Why is Internal training fail?

[t_niehoff]

Sure, evidences.

Wang Xian Zai was one but you do everything to discount him right? Sun Lu Dang was one.....

Mas Oyama's Kyokushin was influence by Wang Xian Zai's art again you discount him.

These guys may have fought, but where is the evidence that they were able to do what (the internal mechanics) what they trained in their fighting? How do you know it didn't go out the window just as it does with every single other IMAist we've seen. Saying they fought isn't evidence that they could make their "internal mechanics" work. Is there any footage of them fighting and making those mechanics work?

The other aspect of this is that of all the millions of IMAists in the world, you can only ever name two (and I don't think Oyama really applies as a IMAist). Let's say for the sake of argument -- and I don't believe this for a minute-- that out of millions a lucky one or two can develop this ability. Well, how useful is that for everyone else? Training that only works rarely or for a select few isn't particularly good training. Why spend your entire life chasing winning the lottery? Especially when you can train like they do in MT, boxing, judo, BJJ, sambo, etc. -- the functional martial arts -- and REGULARLY and CONSISTENTLY produce good results.

[Hendrik]

These guys may have fought, but where is the evidence that they were able to do what (the internal mechanics) what they trained in their fighting? How do you know it didn't go out the window just as it does with every single other IMAist we've seen. Saying they fought isn't evidence that they could make their "internal mechanics" work. Is there any footage of them fighting and making those mechanics work?

The other aspect of this is that of all the millions of IMAists in the world, you can only ever name two (and I don't think Oyama really applies as a IMAist). Let's say for the sake of argument -- and I don't believe this for a minute-- that out of millions a lucky one or two can develop this ability. Well, how useful is that for everyone else? Training that only works rarely or for a select few isn't particularly good training. Why spend your entire life chasing winning the lottery? Especially when you can train like they do in MT, boxing, judo, BJJ, sambo, etc. -- the functional martial arts -- and REGULARLY and CONSISTENTLY produce good results.

Ok, you point based on you speculation taken.

Since I have enough of your view, thanks and appreciate for your sharing.

[t_niehoff]

Ok, you point based on you speculation taken.

Since I have enough of your view, thanks and appreciate for your sharing.

Hendrik, my view isn't based on speculation but on evidence. We do know that the sort of training methods the functional martial arts (MT, BJJ, boxing, wrestling, etc.) use produce good results, including world-class level results. Do you dispute that?

We also can't find any evidence of "internal mechancis" working in fighting. You say Oyama and WXZ used them, but you didn't see either fight and we certainly can't see them use those mechanics for ourselves. You belief that they did is speculation. We can't say with certainty without seeing it.

Why don't you simply produce evidence that these mechanics work in fighting? Show someone fighting a decent boxer or MT or MMA fighter and making these things work. If they really do work, that should be a simple task, right?

[anerlich]

Yiquan, my experience is just about zero. I base most of my opinion about it on video e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMd8p...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txq-r...eature=related

"External power" I would define as anything that doesn't require doing internal breathing exercises to perform.

I believe the sort of stuff as demoed above falls in that category.

I did Yiquan for about 5 years with a first generation student of Taiwan's wel-known Hung family. The "internal" aspects of Yiquan have less to do with breathing, though that is important, and more to do with the effect of the forms and techniques on the spine and CNS, which are roughly analogous to those of TCM and acupuncture. It's not "the internal aspects drive the technique" as much as "the techniques are the internal aspects"..

I did Taiji during the same period, with the same teacher, though his taji teacher was from HK, not Taiwan.

YiQuan is NOT "soft". it is hard.

I was extremely fit and well during this period ... though the class workouts consisted of a variety of hard calisthenics and aerobic style exercises as wel, plus I was in my late twenties then. Hard to say whether it was the sheer volume of exercise rather than any internal aspects. We did periods of macrobiotic diet and other weirder sh*t as well, which I am certain had adverse affects.

The instructor was a very strong and formidable guy who could and did certainly mixi t up. A couple of other guys there could fight with Yiquan. Generally speaking, the standard was not great, though.

I don't beleive it would be possible to strictly adhere to the internal principles of Yiquan and at the same time use it to fight effectively. The former requires great precision, and in fighting, performance overrides precision.

