Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby GrahamB on Sun Apr 08, 2018 1:17 pm

Bao wrote:
willie wrote:No!


Let's open the 58th "what is internal" thread. -rockets- (Never used that smiley before. Cool! ;D )

GrahamB wrote:Doesn’t he say quite clearly that what people mean by internal in Silat is not what people mean by internal in Chinese martial arts?


What does he know? Does he practice CIMA? -shrug-


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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby middleway on Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:33 am

Willie, He Clearly states that his silat interpretation of 'Internal' is different to the CIMA (Yeh he does have ALOT of experience with those too, some of his closest friends of lineage heads in various CIMA) ... The Chinese traditions do not have a monopoly on that term, i have heard it used in SE Asian styles, Russian styles etc.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby C.J.W. on Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:30 am

IMO, the iron-body conditioning aspect of Silat is reminiscent of the internal training taught in hard southern styles to withstand physical punishment. However, based on this clip, I'm not sure whether they also include breathing/qigong techniques and the use of herbal medicine to achieve such results like in Chinese arts.

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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby middleway on Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:34 am



Interestingly i ran across this yesterday. Iron Body without the means to not get hit is pretty useless IMO.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby Tiga Pukul on Mon Apr 09, 2018 5:08 am

Hmm I think I mentioned this before, but his whole romantic story about finding a Silat teacher in Holland still sounds a bit dubious. Still no one heard of his teachers (Guru Ma Prem) lineage in Silat in Holland and Holland is a small place where most good silat teachers are and were known. My teacher and his closest friends know just about anyone in Silat circles in Holland, especially in the past. The Dutch-Indonesian world in Holland is a very small and intimate world. Also he changed his story regarding finding his teacher (first he saw an unknown person on a corner dressed in white, point to a house where the teacher supposedly lived, now he just found her address on a flyer which in fact sounds a lot more believable). He is referring to an area in Rotterdam (Noordsingel) which supposedly was a 'red-light' district, which it wasn't (I live in Rotterdam for over 25 years). Probably he tries to over-romanticize the story, he does have some good skills definitely, but it does sound a bit over the top. guru Ma was a real figure, undoubtedly with skills but in Holland we can only link her directly to Ayurveda en Esotericism so far. In my personal opinion, Benitez trained with several martial arts teachers for a while and with that created his own style 'Satria Arts', which is ok to me.
If all of these stories are in fact true, i'm curious about some of the senior students having trained there in Rotterdam (which he mentioned in the movie), to see if we can find more of this 'old silat' around. I've been training traditional silat (with a modern touch) for quite some years so it would be really cool to find some more knowledge in my own backyard :)


But enough about that, i think if you look at the dutch connection there seems to be a link with Mysticism so that might explain his way of explaining the 'Internal'. And obviously Silat is often linked to Spiritualism in Indonesia.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby willie on Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:19 pm

middleway wrote:Willie, He Clearly states that his silat interpretation of 'Internal' is different to the CIMA (Yeh he does have ALOT of experience with those too, some of his closest friends of lineage heads in various CIMA) ... The Chinese traditions do not have a monopoly on that term, i have heard it used in SE Asian styles, Russian styles etc.

Hi, middleway. As much as I would like to be liked on the forum, I would rather just stick to the truth. I guess that you must have figured out by now that I am part of a lineage. That lineage is of Chen Zhenglei and GMWHJ. Do you honestly think that they themselves would go along with this open policy of accepting every damn thing under the sun as an internal martial art? Internalizing a concept is no more internal then if I had opened up a can of Campbell's tomato soup, ate it and then called it internal.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby middleway on Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:09 pm

Hi Willie. I don't mind your frankness.

I had a student who studied Chen style for 30 years and trained with Chen Zhenglie for several periods so am familiar with the name and line.

I am quite sure Chen Zhenglie etc have their preferences and they are very welcome to them. I personally don't care what they do or do not accept. I am not in that lineage, don't practice their style and have no interest in it.

Like I say the Chinese arts don't have a monopoly on the word 'internal' and neither do you. You can absolutely say it is not internal as you or your teachers would define it. In fact I would actually say his description is not 'internal' as I would define it either, but that is a different statement all together and it doesn't invalidate his description for his system.

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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby willie on Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:18 pm

middleway wrote:Hi Willie. I don't mind your frankness.


I am quite sure Chen Zhenglie etc have their preferences and they are very welcome to them. I personally don't care what they do or do not accept. I am not in that lineage, don't practice their style and have no interest in it.

Like I say the Chinese arts don't have a monopoly on the word 'internal' and neither do you. You can absolutely say it is not internal as you or your teachers would define it. In fact I would actually say his description is not 'internal' as I would define it either, but that is a different statement all together and it doesn't invalidate his description for his system.

