I know this topic has been beaten to death oh so many times.
however, if a new student comes to you and ask you the Q?
what would be your answer?
I usually started with the theory of Yi, Qi and Li.
Chinese medicine and Chinese MA have this theory.
- Yi or the will or intent;
we have to practice it by stationary posture first. to clear mind of all things.
after some time of practice. we start to practice moving slowly, focus on will and use a little or no force.
- Qi breathing exercise
breathing exercise, meditation, and self hitting Pai Da gong. etc
there are soft and hard qi gong.
- Li force or power
Jin practice. understanding the flow of the power/jin. how to generate, transfer, deliver/express etc.
how to receive, interact, divert/redirect etc.
internal and external are inseparable.
Yi and Qi practice are considered as internal cultivation.
Li practice is considered as external.
with the limits of our anatomy, we may produce only so much power from musculoskeletan structure.
however, internal cultivations are considered âunlimitedâ, if we cultivate them more, they will help our external aspect.
â
I just open a big can of wurms.
:D;)
[QUOTE=SPJ;850082]I usually started with the theory of Yi, Qi and Li.
Chinese medicine and Chinese MA have this theory.
- Yi or the will or intent;
we have to practice it by stationary posture first. to clear mind of all things.
after some time of practice. we start to practice moving slowly, focus on will and use a little or no force.
- Qi breathing exercise
breathing exercise, meditation, and self hitting Pai Da gong. etc
there are soft and hard qi gong.
- Li force or power
Jin practice. understanding the flow of the power/jin. how to generate, transfer, deliver/express etc.
how to receive, interact, divert/redirect etc.
internal and external are inseparable.
Yi and Qi practice are considered as internal cultivation.
Li practice is considered as external.
with the limits of our anatomy, we may produce only so much power from musculoskeletan structure.
however, internal cultivations are considered âunlimitedâ, if we cultivate them more, they will help our external aspect.
â
I just open a big can of wurms.
:D;)[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but you just expressed the âThree Treasures,â which are supposed to be inherent to all CMA systems.
Greetings..
External refines the work of the muscle/structure/alignment process..
Internal adds to that the refinement and understanding/cultivation/application of bio-physical energies..
If we were speaking of autos, external would work on the bigger and better parts.. Internal would be very interested in the quality of fuel..
The best benefit is a balanced approach..
Be well..
I donât know if this is what your looking for, but I simply express to my students that an External hit is nothing more than a thump or thud on the surface of your opponents body. Same when you are hit with an External hit, it is only surface contact.
Internal is when you cause damage to your opponents internal organs and such, same as when you get hit, it goes inside and can cause internal injuries.
Both of these only apply if you understand the ability to choose how to hit. Internal power(Inside) damage, External power(outside)damage,surface hits.
Now for angles and power generated.
External, all muscle(crude).
Internal, Chi + Don Tien + Skeletal power.
I donât.
Itâs a crap theory that shouldnât exist.
As a human, you are both and cannot escape either, ergo my statement above.
Itâs a crap theory that shouldnât exist
I donât know if David is getting more middle of the road or something, but I agree more and more with some of his posts.
What the hell is happening or am I high?
The way I look at it:
External = Beginner. You have just began your journey in martial arts. ALL movements begin crude, and basic. With limited knowledge of the inner workings of skeletal alignment, posture, minute coordination, etc.
Internal = Advanced student. You have been practicing long enough to have reached a point of understanding of the basics, and now are in the process of dealing with the smaller intricacies of the martial arts. Breathing, structure, power development beyond basic muscle contraction, etcâŚ
IMO, they are inseperable, but you cannot âknowâ the âinternalâ aspects of a martial art until you have put in the time to reach a point where things become âvisibleâ to your âeyeâ. So to speak.
It is of my opinion that ALL highly experienced martial artists utilize internal martial arts. Otherwise, you would never get past the intermediate stages of your studies.
Internal:
Power generated by the core body through an expansion/contraction in an accordian like motion combined with open and close of the Kua. This drive the limbs which add thier power to the coreâs. All parts of the body move in unison to each other.
External:
Power is generated mostly by the Limbs. The core body just transfers from the lower limbs to the upper limbs, with minimal power added by the torso. There is a bit of twisting, but no expansion contraction.
Or it could be said this way,
External mostly transfers power from lower limbs to upper, but does not generate much power itself. Things move in a progressive step by step order, but not in unison.
Internal, core body generates a large percent of the power which is added to the power the limbs generate. There is a unique expansion contraction (like an accordion) NOT seen in external arts. Everything moves in unison.
External: Kick to the groin
Internal: Toe strike to the prostate
External is like someone chopping down a tree with a large Ax, or Chain saw.
Internal is like when a lighting bolt vaporizes the tree in a millisecond.
it quickly falls into the muck and myre of vague anaolgy doesnât it?
lol, you know why? because itâs crap!
people say âinternal is like wind pushing you over and external is like a hand pushing you overâ and so on. But, these are obvious differences and are simply one type of force or another. Neither is internal or external, they simply are.
the more it gets âstudiedâ the more it becomes and even bigger crapfest than it was when it was first pondered or postulated.
Like religion! lol
the more it gets âstudiedâ the more it becomes and even bigger crapfest than it was when it was first pondered or postulated.
Reply]
No, the more you study it the more it becomes clear there are distinct bio mechanical differences. It also becomes clear what those differences are.
[QUOTE=RDâS Alias - 1A;850119]Internal:
Power generated by the core body through an expansion/contraction in an accordian like motion combined with open and close of the Kua. This drive the limbs which add thier power to the coreâs. All parts of the body move in unison to each other.