Anyway that's my experience. It comes from 5 years training at least 4 days a week. Not as good as reading sutras. watching youtube videos, learning from secret teachers in England and Brazil or fighting in underground groups in St Louis, or decades of internet pontification I know, but there it is FWIW.

[Edmund]

according to Edmund's Taiji sure, you are 1000% right.

According to Chen Taiji
Let see what and how is Ma Hong teaches


这套拳不同于一般健身术的一个突出特征，是它始终保持其武术本质。不论从战略思想和战术技巧，还是从种种锻 炼内涵和手段来看，此拳确是一套应敌、应变、防身、护身的拳种。为此，在练拳过程中，要加强武功意识，本着 “一胆、二力、三智、四法”的法则，全面锻炼自己的应变能力，在这方面，此拳的内涵也极其丰富。

（一）根据太极拳的战略原则，练太极拳的人要讲武德，树立大将风度。强调“彼不动，己不动”, “人不犯我，我不犯人”的思想，事事力争和谐，大事化小，小事化了，“以和为贵”。就像陈鑫公所说：“我守 我疆，不卑不亢”。“持正守中”，以化解矛盾为上策。


太极拳姓“文”, 也姓“武”，太极拳不仅练拳脚功夫，而且炼心灵精神境界，或说是头脑、心灵中的功夫。

所以，练太极拳的人，遇到与他人的矛盾，尽量以化解为上策，以能容为上策，实在不得已而交手时，也要尽量以 容化来力，我“以其人之力，还置其人之身”, 使其失去平衡、感到失势为上策。同时，又要千方百计维护动态平衡。或者“化打合一”（• 险扎衣）、“声东击西”（如前招后招）、引进落空合即出（如上步七星）“欲要先给，欲给先要” 等等招法。


....离不开内呼吸(真气)的鼓荡作用。离不开意念力的导引作用。

但是，应该肯定，胸腰折叠必须以丹田内转为枢纽;还必须肯定，真气运行是胸腰折叠的能量流。所

以，必须是内外兼练。运之于内即丹田内转，真气运行...

What the hell does this have to do with anything?

I am not a great Chinese reader but these don't seem like lessons at all.
It's like an article or something.

As for Chen Taiji and Chen Taiji's actual lessons?

丹田内转 or Tan Die inner revolve/rotate which Ma Hong teaches is one of the most basic internal training/lesson ; which is the core of Chen Taiji be it for form practice, health, and fighting applications.
..
..
..
Chen Xiao Wang etc..

Look. They teach all sorts of mechanics. I don't disagree that they teach internal mechanics and all this other stuff. I'm actually better at doing it than you since you've never even trained in Chen Taiji. What they don't do is stare at the cosmos and make you read a thesis all day.

The IMPORTANT question is:
Are internal mechanics used by Max Chen or some Karate guys? No.
Not from my viewpoint and I've actually learnt the techniques where you rotate your dantien and open and close your stance.

You claim they are! Based off only reading material.

And I've never seen those taiji teachers fight. There's little/no sparring. If they ever do, I seriously doubt they can pull any of the internal mechanics off. If they do it's still no stronger or more applicable than doing the same move without those mechanics.

Based on the above evidence on Chen Taiji be it from Ma Hong and Chen Xiao Wang. We know Edmund Taiji and Chen Taiji are two different type of taiji.

Chen Taiji Must know 丹田内转 or Tan Die inner revolve/rotate thus Ma Hong or Chen Xiao Wang teachers it.

I rotate my dan tien plenty. Do I say I know everything about Chen Taiji?
Keep trying to discredit me though.

I console myself with Edmund Taiji being 10000% closer to Chen Taiji than Hendrik Taiji.

Which makes me better than you at assessing who's using the taiji mechanics.

IMHO,
Why Internal training fail? when one doesnt train accord to the core teaching but not aware of it. But, keeping argue why one's speculation on training is right...etc even evidences have shown one doesnt know.

It is analogy to cooking sand and expert to have rice. that is set up to fail.
One can take 100000 lesson on cooking sand, but dont expect to make rice cooking sand because one will certainly disappointed.

Another insult.

Perhaps if you bother to take some lessons in Chen Taiji then try to make the art work in a fight you can have something to criticize me about it. Until that point, you don't really have the grounds to claim I'm not training right.

