That said, if given two people of equal fighting skill, the person skilled in the internal power method and its application will have an advantage over the "external" fighter. There are a number of reasons for this, one being that the internal fighter will be "quicker" and won't telegraph his intended movements, but will be able to read his opponent's intentions. He also will have greater structural stability and so will be much harder to unbalance and uproot. There are many other reasons. And, he can transfer force cross-body, meaning that if you try to sweep his left leg, you will find nothing there; if you then try to sweep his right leg, you will find nothing there. He can control how his mass is distributed so he is never one-side weighted.
Internal training was never meant to stand alone; systems with well-organized curriculums always have integrated the foundational exercises for developing the internal qualities with the learning of physical technique and martial strategies and tactics. While there are specific exercises done separately to inculcate those inner skills, a good system provides the training to combine body-quality, technique and tactical skills incrementally throughout the years of the students' practice.
Dmitri wrote:"Training to fight" and "internal training" are two different things that are not necessarily even related. One can practice "internal" stuff by themselves doing solo exercises and fully-cooperative two-person drills and become really good at that, without ever learning how to fight. Conversely, there are countless ways to learn how to fight very effectively without ever even hearing about "internal training" in the first place.