Is "internal" real that important?

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Is "internal" real that important?

Postby johnwang on Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:38 pm

If you train how to fight such as:

1. entering strategy - how to set up and enter.
2. finish strategy - how to finish a fight,

do you really care about whether you are training is "internal" or not? You may only care about whether your MA skill can work on your opponent or not.

Your thought?
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby everything on Sat Dec 07, 2019 5:22 pm

it depends on what "fighting" really is. if there is a real life threatening emergency such as at the London Bridge, hopefully you have quick thinking and incredible bravery if you need to choose fight over flight. I'm not sure any of those fighters in the crowd had any training. That would be interesting to find out.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby dspyrido on Sun Dec 08, 2019 4:47 am

I don't care about my training being internal or external.

I care about the distinction of training internal & external in balance to help with -> closing the distance, controlling & finishing ... while avoiding getting hit ... but if I do get hit I can hopefully handle it.

Besides you can't have anything that doesn't have a little external within the internal and vice versa. Thank you Yin/Yang - such a simple concept that goes far and wide.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby Bao on Sun Dec 08, 2019 9:50 am

My practice is important and I don’t care about what anyone else calls it.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby johnwang on Sun Dec 08, 2019 3:29 pm

everything wrote:it depends on what "fighting" really is...

Here is an example.

You and your wife travel in a foreign country (such as the silk road in China). 3 guys tried to attack your wife and rape her. There are no policemen around. You have to fight against these 3 guys.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby klonk on Sun Dec 08, 2019 4:11 pm

...
Last edited by klonk on Mon Dec 09, 2019 2:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I define internal martial art as unusual muscle recruitment and leave it at that. If my definition is incomplete, at least it is correct so far as it goes.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby MaartenSFS on Sun Dec 08, 2019 7:48 pm

John Wang, have you ever felt that kind of explosive internal power? I think that if you have you would not be asking this question.

Not all internal arts develop this power, but don't you think that it's practical to be able to strike at least as fast as an external martial artist but with a lot more power and no wind up??? As a grappler you may not realise this. Not that that makes you a bad fighter. Grappling internal power is perhaps at the other end of this spectrum. Very few masters have skill in one of these and even fewer have both...

From my experience the explosive striking power is the rarer of the two. Based on what people on these forums have described I believe that no more than a handful of them have this skill or have even experienced it. I have only seen several videos that demonstrate it. CXW and that XYLHQ master in Japan, forgot his name, come to mind. Even in the internal striking arts such as XYQ very few have this skill. It's really individual masters that have the skill, not the arts themselves.
Last edited by MaartenSFS on Sun Dec 08, 2019 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby Bhassler on Sun Dec 08, 2019 10:35 pm

MaartenSFS wrote:Based on what people on these forums have described I believe that no more than a handful of them have this skill or have even experienced it.


Or maybe they have literally decades more experience than you and aren't as easily impressed.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby klonk on Sun Dec 08, 2019 11:34 pm

MaartenSFS wrote:John Wang, have you ever felt that kind of explosive internal power? I think that if you have you would not be asking this question.

Not all internal arts develop this power, but don't you think that it's practical to be able to strike at least as fast as an external martial artist but with a lot more power and no wind up??? As a grappler you may not realise this. Not that that makes you a bad fighter. Grappling internal power is perhaps at the other end of this spectrum. Very few masters have skill in one of these and even fewer have both...

From my experience the explosive striking power is the rarer of the two. Based on what people on these forums have described I believe that no more than a handful of them have this skill or have even experienced it. I have only seen several videos that demonstrate it. CXW and that XYLHQ master in Japan, forgot his name, come to mind. Even in the internal striking arts such as XYQ very few have this skill. It's really individual masters that have the skill, not the arts themselves.


The secret power skill (also in American boxing) is to hit you while you are moving forward.
I define internal martial art as unusual muscle recruitment and leave it at that. If my definition is incomplete, at least it is correct so far as it goes.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby MaartenSFS on Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:37 am

I think that that is a good way to add power, but not really internal power in and of itself.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby Dmitri on Mon Dec 09, 2019 5:58 am

"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.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby windwalker on Mon Dec 09, 2019 9:03 am

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Last edited by windwalker on Sun Nov 15, 2020 11:32 am, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby johnwang on Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:07 pm

Dmitri wrote:there are countless ways to learn how to fight very effectively without ever even hearing about "internal training" in the first place.

This is the main discussion point. If fighting is your goal, will you take the "internal" path? If you can sweep everybody down on this planet, do you care about whether your foot sweep is "internal" or not?
Last edited by johnwang on Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby MaartenSFS on Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:15 pm

Bhassler wrote:
MaartenSFS wrote:Based on what people on these forums have described I believe that no more than a handful of them have this skill or have even experienced it.


Or maybe they have literally decades more experience than you and aren't as easily impressed.

I very much doubt that. Decades of doing X will not develop Y, no matter how much it is trained. Furthermore, after decades one should have the ability to describe it coherently, as if they really understand what is going on with their bodies, rather than spouting pure gibberish or changing the topic. Even without being a scientist, they should be able to use simple explanations of the perceived physics, not over-complicate it with mysticism and bullshit.

I have met a large number of masters in China and was impressed enough by the one I ended up learning from to learn the skill, yes. I can understand how people not familiar with it would be skeptical, as I was. I have also met a number of pretenders that appear to Fajin but cannot project that power into their opponent's body (or a pad). From what I gather, these latter types appear to be more prevalent in the West...

I am not saying that being able to generate internal power is enough to win a fight or that one can't win a fight without it, but that it will invariably help one to do it more efficiently. I highly suggest that you seek out someone with this power and experience it for yourself. I trained with a professional Sanda fighter before I met my Master and even he would stand to benefit from learning this knowledge, if he wasn't so arrogant.
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Re: Is "internal" real that important?

Postby windwalker on Mon Dec 09, 2019 12:16 pm

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