BTDT (1): What is IMA?

[bailewen]

Justincasea:

Short power = 寸劲 Fa jin done with little or no wind up. The ability to hit powerfully when the hand is already touching or at least very close to touching.

Wang Zongyue according to his classical "On Taiji", we see another way to look at the distinction of IMA and EMA that is not based on taoist vs. Buddhist or working your body inward or outward.

If you are referring to "Taiji Lun"/太极论 then I'd like to know where you feel he draws any distinction at all. Just skimming through it, I can find no reference to "internal" and "external" martial arts at all. He just discusses Taijiquan directly and without comparison to other so-called "external" arts.

He does make reference to "other arts" but does not classify them as "external" as you can see in the following passage:

斯技旁门甚多，虽势有区别，概不外乎壮欺弱，慢让快耳。有力打无力, 手慢让手快，是皆先天自然之能，非关学力而有为也。察四两拨千斤之句，显非力胜；观耄耋御众之形，快何能为。

Roughly,
There are many other styles [of martial arts], and although they are widely varied, they all rely on strength defeating weakness, the slow giving way to the fast, the powerful attacking the weak and slow hands lose to fast hands. This is the original nature of all things. This is not skillful and studied. The phrase "use two ounces to deflect one thousand pounds" means to win without force. When you look at people as they age, they lose their speed.

Where in all of that do you see a comparison between external and internal? Where do you even see a reference to "internal" at all? I think the quoted passage above sort of alludes to part of the concept but that's about it. AFAIK, Wang Zongyue did not make that classification. He only compared Taijiquan to "not taijiquan".

[justincasea]

Thanks. What I am familiar with are short jin and long jin in the context of Yang Taiji. The short jin（短劲） in this context is not the same as 寸劲 in Wingchun (like Bruce Lee showed). Since Taiji fa jin starts with body(or hands) contact, the mechanism of jin generation is obviouly different between 寸劲 and 短劲。 长劲 is what we have commonly seen in push hands etc. Got attacked by long jin, one may fall down, jump off, etc, but there is no serious harm. Short jin is relatively more lethal. Got attacked by short, one would not be able to jump off or fall down... the short jin goes to internal organs and make one's cold sweat comes out (my personal experiences).

Over the years, i met people who not just practice different styles of taiji, but practice in different training methods of the same style, such as "mian quan" (a real master wont go public), individual movement (from a lineage of Zhang zi jiang), ...It appears that modern taiji wont be an effective fighting art unless is includes short jin and "X". Of course, most of us are just lucky to have long jin, etc ...So we would later seek out other means, such as Bagua, Xingyi, ...Thus, there are taiji practitioners who can show some degree of martial skills, but most of them do not use "pure" taiji jin. (Personal opinion, for reference only)

斯技旁门甚多，虽势有区别，概不外乎壮欺弱，慢让快耳。有力打无力, 手慢让手快，是皆先天自然之能，非关学力而有为也。察四两拨千斤之句，显非力胜；观耄耋御众之形，快何能为。

The English translation is a bit off. Yes, as I said in the previous post, Wang did not make classification of IMA or EMA ( I used the verb "spell out"). My point is: Wang made a distinction between taijiquan and other martial arts. Obviously, by other martial arts, he did not mean Bagua, xingyi, ..etc(according to Wang's classification). Can we also use this distinction as the classification of IMA and EMA?

[bailewen]

Thanks. What I am familiar with are short jin and long jin in the context of Yang Taiji. The short jin（短劲） in this context is not the same as 寸劲 in Wingchun (like Bruce Lee showed). Since Taiji fa jin starts with body(or hands) contact, the mechanism of jin generation is obviouly different between 寸劲 and 短劲。

No. It's the same thing. Just semantics. "cun jin" has nothing to do with Bruce Lee or Wing Chun other than that most people first heard the term from him. There's really no difference between "cun jin" or "duan jin" other than the linguistic habits of the speaker. "Duan jin" implies a contrast with "chang jin" but that's about it. Same same.

斯技旁门甚多，虽势有区别，概不外乎壮欺弱，慢让快耳。有力打无力, 手慢让手快，是皆先天自然之能，非关学力而有为也。察四两拨千斤之句，显非力胜；观耄耋御众之形，快何能为。The English translation is a bit off.

Please elaborate on specifically which part you think is off. I said it was a rough translation because I did it just off the cuff and without really spending too much effort on it. So if you have some particular part you think I got wrong, name it.

... My point is: Wang made a distinction between taijiquan and other martial arts. Obviously, by other martial arts, he did not mean Bagua, xingyi, ..etc(according to Wang's classification). Can we also use this distinction as the classification of IMA and EMA?

We can and for convenience sake, I usually do but that is not what I am taking issue with. You are just reading into it. It's a plausible theory but he does not really name the idea of "internal". In fact, I would argue that without Bagua (not invented at the time) and Xing Yi in the mix, the term "internal" would be completely meaningless. It would be redundant with "taijiquan". As I just agreed that it is convenient to use the term "internal" to just refer to the main 3 and more loosely a couple others that I think should get the lable, arts like Xinyi Liuhe or Liuhebafa. So the term "internal" is used to point to whatever it is that makes most of the people who practice these arts feel that there should be some word to connect them. But if the number of arts that gets the label is just one, as in Wong Zong Yue's writing, then the term is redundant.

