I´ll add some ingredients to mess up the soup a bit more.
Here are only the things I have not seen noticed yet,or completely talked out.
External styles use qi,but as they do have a heavy emphasis on “external” things like hardening tendons,muscles-I think it is called “local qi” (may someone with more knowledge explain it further)
I´ve also got the idea that no style is whole internal or external,hard or soft.
Hard arts like karate (in general) or kempo can be straightforward and tough,but even with considering it linear,there still are some circular or soft movements in it.
Even though I think they do have the right to remain external,nothing wrong with that.
There´s also a saying in internal kung-fu called “from internal to external” (hope I got that right,I think I did) Meaning it travels around or something.
Could it be that with external too?
I guess that´s part what ying/yang is of.
Like I said before no kung fu style is too external or internal they both share the same aspects but justlean more to one side.
Braden, talking about caramel and dill pickles and club sandwiches and such made me hungry…Chocalate pudding!! 
Anyway, I was told that Internal styles start within and work their way out, whereas external stylists start without and work their way in. So the end result is the same methinks. A virtual badass of both internal and external aspects. Of course, ya gotta put the time and training in to get to that level…
Lol..now what about me, who takes internal (Tai Chi) and external (Mantis) at same time? I am one confused individual… 
Gabriel the ‘Witness’ 
Anyway, I was told that Internal styles start within and work their way out, whereas external stylists start without and work their way in. So the end result is the same methinks.
Very well put Gabriel.
Out of curiosity, do you guys believe training hard in eagle claw will also give you all the benefits of judo, or is this peculiar phenomenon limited to taiji, bagua, and xingyi?
There are quite a few styles that I think you can get some benifits of Judo. For instance longfist styles are very general in nature so they include Ti, Da, Shuai, Na,=leg attacks, arm attacks, chinese wrestleing, joint locks. So the technique is there but I think you mean somthing else. If the sensitivity is what you mean lots of schools use some form of sensitivity training. Certain styles just may be more developed in other areas due to preference of the practitioners, speacialty of the style etc.
Could you expand on that question a little? (this may get interesting yet!)
I think Braden was being facetious.
I don’t think he wants to know about Judo, just saying that the three orthocox internal styles are not interchangeable.
I think.
I’m lost then:(
Makes sense to me
Simple, Eagle claw has throws in it, but a Judo practitioner specialises in it, and thearfore would be better at it.
Each internal art expreses similar mechanics, but each specialises in a perticular aspect. Only learning all three will allow you to be versed in all three. Mastery may be in one art, depending on which you put the most time on, or you can be a master of none but highly skilled in all.
Eagle claw specializes in chin na. Yet even in the same “catagory” there is a difference in the technique is exectued. Compare Shuai jiao to judo, even though they both throw they are very different in structure. Yet they both acheive the same goal is done properly, it just may be done differently.
In short, I would put forth the extreme proposition that you get better at what you train at, and not at what you don’t train at.
It was directed specifically at the pervasive concept that not training at neijia somehow does give you neijia skill, so long as you don’t train at it long and hard enough.
As discussed, this same flaw of logic is also common in a variety of other situations, such as in the example of considering whether longfist will give you the same benefits of judo, simply because it contains shuai.
And as discussed, the meaningfullness of calling things same and different should come from how, not why - as there really aren’t alot of whys in the martial arts, so going this route would inevitably result in everything being the same; which is meaningless.
Ah ha!
Braden you sneaky devious person! 
I had to read over that post a couple of times before I could get a working idea of what exactly you are talking about (I think I know..
) You’re stipulating that an Internalist thats been “in it” long enough develops no external aspects? Or that an Externalist who has virtually mastered his art, then does not turn inward? IMHO, I think the mistake in this thinking is you are assigning external and internal to different styles. While it can be true in a broader sense that a style “teaches” either internal or external, I believe once a person reaches a certain level, they then make the art their own, in a truly individual way. So, in short, I wasn’t referring to internal and external in a stylistic way, but in an angle of aspect. I never said that a Bagua Student who masters his art would conversely become an expert in Karate, or that a BJJ student who masters his art would have revelations about Praying Mantis… :rolleyes:
To assume that I meant it in a stylistic way is silly, imho.
G.
“You’re stipulating that an Internalist thats been ‘in it’ long enough develops no external aspects?”
No, I’m not stipulating that at all. The orthodox chinese internal arts teach ‘external aspects’ from the very first minute of the very first class.
awwwww
Phooey. And I thought I knew what you were talking about. Even gave myself a cookie as a reward…Oh well.
G.
ps. what the sam hill ARE you talking about then?
ps2- I still think you’re sneaky
I am sneaky in my straightforwardness. I am talking about “Anyway, I was told that Internal styles start within and work their way out, whereas external stylists start without and work their way in. So the end result is the same methinks.”
Let’s put it this way. There’s a thing which philosophers call a ‘category mistake.’ The example I was given was if you were given the job of showing a visitor around your university campus and you showed him the gym, then the residences, then the student center, then the lecture and lab halls. Finally, after the thorough tour, the visitor remarks, “Yes, but where it the university?” This is a category mistake because the visitor is applying logic across categories which is only consistent within a category. The university is all those buildings, it’s not one of them.
When people treat ‘external’ and ‘internal’ styles as ‘yang’ and ‘yin’ explicitly, they are making a category mistake. When someone decided to call their martial art ‘taiji,’ it was not because he felt his art was yin and every other art was yang.
So yur saying
That ummmm…wellllllllllll…ur…never mind, I do’t get it.
Seriously, internal arts generate power from the core body which multiplys power genrated by the limbs.
External arts just generate power from the limbs. See, simple:D
Catagories are irrelevant, it’s more like the internal arts ADD internal power to an external foundation.
There are a number of stylistic differences between typical internal and external styles, but in a nutshell it’s the use or lack of use of the core body during power generation or health development.
You really need both to be truley God like as each focuses on an opposing aspect of the body’s strenght building.
Sorry, I must have read No_Know or Turiyan once too many times.
“External arts just generate power from the limbs.”
I can think of some external stylists which would disagree strongly with this statement.
“You really need both to be truley God like as each focuses on an opposing aspect of the body’s strenght building.”
I maintain that thinking of them along these lines is incorrect. They are different ways of doing things. Things can be different without being opposites, and certainly without being complimentary. For instance, if you train to root and pivot off the ball of your foot long enough, do you suddenly start doing it off the heel instead? Vice-versa? If you spend alot of time learning to root and pivot of the ball, and then alot of time off the heel, do these abilities sum up to create a new and better kind of rooting and pivoting?
Why does it have to be so manichean, so dualist? I thought many masters said that in the end, external and internal unite…external to internal, internal to external, but in the end, it’s unity…
If that was directed at me, I have said both explicitly and alegorically over and over again that it’s not a dualism. Things can be different without being a dualism.
Alot of internal stylists have spoken about uniting internal and external, but they weren’t talking about kinds of styles or training.
why is it that external stylists, particularly those that have never seen or experienced an internal art are convinced that there is no difference? Hmmm, something to ponder.
Internal or External it’s just 2 different methods for accomplishing the same thing. At the end of the day getting knocked the fck out, is getting knocked the fck out. Don’t matter if it was by a shotokan punch or a tai chee punch if you are on the receiving end.
BJJ is superior.