Figure Eight Work

[RobP2]

Calm down, friend! This thread has really drifted from the OP,

[Bodywork]

Dan/ Bodywork,

Calm down, friend! This thread has really drifted from the OP, which started with Rob Posting Sistema's approach to Figure 8 work and you responding by saying that the Figure 8 material posted was different from internal Figure 8 work done within the body.

Do you have any videos or texts that specifically show what this internal figure 8 training looks and feels like?

I'm not looking for a complete treatise or anything. For example, here is a simple video with one Escrimador's interpretation of the Figure 8 (one that is consistent with what I have trained in Inosanto/ Lacoste blend, BTW):



Do you have anything like this relating to the internal figure 8?

Best,
Greg

Calm down? Who's upset? I thought that was hilarious. Should I have placed funny emoticons to express the point?
To answer your questions about the video you posted:
No, that isn't what we are talking about. That's more patterned movement. Again I am not commenting on anyone's skill; good or bad as its not the point of the discussion.
The Figure eight movement myself and others referred to is not moving in figure eight patterns. It involves, kua, waist and dantian. It is extremely hard to do as there is years of preparatory work needed: to loosen, gain mailability in kua, developing a dantian, developing the bows, joining everything together so it even has meaning delivering power through a connected system... then learning to move from it. The acceleration offered by winding around and with the bones as well as opening and closing produces an incredible central equilibrium, out of which you create power-bone breaking, knockout power- while retaining that equilibrium.
The shear practicality and universality stands in the face of all those cutting up internal artists as wankers and wanna be's. Frankly I haven't met anyone, to include many engineers, hand on and face to face, who argued with the mechanical soundness of it all.
You can't learn it from a video. And once shown? You have years of work ahead of you to get the parts ready to move that way. THEN... you have to start moving that way. I'm willing to bet that only a very small percentage of people reading here once shown, could pull it off without years of work. And that's being generous.
As I said to one (decades long) taiji practitioner:
"I'm not going to discuss moving something you don't have, by body parts you barely understand. Its a waste of both our time'."
But hey... It's just another way to move a trained internal engine. You don't HAVE to move that way.
I'm perfectly happy with the majority of people thinking I'm full of shit and internals are not real. In fact I prefer it that way. It lasts about a minute when I put my hands on them (I don't mean fighting, I mean in practical demonstration). Stuff like this has been with us for generations. It lasted because when it really mattered, it in conjunction with proper training, helped save lives.

[Doc Stier]

Good points, Dan. I for one know that you're not full of shit, without having ever met you or ever having felt what you do personally, and I definitely know from my own IMA training experience that these arts are very real!

[Greg J]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for helping explain what the Internal figure 8 training is/ isn't. I'm going to take my follow up question over to the "IMA Figure 8 Thread."

Best,
Greg

[Bodywork]

Hi Doc.
The same back at you, sir.
I am well aware of you, among other well educated as well as capable men who read here. I'm quite sure you agree it was important to mention the distinction between what these guys are talking about and what several of us were talking about with internals.

[Doc Stier]

Hi Doc.
The same back at you, sir.
I am well aware of you, among other well educated as well as capable men who read here. I'm quite sure you agree it was important to mention the distinction between what these guys are talking about and what several of us were talking about with internals.

Yes, sir. Quite right. As always, opinions are many, but significant skill is exceedingly rare nowadays. The fruit of proper training identifies itself at first touch! ☺

[I-mon]

I'm even more curious now, if you are talking about an "internal" figure 8 which is different from all of those found in taijiquan, baguazhang, and xingyiquan (and yiquan, and Daito Ryu). Those are just the arts in which I have felt it (what I would call an "internal" figure 8 of force applied by the torso and kua into the recipient via the contact point - obviously quite different to simply moving various body parts or weapons in a figure 8 pattern), although watching someone like Sam Chin in action it is pretty clear he is using it quite a lot as well.

I'm not sure what you're referring to, but the 'internal figure 8' doesn't need an external point of contact. It has to be trained as a solo skill set before it can be effectively applied.

I've never heard anyone from TJQ, BGZ, XYQ or ILQ refer specifically to it, though it is sometimes (rarely and indirectly) mentioned in connection with the flow of qi through the internal organs. Any references to the contrary will be gratefully received.

The "horse form" in xingyiquan is often practiced as a figure 8 expressed in multiple planes. "Box opponents ears" in Yang style taijiquan uses basically the same figure 8 pattern. It's everywhere in baguazhang, even the classic "teacups" exercises.

To be clear, I'm not saying that any of these are "THE internal figure 8", nor am I saying that I am an "expert" at any of them!

[I-mon]

Dan, no one thinks you're full of shit - quite the contrary - just that you often assume people are arguing with you when in fact they're simply talking about different things.

Cheers, Simon.

[Bodywork]

Dan, no one thinks you're full of shit - quite the contrary - just that you often assume people are arguing with you when in fact they're simply talking about different things.

Cheers, Simon.

I don't want to keep going over this.
This is the ultimate irony.
I..... Am the one who said that... I... Was talking about something different than all of... You!
Go back and read. I talked about the subject.
Then...
I got back discussion points of my motives, allusions to seminar fees, advertising, reasons for doing videos or not doing them, suggestions of skill, ugly innuendo, blah blah.
How is it I get all sorts of pm's agreeing with me and laughing at the antics of several of the posters who talk about me instead of the subject. If I cared enough I would go cut and paste a years worth, but I have better things to do.

[I-mon]

Yes, but you jumped on this thread in which Rob shared a video about figure eight work in systema, and told him quite aggressively that he shouldn't call it "reeling" - something he never did. That was someone else, talking about something else, on a different video, in a different thread. That's what I meant by "doing your internetting wrong".

Like Doc, and pretty much everyone else here, I also have no doubt that you know what you're talking about, so thanks for continuing to hang out.

[Bodywork]

Yes, but you jumped on this thread in which Rob shared a video about figure eight work in systema, and told him quite aggressively that he shouldn't call it "reeling" - something he never did. That was someone else, talking about something else, on a different video, in a different thread. That's what I meant by "doing your internetting wrong".

Like Doc, and pretty much everyone else here, I also have no doubt that you know what you're talking about, so thanks for continuing to hang out.

Yes you are correct. I didn't spot that. Thank you. But really, it's just more of the same thing. Using language well known in internal work, for unrelated external movement. Which if you read, was the only point I wished to stress for the unknowing reader. I knew what Rob did or was involved in already.

I also responded with substantive dialogue on that other internal thread as I was asked to do. As always the only two posts to correctly discuss the subject were all but ignored. You could delete that thread except for a couple of posts and you would not have removed ANYTHING of substance regarding internal figure eight work. This has happened many times in the past with the people who offer the only meaningful points being ignored as they are in effect talking over the heads of the average reader. Logically, their points go by, ignored by the readers talk at their level and then get insulted when told they simply do not know what they are talking about-even though they all agree! This happens on uncounted forums all over the internet.
As for figure eight and internal movement? As I also said, I've never read anything of substance regarding that subject... anywhere on the internet.

As for external movement:
As I agreed several times here "external" figure eight work is everywhere. And... I didn't comment on it.
If you want a comment on that?
It can typically be taken apart without much effort if you know what it is and how to make changes in those forces. Nevertheless, it remains a staple in many stick and empty hand arts.
Presas, De Thouars, and others would teach it in knife and stick and have people work it, then take it apart with all the holes it leaves. In empty hand? Its worse.
I know expert circus performers, hula hoop, high wire, silks and belly dance teachers. I love it, but their movement has no power. So other than watching and feeling... cough... it doesn't interest me much and has nothing to do with this forum.