I realize that there are some examples out there ie, karate is considered a hard style and aikido is probably a soft style, but what do these terms actually MEAN?
Soft styles are like Taiji. Really into internal and spiritual development, about yielding to an opponents force and what have you. They aren’t any less effective but they’re more about reaction than action.
Hard Styles are something like Shaolin Kung Fu. Way aggressive in combat and ready to bash your head in. Of course they have counter techniques as well but offense is more apparent in a hard style than a soft one. They generally aren’t as focused on internal development (Qi, Chi, Ki,pudding, whtever you wanna call it)
But even still, soft without hard is a whisper. Hard without soft is a shout. Both are needed an are usually a part of all arts.
What is internal development? How does that improve your ability to defend yourself?
How does the development differ from hard style training? I assume they both practice physical techniques (ie, nobody is performing a long distance death touch), so what’s different about them?
Internal power basically means the ability to generate force without a lot of visible movement. The notorious ‘fajing’ is a classic example. These traits are achieved mostly by slow, subtle movements like those of taiji and qigong. Using internal power takes several forms; one example is the one-inch (or no-inch) punch, where tension muscles along the entire body, from back foot, up the leg, through the abdomen, along the shoulder, and finally out through the arm and hand are flexed simultaneously. This allows for a lot of strength to be used without a lot of distance needed to accelerate the fist to a high speed. I’m sure you can see the advantage this can give a fighter in a clinch, although a solid root is essential for fajing.
Chen style taiji is probably the most famous for fajing, which they develop with an excercise (I don’t know it or understand it, hopefully someone more knowledgable that I can help) called ‘silk reeling’ which has to do with energy moving in circles within the body. I’ve read accounts of Chen Taiji master Chen Qing Zhou demonstrating his fajing skills by lying flat on his back, and tossing coins high into the air with movements of his stomach muscles.
I am the Grand Ultimate Silk Pyjama
Hitting a punchingbag is different from hitting a bell. Hitting a bell is internal development. One goes thud, one resounds like the constant waves beating the beach for hours, wave after wave. Internal development uses physical as a catalyst for establishing frequencies within the body. Vibrations large and very very small stimulates, neutralizes, sedates. Different permutations of these~ for the different parts of and within the body system start, maintain, regulate stuffs. The atomic bomb was a very big destructive boom~ from splitting a single atom~. people are made-up of atoms (lots and lots of atoms). Adjustments of temperature, and frequency might generate forces. Splitting a single atom can be much destruction. Perhaps appropriate modulation of millions of atoms could cause something marvelous.
I No_Know
Very some such, perhaps might have been, likely say some, some not.
Xingyi is a hard internal style. Jujitsu is a soft external style. So this hard == external or soft == internal thing doesn’t work at all. Fajing doesn’t involve tensing all those muscles, you shouldn’t be tensed at all. Silk reeling is just a characteristic of Chen taiji (and other internal styles). If you mean the silk reeling exercises, then those are just recent inventions by the Chens so that people who don’t have much time to practice forms can practice them.
Fajing involve some kinda store then some kinda release. For example with your arms bent try to straighten it, but “lock” it with your other arm so it will prevent it from straighten it. The bent arm will now have a bunch of energy stored because it is trying to straighten but the other arm is not letting it. Then suddenly remove the other hand and your bent arm should straigten out real fast. That’s the basic idea of fajing, store then release. Of course, you do that with your whole body while maintaining peng jing.
Hm? I didn’t say hard only equals external or soft only equals internal. That was only part of it and generally soft styles do involve more internal development than harder styles. Generally I say. Which is why I also said most styles usually involve both 
Ok.
So, soft and hard and internal and external are not the same thing. Good. We’ve established that now. We can get to internal and external later, yes?
So, to return to the original question,
How do soft and hard styles differ?
Shinwa says that soft styles focus on accepting and redirecting energy to avoid harm, whereas hard styles are aggressive and offensive. Is this true?
As far as I’ve been able to tell, there are two ways to generate power. The first (more commonly seen) is to be very loose, and then tighten on impact.