But more interestingly, how would you change my translation?

[edededed]

Perhaps the easiest way to define neijiaquan is the classical definition: taijiquan, baguazhang, or xingyiquan.

That can't be a valid definition since none of these styles existed as such at the time that the term "neijiaquan" was coined.

Should I have added, "by Sun Lutang?"

I'm not talking about the particular style known as neijiaquan...

[justincasea]

justincasea wrote:
Thanks. What I am familiar with are short jin and long jin in the context of Yang Taiji. The short jin（短劲） in this context is not the same as 寸劲 in Wingchun (like Bruce Lee showed). Since Taiji fa jin starts with body(or hands) contact, the mechanism of jin generation is obviouly different between 寸劲 and 短劲。

No. It's the same thing. Just semantics. "cun jin" has nothing to do with Bruce Lee or Wing Chun other than that most people first heard the term from him. There's really no difference between "cun jin" or "duan jin" other than the linguistic habits of the speaker. "Duan jin" implies a contrast with "chang jin" but that's about it. Same same.

In the context of Taiji and neijiaquan, they are completely different. That is the distinction between IMA and EMA in the lower level details.

It's a plausible theory but he does not really name the idea of "internal". In fact, I would argue that without Bagua (not invented at the time) and Xing Yi in the mix, the term "internal" would be completely meaningless. It would be redundant with "taijiquan".

It is not a plausible theory. Wang's taijilun was my textbook for the first ??days. To those real masters of neijaguan, taiji, bagua, xinyi are the same arts (Yang LT. Dong HC, and later Sun LT all concured ). From technology advancement point of veiw, xinyi and bagua probably appreared before taiji.

But more interestingly, how would you change my translation?

观耄耋御众之形，快何能为? I am not sure your translation on this is correct. Unfortunately my English is good not enough to translate it. Tanslating old Chinese writing is very difficult, a lot of meaning can be lost just because of language systems different, cultural context, ... so many factors.

[shawnsegler]

From technology advancement point of veiw, xinyi and bagua probably appreared before taiji.

Historical records say different I think.

[Chris Fleming]

Internal is when you do this in a fight:

[nianfong]

xinyi is by far the oldest of the three, with historical evidence from the Ming or early Qing dynasty I believe, followed by taiji, and then bagua, which was only invented in the 1800's by DHC.

and the three arts are by no means the same. I sincerely doubt that sun lu tang would say such a thing. where do you think he said it?
arguably all martial arts, at the highest level, become the same. but they will never all look the same. there will always be stylistic and strategic differences.

[nianfong]

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"

[Chris Fleming]

"I sincerely doubt that sun lu tang would say such a thing."

He most certainly did. Don't ask me to quote chapter and verse, but Sun sought to look for the similarities between the arts rather than the differences. Where most people, including me at one point, wonder why he said that is because of the differences between some kinds of IMA as opposed to others. I previously had a teacher who said that we should absolutely not try to compare the big 3 internals, because they are so different. What he taught was hebei xing yi, cheng bagua, yin bagua, and wu taiji. These look nothing like each other. However if you take styles like Shannxi Xing Yi, Sun style Bagua, and (Old) Yang taiji, you see a wealth of similarities. One example: rise and drill of pi chuan, rise and drill of bagua, grasp sparrow's tail of old yang taiji--these are nearly identical.

[Areios]

in my limited traning I can say that there are very much alike.

[DeusTrismegistus]

Sun LuTang is quoted in his biography as it appears in Cartmell's translations of his books as saying iirc, "The essence is the same." I interpreted what appeared there as meaning the methods differ but the root or base is ultimately identical.

[cdobe]

"I sincerely doubt that sun lu tang would say such a thing."

He most certainly did. Don't ask me to quote chapter and verse, but Sun sought to look for the similarities between the arts rather than the differences. Where most people, including me at one point, wonder why he said that is because of the differences between some kinds of IMA as opposed to others. I previously had a teacher who said that we should absolutely not try to compare the big 3 internals, because they are so different. What he taught was hebei xing yi, cheng bagua, yin bagua, and wu taiji. These look nothing like each other. However if you take styles like Shannxi Xing Yi, Sun style Bagua, and (Old) Yang taiji, you see a wealth of similarities. One example: rise and drill of pi chuan, rise and drill of bagua, grasp sparrow's tail of old yang taiji--these are nearly identical.

Which of the many old Yang styles do you mean ?

I'ld also like to note that it's worth looking at how we memorize the things we're learning with our brains. We naturally integrate similar informations while learning. There has been a whole thread recently titled "integrate or seperate". From the knowledge we have about learning, it's clear to me that we automatically do integrate informations when we're learning different MAs. One has to be aware of this, before coming to the conclusion that all the MAs one has learned ultimately share the same basics. Usually this percerption gets stronger over time as one gets "deeper into the arts", which could be easily interpreted as an advancing integration progress of the different arts.

CD

[bailewen]

Which of the many old Yang styles do you mean ?

Well he didn't mean baguataijiquan but it is an old Yang style that has specifically integrated all 3.

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.

[cdobe]

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