I find it unhelpful watching any video without context. Are the people in it experienced master-level practitioners, intermediate students, or what? And, does the school or system they represent have proven internal content that is taught to all students? And, what is the talent level of the people in the video... are they qualified to represent their art in its entirety, or at least at the particular rank or degree of training they have reached thus far? Most videos do not state any of this information, so we are left to guess what level of the art, or school's/teacher's interpretation of it, is being demonstrated.
In training, various systems often have a prescribed curriculum that is designed to inculcate incremental levels of skills. The drills used to develop such skills do not necessarily look like their "real-life" application. This is especially, and specifically, true of internal training, because internal work is a separate discipline and methodology than the fighting skills of the art. It is body development, not combat training. Because this concept is alien to so many martial arts, it is impossible to see how power and structural stability can be separate from technique. (In "external" arts, the method of imparting power or force in the techniques, is inherent in the techniques themselves... such as the chambering of the hips for a karate punch, or the overt stepping movement of tenkan in contemporary aikido).
Internal artists may train fighting skills and internal body method concurrently, and apply internals to technique, but still they are completely separate aspects of the art. When they practice just the internal method, it is going to look different than practicing the external/overt mechanical skills, and even more different when the two are combined.
FWIW, I know of two internal martial arts, contemporary but developed from and based in traditional arts, that appear in combat the way they look in higher-level/advanced training. The first, a Chinese family-based art, is considered a "formless" art, in which body method is inculcated from the very beginning, and combat skills are taught only later once the unified, internal body is developed. Once the students have a level of skill in both, they train at full speed and under duress. The second art, Japanese, teaches internals concurrently with overt technique (it is a weapons-based art), and as soon as the students learn a particular kata or waza, they start to practice it at full speed and under duress.
So, practitioners of both arts look, in combat application, the way they have trained, but of course not as "perfect" in appearance as combat is chaos. Training the internal method under high stress is the key, as it is meant to inculcate the ability to maintain the body connections even when in a chaotic situation. IMO, this is more important, by far, than keeping "perfect" techniques, stepping, etc.
As for making things work when the body is out of alignment... yes. Learning and mastering the art by the rules, allows one to bend the rules. Cross-body connections allow you to "pull yourself together" structurally even when you are bent over backward. It lets you keep your center of mass in equilibrium when your head is over your "one-point" and prevent you from committing all of your mass to one side of the body. An opponent will find an empty side where he thought it would be full (committed), and a full side where he thought it would be empty.
Tanren (forging drills) such as the very old version (not the modern sumo one) of shiko are designed precisely to develop these connections, and there are other tanren that augment them as well.
Itten wrote:OK, thanks Amor. The animation didn't really do it for me. The emphasis on skeletal structure without adding in the role of fascia and tendons left me with the view that it was, indeed, an unstable posture. That said however I am aware of the reoccurring problem with video clips that demonstrate training methods without explaining what it is supposed to be training and then showing the natural usage of that internalized body method in simulated combat. To my mind and experience there is not one traditional art that looks the same in usage as it does in training. A classic example of this is watching supposed Ba Gua sparring where the 2 guys walk the circle trying to use parts of the form. Ridiculous IMO. The coiling power developed by the training should be present throughout the whole body manifesting at the point of contact. So without feeling a practitioner of this style I find it very difficult to form anything other than a superficial opinion which is not very enthusiastic.
P.S. I'm also not a fan of the cylinder conceptualization, preferring the sphere which implies the rising and falling body quality inside vertical and horizontal movement and plane.
P.P.S. There are people out there who can make things work from very strange postures indicating high levels of internal connectivity. I have the personal experience of sitting on Akuzawa's back when he did shiko. At the time I was a fairly solid 96 kilos and he weighs maybe 75. I hung parallel to the ground with him balanced on one leg. Yes the guy is strong, but it is his cross body connectivity at work not muscular strength.
Just some thoughts,
Alec
