atleastimnotyou decries. It was about the fittest I’ve ever been, and I’m in pretty good shape now.
The head of that school was, at the time (early '80’s), one of the most highly qualified gwailo practitioners of TCM in Australia and made his living as an acupuncturist and chiropractor as well as Kung-fu teacher. He was built like a powerlifter and regularly practised breaking techniques, but his softness, sensitivity and ability to manipulate the anatomy of his opponents were the equal of anyone I’ve ever worked with or seen.
His definition of “internal” was an art that was based on the principles of TCM - Xingyi on 5 element theory (with some interesting but IMO hard to accept relationships to herbalism with regard to the animal forms), Bagua on the 8 trigrams, Taiji on yin and yang. Didn’t leave much room for anything else, surprisingly enough …
Whose opinion re training would you give more weight (no pun intended) to? This guy or someone who by his own admission only uses the basics of taiji to “enhance” (not plug the holes in, oh no! Because how could there possibly be any, my Sifu told me) another MA?
If you regard “soft”, “yielding”, “not force against force” as “internal”, then judo, BJJ, and many other grappling arts fall into the category as well.
In many ways, the whole debate is marketingese to give practitioners some sense that the style they are practising is qualitatively different from brand X being practiced at the school down the street. Often the difference is far less marked to those with unprejudiced eyes.
okay
Originally posted by [Censored]
BTW, does anyone know what Yip Man said when asked “Is Wing Chun an internal martial art”?
I know
he said (in Cantonese with 2 ton FatShan accent):
“Doug, Doug, … Doug Law!”
– In English it means: “okay, okay, … it’s okay!” –
does anyone know what Yip Man said when asked “Is Wing Chun an internal martial art”?
My guesses:
-
“Pass”
-
“Can I still leave the show now and take the $32,000?”
-
“African or European?”, after which his inquisitor was cast into The Valley of Eternal Peril
anerlich sez:
“some interesting but IMO hard to accept relationships to herbalism with regard to the animal forms”
So, THESE are the ‘flowery hands’ I keep hearing about! Gosh, I never knew! What deadly floral combos did he teach? (joking)
Originally posted by Atleastimnotyou
[B]lifting weights tightens up muscles. and that is no good for internal martial arts. tense muscles in something like tai chi is like pinching off a hose. It stops the water from coming out.
the reason why lifting weights is bad (from an internal martial arts prospective) is because:
- your training yourself to resist force, so when met with force, you’ll tend to want to use muscle
- it makes you tense (because it tightens your muscle), and you have to be as relaxed as possible to feel the energy. [/B]
Not true at all. Incorrect training reduced flexibility, but proper weight training increase flexibility, lowers tension at the same time as increasing strength.
There is a hige misconception in internal arts that being weak and undeveloped means you are ‘relaxed’ and high skill. That is nonsense. Being at a physical peak will help in all areas. Just look at Bruce Lee.
Originally posted by UltimateFighter
There is a hige misconception in internal arts that being weak and undeveloped means you are ‘relaxed’ and high skill. That is nonsense. Being at a physical peak will help in all areas. Just look at Bruce Lee.
Bruce lee wasn’t an internal martial artists. He was an athelete that took different things from different martial arts to make a style that fit him.
Master Chen or Fu are small men and they don’t have that much muscle. Are they weak? In terms of muscle i suppose they are, but they can hurt an opponent just as easy if not easier than a guy that is ripped.
Originally posted by Atleastimnotyou
[B]
Bruce lee wasn’t an internal martial artists. He was an athelete that took different things from different martial arts to make a style that fit him.
[/B]
I believe Bruce Lee did a little more than just create a style that works for him. Bruce is reputed to have had much skill in helping others find ways of movement that worked for them. While Bruce’s Wing Chun training is said to have been incomplete, he did attain a very, very high level of fighting ability. Considering that his WC training was interrupted by a move to a new country…I think he did quite well for himself. While I don’t aspire to follow his path, I can respect what he managed to attain through sheer persistance and hard work.
On the Emin bashing, do you think you could defeat him in a one on one situation Alimny? If not, then you might want to zip the lip. Calling people knuckleheads and such when they are not present is very low class indeed and no, I don’t study his method of Wing Chun. I’d be willing to bet Emin has been training various martial arts nearly as long as you have been alive (if not longer). Just something to think about.
Bruce Lee got so good because of what you said, “sheer persistance and hard work.” He was an average wing chun guy and an extrodinary fighter because of his “sheer persistance and hard work.”
As for the Emin thing… give me 2 more years. lol
- it makes you tense (because it tightens your muscle), and you have to be as relaxed as possible to feel the energy.
Perhaps in taiji, though actually taiji isn’t just soft, it is hard AND soft, like many other things.
Xingyi is defintely not soft. Aspects of it can be harder than say, Kyokushin. Like a fist of diamond.