cdobe wrote:Omar,
the question is whether the 3 arts all shared the same basics originally, or whether they became the same when people started practicing all three together
CD
Omar (bailewen) wrote:cdobe wrote:Omar,
the question is whether the 3 arts all shared the same basics originally, or whether they became the same when people started practicing all three together
CD
Personally I reject both those theories in favor of a belief in parallel evolution. What I believe happened is that when Guo Yun Shen and Yang Lu Chan and guys like that got together to talk shop they went, "Hey! AFAIK, what your doing is really identical to what I am doing." Maybe they didn't see it at first as the forms are so different but when they started sharing techniques and getting into the mechanics and the theory that informed their arts they realized that the differences were just the different expressions of a common truth.
Parallel evolution.
edit: After going to the Wiki for a link I decided that actually "convergent evolution" is probably more accurate as these arts had very different begginings and, I believe, grew more similar over time which is closer to what you proposed except that I believe it did not start only after people started sharing in the 20th century. I think they shared because they were the same not that they ar the same because they shared.
shawn wrote:but the first and most important thing in the "internals" is the shenfa thing...hence...internal.
Omar (bailewen) wrote:cdobe wrote:Omar,
the question is whether the 3 arts all shared the same basics originally, or whether they became the same when people started practicing all three together
CD
Personally I reject both those theories in favor of a belief in parallel evolution. What I believe happened is that when Guo Yun Shen and Yang Lu Chan and guys like that got together to talk shop they went, "Hey! AFAIK, what your doing is really identical to what I am doing." Maybe they didn't see it at first as the forms are so different but when they started sharing techniques and getting into the mechanics and the theory that informed their arts they realized that the differences were just the different expressions of a common truth.
Parallel evolution.
edit: After going to the Wiki for a link I decided that actually "convergent evolution" is probably more accurate as these arts had very different begginings and, I believe, grew more similar over time which is closer to what you proposed except that I believe it did not start only after people started sharing in the 20th century. I think they shared because they were the same not that they ar the same because they shared.
Maybe they didn't see it at first as the forms are so different but when they started sharing techniques and getting into the mechanics and the theory that informed their arts they realized that the differences were just the different expressions of a common truth.
Dmitri wrote:Careful man, he might be one of those "undercover grandmasters" Yusuf is warning everyone about on the other thread... Thou shalt not judge, but listen and absorb -- you know, just in case... (j/k...)
Omar (bailewen) wrote:nianfong wrote:观耄耋御众之形,快何能为
"when you watch [the form of] an old man fight many people, how can he be fast?"
this is incomplete, and you need the following few lines, which I'm pulling from memory:
活似車輪, 立如平準, 偏沉則隨, 雙重則滯
"live like a cart wheel, stand like a level/scale, lean sink and follow, double heavy stagnates"
There's actually whole bunch more. I only chose that little piece of it because I was looking for what I thought came closest to drawing a distinction between internal and external, specifically the phrase, "斯技旁门甚多,虽势有区别..." Maybe it was an awkward place to cut it off.
edit: Justincasea The native speaker on this thread doesn't seem to see a problem with my translation of 观耄耋御众之形,快何能为? If your own English is not good enough to translate that phrase, how can you tell I got it wrong?
As to the point about the sameness of the big 3, while Fong got the time-line right the 3 arts as one art is a debatable but widely held view. My Shifu learned Bagua from Song Weiyi who was famous for a book called 'The Unity of Bagua and Taiji' or something like that. I only disagree with Justincasea about Wong Zongyue making the distinction but later on, I feel that the term "internal" was adopted for just that reason, to imply that those 3 arts were really the same. My own Shifu has made it clear that he feels that they are ultimately the same. Different Taolu, same gongfu.
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