Thanks

Okay middleway. First off I think that I already had told the board that I had trained with one of willem De thouars guys a bit. The guy was quite good and had got his internal aspects from Yang Style. But when push came to shove he had no answer for my fajin striking at all. But hey to each his own.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby C.J.W. on Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:45 pm

middleway wrote:

Interestingly i ran across this yesterday. Iron Body without the means to not get hit is pretty useless IMO.


I actually posted this clip last week in the Bruce Lee thread as evidence that TCMAists need to learn how to defend against fast strikes to the head thrown by modern combat sport fighters.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby C.J.W. on Mon Apr 09, 2018 7:52 pm

Defining what is or isn't internal is always a messy big can of worms. Even practitioners of Chinese arts from different lineages and styles can't seem to agree with one another, let alone SE Asian and non-Asian arts.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby Bao on Mon Apr 09, 2018 10:10 pm

C.J.W. wrote:Defining what is or isn't internal is always a messy big can of worms. Even practitioners of Chinese arts from different lineages and styles can't seem to agree with one another, let alone SE Asian and non-Asian arts.


“Nei” is a Chinese term with a cultural specific meaning. That is why I asked someone here how this non-practitioner of Chinese martial arts could understand what internal means in Chinese Internal martial arts. Neijiaquan is a Chinese cultural term. Neijia ars are “Internal” in a Chinese cultural specific way. They are not only “generally” internal, they are internal in a certain way. I liked this guy explanation in a general manner, as “everyone” believe internal is something general. If you don’t understand “nei” from a very specific Chinese point of view, the term loses its value and every style specific appreciation of the word “internal” becomes pointless. It’s also pointless of someone from another art claiming that they do something differently or the same as other styles. Better then to keep a general approach without the interference of style specific definitions. It is here things goes wrong in most discussions, some people just can’t separate a general meaning from what they don’t understand from another style’s point of view.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby middleway on Mon Apr 09, 2018 11:23 pm

Okay middleway. First off I think that I already had told the board that I had trained with one of willem De thouars guys a bit. The guy was quite good and had got his internal aspects from Yang Style. But when push came to shove he had no answer for my fajin striking at all. But hey to each his own.


Willie,
Sorry I don't follow everyone's posts so wouldn't have seen that. I really don't think your experience with that person or your own skill makes any difference to anything I wrote however.

Thanks
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby RobP3 on Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:40 am

Bao wrote:“Nei” is a Chinese term with a cultural specific meaning. That is why I asked someone here how this non-practitioner of Chinese martial arts could understand what internal means in Chinese Internal martial arts. Neijiaquan is a Chinese cultural term. Neijia ars are “Internal” in a Chinese cultural specific way. They are not only “generally” internal, they are internal in a certain way. I liked this guy explanation in a general manner, as “everyone” believe internal is something general. If you don’t understand “nei” from a very specific Chinese point of view, the term loses its value and every style specific appreciation of the word “internal” becomes pointless. It’s also pointless of someone from another art claiming that they do something differently or the same as other styles. Better then to keep a general approach without the interference of style specific definitions. It is here things goes wrong in most discussions, some people just can’t separate a general meaning from what they don’t understand from another style’s point of view.


Maybe that's why other people say "internal" rather than "nei", to distinguish from the Chinese (which, as pointed out, is hardly agreed upon by all Chinese style practitioners!)
"Internal" is an English term with various meanings. People are free to use it how they like to describe what they do. If they say it is different from "Nei", then fair enough. I don't have to be able to speak Urdu to explain that I am speaking English, not Urdu (actually I do know a couple of swear words but I digress).
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby Bao on Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:06 am

RobP3 wrote: "Internal" is an English term with various meanings. People are free to use it how they like to describe what they do. If they say it is different from "Nei", then fair enough.


I think you understand what I meant. The whole distinctions of "Internal" vs "external" arts comes from a many centuries old Chinese term "neijiaquan". It's not an English idea, it's not an Urdu idea. The whole distinction is an old Chinese Cultural idea.

If you don't understand what "Nei" means in old Chinese traditions, it's better to not speak about "internal arts", or at least keep the discussion on a general, non-style level. For non-Neija arts, including southern Chinese styles, they are not "internal" in the sense that they are a part of the tradition of "neijiaquan". So if calling Aikido or Wing Chun "internal" using plain English is ignorant or not, depends on how you use the "Internal" and what value you put in the word. From this POV, Systema is not an Internal Art. But you can say that it's internal. Both statements are correct.
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Re: Steven Benitez interview on Martial Man

Postby Trick on Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:12 am

Rum soaked fist(s) - as external as it gets, what a waste of rum
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