The second is to tense up first, and then relax on impact.
Funny thing is, all the good CMA guys I have seen use the second method.
There’s a lot of variety in both methods, but it seems to be nothing more than variation on those two themes.
Merryprankser, I can save you some time: you’re not gonna get a clear answer to this question. Back when I did tai chi, I thought I knew what the difference between a soft and hard style, and between an internal and external style was, but now I’m sure so sure there is a difference. If there is a difference, it’s very vague.
I’m gonna edit this post in a second with a link to an old post a made, which was my opinion of what “internal strength/internal development” was. In my opinion, it’s far less esoteric than it seems. Conditioning and weightlifting could be seen as a kind of internal development. I know that some mainland san da literature classifies freeweights as “nei gung.” Over here in the states, we’re eager to make chinese martial arts seem as mysterious and esoteric as possible, but I think this is misleading.
Here is the thing I posted a while ago:
"A running debate amongst kung fu stylists is what exactly constitutes “internal” kung fu from “external.” Many different explanations are heard: some say that internal styles use more yielding, or that they use chi (whatever that means), or that external styles are called external because they have their roots in the martial arts of bodhidharma (an indian, from outside china) rather than from inside china.
I think that the debate over the difference between internal and external has gotten too esoteric and complicated. Here’s what I consider to be the difference between the two:
Imagine that you are a chinese martial artist, circa a hell of a long time ago. To help you get into character, it will help to forget everything you may have picked up from modern science about physiology, body mechanics, and so on.
You have two fighters in front of you - just for fun, we’ll call them Nei and Wei. They have the same height, the same build, are the same age, and weigh the same amount. However, when Nei delivers a certain type of blow, it hits very hard. When Wei delivers the same blow, it doesn’t hit as hard.
The two punches appear identical when watched. They’re thrown from the same angle, both of them appear to use the entire body to deliver force, and they both are thrown at the same speed. Why, then, does one hit so much harder than the other?
Since the external (obvious, visual) qualities of the two punches are the same, the explanation for the difference in power delivered must lie on the inside - and so, the ancient chinese developed the concept of “internal skill.” Nei has more internal skill than Wei, so his punches hit harder.
Felix Trinidad is a skinny guy with skinny arms. He doesn’t look like a knockout puncher. There are probably a hundred puerto ricans whose build, body type and musculature are next to identical to his. But if you ask one of them to throw a left hook that on the outside looks almost identical to Trinidad’s, theirs won’t hit half as hard. Why? If you the ask the chinese guys in the above example, they’ll say that it’s because Trinidad has more internal skill than the other puerto rican guy they pulled off the street.
Internal and external represent two different levels of accomplishment. A student will start training the external qualities of a movement first - that is, what part of the body goes where and when. Once the students knows that part, he or she learns the internal qualities - how to deliver that blow with power. Nearly any martial art becomes internal once the practicioner has reached a high level.
As for how some styles came to be known as “external” and some as “internal,” I don’t know. Maybe someone here knows and will post the reason. Nowadays when we say “internal style,” we’re usually talking about tai chi, bagua, or hsing-i (or liu he ba fa, for those that have heard of it). However, no style or group of styles have a monopoly on internal skill."
By the way, this isn’t only my explanation. I’ve picked this up from my sifu and from reading some of Adam Hsu’s writing, so I didn’t just pull this out of my ass.
Thanks Nemo–very useful actually.
My curiosity is piqued because so many people refer to wrestling as brute strength and conditioning, obviously technique as well, but there’s a lot of “well, wrestling just IS this ugly physical mess of force on force, whereas ‘x’ is not.”
So, it just got me thinking, you know? I got curious to see what a soft style was and what a hard style was… it would lead into internal and external, of course as part of a discussion later.
How would anybody here classify wrestling? hard soft? Internal, external? Fun thought experiment, even if nothing comes out of it…
Funny you should mention that H20 Dragon. Did you notice Lewis’ jab in Rahman-Lewis II? It was very much that way… I think boxers call what you are talking about “snap.”
