High level skills in martial arts.

[Doctor Shaft]

Hi,

 

My take on it is as follows:

 

Taiji Chuan (or Bagua, Hsing-I) take a long time to develop proficiency in (especially the true Internal power aspect) as compared to Hard MA such as Karate or the Shaolin styles. Though Taiji is an excellent MA, it's power comes from the Cultivation techniques it teaches. My teacher says Taiji Chuan can be learnt to acheive the following objectives (from the Lowest level of refinement to the highest level, as presented below):

 

1) Martial Applications

2) Healing Applications

3) Nourishment

4) Merging with Tao (spiritual aspect)

 

As far as the MA angle goes -- The Internal Arts are more powerful but take a longer time to develop. So till say, the Taiji Chuan practitioner can use Fa Jing effectively and has learnt to cultivate and use the 8 energies with the 5 directions he/she will not be effective in demonstrating the power of his art.

 

As far as I know, the Hard MA might teach Internal Aspects at the highest level (higher Black belt level)...but none know of or practice the Internals like Internal MA do...and certainly don't have the mechanics developed enough to take the practitioner beyond level 1 (as shown above).

 

Well, it's not that we don't know of the Internals... it's just not mainstream. Keep in mind, Karate/TKD/TSD/ etc., are all pretty young martial arts, comparatively speaking. It's rapid spread has, at times, led to a lot of dilution. And, then again, I don't think its had a lot of time to also employ some of the more internal aspects as much. But given time, I hope that will change. Many of the higher level students do find themselves delving into the internal aspects of power generation, qi gong training, etc. For a while, I believe Hwang Kee's Soo Bahk Do Association had a Taiji form as the highest level hyung (kata, etc.). I'm not sure if internal politics or nationality issues have come up recently to change that, but at least some of the Korean Karate eventually finds itself influenced.

 

Karate is often considered "hard", and is taught that way for the majority of a practitioners life, yet as I continue to practice, I'm actually learning that all of that hard stuff is rather low level, and I now spend more and more time discarding it (and hence enjoying the frustration of having to retool everything yet again).

[Naziri]

There is no such thing as martial arts, much less any such thing as internal martial arts, and these skills do not converge at one apex. It is all a fantasy.

 

Anyway, I'll stop raining on your parade now. When your high-level Taiji skills look exactly like Xingyi--form is principle--please put it on Youtube so the rest of us can learn.

 

Martial Development, you have a pretty cool blog. i am curious which styles you have practiced, and for how long?

[Martial Development]

Martial Development, you have a pretty cool blog. i am curious which styles you have practiced, and for how long?

 

Thank you. I think that instead of talking about myself, I will just provide some links to substantiate my previous statements in this thread.

 

Internal martial arts do not exist.

External martial arts do not exist either.

Form is principle.

[Naziri]

My friend, i am not challenging the notion that the Wai/Nei designation is a bit inaccurate (i have written an article on this myself). Your articles are good, i'm sure, and i will check them out (and will no doubt enjoy them).

 

What i am disagreeing with is that at high levels those styles typically designated as "Nei Jia" do not converge. Chen T'aiji and Xingyi are so incredibly similar in many ways at high levels. Xiao Jiu Tien, which i am acquainted with but do not study, looks very much like Xingyi as well. Cheng Bagua and Ancient style T'aiji also overlap tremendously... i could go on with examples but the very fact that Chen, Pan-Ling blended Bagua and Xingyi so seemlessly into his T'aiji form (which blended Chen, Yang and Wu styles), empirically demonstrates how these styles - when trained with a different methodology - can resemble one of the others.

 

That is, what is different between these styles is not so much the style but how you typically practice. T'aiji is not a slow art, it is just trained slowly. So naturally it will look different than an art that is trained fast. More later.

 

Peace.