External:
Power is generated mostly by the Limbs. The core body just transfers from the lower limbs to the upper limbs, with minimal power added by the torso. There is a bit of twisting, but no expansion contraction.
Or it could be said this way,
External mostly transfers power from lower limbs to upper, but does not generate much power itself. Things move in a progressive step by step order, but not in unison.
Internal, core body generates a large percent of the power which is added to the power the limbs generate. There is a unique expansion contraction (like an accordion) NOT seen in external arts. Everything moves in unison.[/QUOTE]
Since when does External create power from the limbs?
External power is generated from the waist.
[QUOTE=RDâS Alias - 1A;850167]the more it gets âstudiedâ the more it becomes and even bigger crapfest than it was when it was first pondered or postulated.
Reply]
No, the more you study it the more it becomes clear there are distinct bio mechanical differences. It also becomes clear what those differences are.[/QUOTE]
pish posh bra. Thatâs a load of hooey.
limbs are limbs, the body is a unit as a whole, it uses and converts and expels and evacuates and consumes etc etc.
you can increase mass, you can decrease mass, you can increase strength and power and you can increase force output with method and practice.
You have one body and it includes all the energies you use, the mind you use, it contains you as a person and your concious thought.
when your body is gone, thatâs it, youâre done and all thatâs left is someone elses memories.
if we comprehend that, then there simply is no internal/external question and there never was.
External power = Beer belly
Internal power = Gas after Taco Bell
First, I would ask him/her to do crunches and I would explain that he/she should try a couple dry couching as they are laying on the floor. I would ask them to remember the feeling of the abdominal muscles being activated. Then I would hit his/her belly when the do the crunches with the muscles activated.
Second, I would ask him/her to do a vocalization exercise as if singing in the opera. While he/she activated the vocal cord, I would gently squeeze, those activated muscles near the Adams apple. they will stop vocalizing or even gag once those muscles are grab.
Third, I would demonstrate a rear naked choke on him/her. He/she would feel the blood rushes and tap.
Four, I would ask him/her to put on the gloves, hit the heavy bag for 3 mins and then do a 5 mins round of kickboxing with medium strenght contact with me.
I would then ask then if he/she feels out of air, pain, panic and/or collapsing during all of the above demostrations? If the answer is yes to the all questions, then he/she understand what no Qi means in the martial sense.
Fifth, I would do a cool down sesssion with meditation with him/her. Then I would ask how him/her feels. If they feel great, relax and re-energized, then he/she knows what Qi means in the meditational sense.
So, there is my five-step Qi orientation plan. 
Now, shall we focus on training?
Mantis108
External & Internal is just like Yin & Yang, you canât seperate them. The soft styles have external in it and theirs internal in the hard styles. All styles are at their best in or near the middle of the road.
I would explain to them that, as regards CMA, the whole internal / external thing was something that came into vogue somewhere around the time of Sun Lu Tang, as a way for so-called âinternalâ stylists to try and convince people that instead of doing aerobic conditioning and resistance training, if you worked on increasing kinesthetic awareness and efficient transfer of ground reaction force through the connective tissue matrix in concert with balanced agonist / antagonist neuromuscular interrelationships, then you would be not only a better fighter, but more importantly live to a ripe old age (as long as you didnât get into fights, LOL); this was based on integration of martial training with Taoist âinternalâ practice, meaning specific cultivation designed to activate certain autonomic nervous system phenomenon via breathing, body postures, etc., all ostensibly in the name of longevity / immortality
in other words, philosophical nit-picking to explain why what some people did was better than what other people did without actually having to go and prove it necessarily; and I think you can all agree, that itâs almost exclusively the âinternalâ people who go into the long-winded justifications as to how and why itâs better than what those unrefined, crass, boorish, superficial, short-sighted, brutish, deluded âexternalâ guys do, âonlyâ using muscle power; then they prove this by performing feats of skill that require only your pre-disposition to believe them and almost complete compliance to set-up and executeâŚ:rolleyes:
ultimately, when you step back for a moment and really think about it, the distinction is inherently artificial: the body is the body, depending on what you do with it you will get different results; and what we know is that a person can be a vicious and effective fighter without having ever done / heard about any of this stuff, and similarly can live a happy, healthy life to a ripe old age without any of it as well; the problem is that people get all âintellectualâ about and start talking about how internal / external hit differently (superficial vs. deep; extremities vs. core), when none of these distinctions actually make sense or actually occur, or they resort to bizarre metaphors to describe the difference (external is like tying a cat to a tree and then chasing it around until it runs out of rope and bangs into the tree; internal is like taking the tree and chopping it into wood-chips, selling them to a farmer who uses them to fertilize a zucchini patch, and then feeding the zucchini to the cat; see?)
overall, itâs a distraction, and serves only to satisfy our mindâs neurotic need to categorize and organize in order to make âsenseâ out of the inherent chaos that is life;
the way to go about it, I believe, is to see clearly what one wants to do, and why, and go from there; if you want to increase awareness of oneâs own âinnerâ state, then there are many ways to do that - you can practice taiji, you can contemplate your navel, you can cultivate a garden, you could even (gasp) lift weights or box - itâs not the what, itâs the how: do you live your life paying attention to what you do / say / think, or do you just react habitually? you might be the greatest taiji player in the world who lectures his students about being in harmony with the taiji principles, and then go home and be an aszhole to your wife and kids - at least if you were a 'roid raging power lifter who was a schmu(k at the gym as well as at home, well, at least you arenât a phonyâŚ
use clarity; be simple; forget contrived distinctions - this is the key