Wrestling is definately (well, I think so) a soft style, but also very external. You’ll really have to delve into Taiji or another really internal art to appreciate what that term means, but regarding the original question wrestling is definately a soft style.
Can of worms 
cxxx:::::::::::>
You’re fu(king up my chi
Soft/hard is pretty self explanatory in the way they train the outside of the body as I understand it.
OK, boxing here is a prime example of a hard style. What happens at the end of a right cross? The shoulder turns over to “lock” into place. It’s not a tensing of the muscles. Tensing does not signify hard or soft, it signifies low level technique. You’ll see a beginning fighter in any art tense up at the end. A pro boxer is doing the same thing as a beginner. The difference is that he has “internalized” his art so that you’re not really seeing it any more.
Here’s an example of soft: When I punch, I gather up my muscles by torqueing my arms. When I transfer my momentum, I let it go. That’s also why many Chinese styles are insistent that the elbow remain down. It helps transfer the release of power.
Here’s the kicker. At high levels, you can’t tell the difference by looking. A good Taiji man will look like a good boxer. But inside, they are doing two different things.
I was reading an old articel by Bruce Lee on wing chun and he clearly decribes it as a soft style, which I found interesting.
The only difference I can see between the two (hard/soft) is that hard styles use antagonistic muscle contraction in movement in order to increase stabilty of their technique, while soft styles avoid antagonistic contraction and try to focus on unilateral or extended movement.
naming hard vs soft
Im from Hung Ga which is a cma often mistakenly called an “external” art. We certianly use external force, however we do have a LOT of internal elements as well.
I personaly think a lot of what go’s to name a style is in its training.
In Tai Chi which ive also done a little of, they teach soft power first all the moves are soft and dont use strength at all. However at a certain level it starts to blend with external power as well.
This is the opposite in Hung Ga where first your taught to develop and use strength then leading into more internal development.
My theory on a lot of this is simple in the end all arts blend the soft with the hard. However they get to this level differently. In Hung its first though the ext in Tai Chi its first though the int.
I think a lot of this internal vs external stuff is actualy just from students who havent fully learnt either art so have been shown a bias for either one or the other.
you cant win all the time but you cant always lose either…
Hey Sleepy, I have a question for you on Hung Gar being a hard, not external style. I don’t know the system, but from what I’ve seen, it relies on the back leg “locking” out the power in much the same way as a boxer locks out his cross. (see my prior post) Is this true? If it is, Wouldn’t it just “internalize” so that a senior will do it, but you can’t see it? I’m curious as to if you have seen this. It seems very common in Long Fist as well.
ill give this a bash
Not being a advanced student im not exactly sure of the mechanics of the later forms.
The stuff ive learnt so far, yes you do straiten the back leg in a fashion though i wouldnt say you exactly make it rigid. This is dependent of stance though. Still ‘locked’ is a bad choice of words the leg is strait but you never ‘lock’ any joint. Its like the Yin Yang and like a famous saying “Hard as iron soft as thread” the trick is to always have a balance of the two. Never just one without the other. Another good way of looking at it within my style is the idea of an iron wire [also a form name] its hard and cant be snapped but at the same time totaly pliable.
I guess my main point was that i dont really belive that there is a real external or internal ONLY martial art. I think all good arts are a nice blend between the two. Its just as stated some start with hard some with soft.
Hope that half answered your question and i havent gone off on to much of a tangent.
you cant win all the time but you cant always lose either…
Sure did. If you can’t tell, I’m a power mechanic freak. I didn’t mean “lock” as in a physical locking out, although I’m sure that’s probably what beginners do. I meant “locked” more in terms of a line of force that can be felt from the fist to the back foot. To me, it would equate to a boxer locking the shoulder or a Taiji guy locking the kua. Neither of which are rigid actions.
Here’s something interesting. I have recently switched to San Ti for power generation. San Ti also contains a locking, but it’s in the front leg. The power seems to hit the front leg and bounce into the opponent. I don’t understand it yet, but it’s intriguing. Totally different from any other art I’ve experienced.