Why internal training fail? You never shown it to work in a competitive fight. I've never seen it either. No one even tries to! So on a scale of 1 to 5, it gets "TBA".

They teach plenty of hippy stuff. You'd probably love it, you crazy *******. That doesn't mean it all works!

[Lee Chiang Po]

The reason internal training fails is that it does not exist as termed here. Internal training simply consists of breathing and developing focus for rapid exertion or forcing out breath at the instant of thrust or whatever. Other than that, there is no such animal as internal mechanics. You simply can not fight with it or use it in any other way than what I described. Mas Oyama was a very strong individual, and his Karate was strong. Other than that, he did not have internal mechanics. He couldn't have because it simply does not exist.

[Bo_toxic]

I did Taiji during the same period, with the same teacher, though his taji teacher was from HK, not Taiwan.

YiQuan is NOT "soft". it is hard.

From my experience, I agree with you here. I've been studying Yi quan for three years with my Taiwanese friend. So far what I read from Hendrik's posts, I could tell he doesn't know anything about Yiquan except copying stuff from others off the internet. That's why it doesn't make sense because he hasn't experienced it. It sounds like he has taken bits and pieces thrown them together to make himself appear more knowledgeable.

Here below is an article from 1930 about Yi Quan Grand Master 王薌齋 Wang Hong-Chai.

時年1923，王薌齋曾與本族人砌磋武功四勝六負、這証明鶴拳或許對日後王薌齋所創的意 拳有一定的影響。【福建武林誌】

In the year 1923,王薌齋, also have challenged fights with my ancestors totaling a 4 Win 6 Lost record. As evidenced by this experience, it shows that the Crane Kuen or so later developed Yi Kuen from 王薌齋 has a definitive impact and influence. <Fokien Martial arts Historian >

[Hendrik]

Y

iQuan is NOT "soft". it is hard.

From my experience, I agree with you here.

I've been studying Yi quan for three years with my Taiwanese friend.


So far what I read from Hendrik's posts, I could tell he doesn't know anything about Yiquan except copying stuff from others off the internet.

That's why it doesn't make sense because he hasn't experienced it.

It sounds like he has taken bits and pieces thrown them together to make himself appear more knowledgeable.

Excellent!

since you have learn Yi Quan for 3 years , so you must have know everything or atleast some basic in Yiquan to support your claim on "I could tell he doesn't know anything about Yiquan except copying stuff from others off the internet. "


1, Why is Yi Quan Hard as you agree? and what is Hard? Is Yee/ Intention hard or soft?

2, could you please enlighten us here what is Yiquan? what doesnt Yi Quan train? 3, what is Yi Quan's experience?

4, Have you use YiQuan for fighting?


It would be interesting to learn from an experience person like you.

Please continous on and sharing what is Yiquan and its mechanics.


also could you please translate and explain this following fundamental basic written by WXZ in details and the training process? since you have train Yiquan and know it. Please educate us here .


禅家者流，乘有大小，宗有南北，道有正邪，学者须从最上乘，具正法眼，悟第一义。若小乘禅，非正法也，论拳 如论禅，内家拳则第一义也，外家拳，则小乘禅，已落第二义矣。

大抵禅道，惟在妙悟，拳道亦在妙悟。然悟有深浅，有分限，有透彻之悟，有但得一知半解之悟。意拳，应不立招 术，乃透彻之悟也。意拳，即大乘拳也。不立招术，乃透彻之悟也。其它拳术，虽有所悟，但皆立招设术，俱非第 一义也。若以为不然，则是见拳之不广，参拳之不熟耳。试取外家拳谱而熟参之，次取太极，八卦而熟参之，其真 是非，自有不能隐者 !

夫学拳者，应以意为主，入门须正，立志须高，不可以小成为是，必以大成为志焉。

技有未到，可以加功，路头一差，愈骛愈远，由入门之不正也，工夫须从上坐下，不可以从下坐上，上者何第一义 也，此念酝酿胸中，久之自然悟入。虽云不至，亦不失正路，此谓之而上一路也。拳之极致有一曰：力感如透电， 拳而力感如透电，至矣尽矣无以加矣 ! 唯意拳得知之，其它拳术力感，得之盖寡也。意拳之力感如此，其力如何 ! 此力乃人之本能活动力也 ! 人之本能活力，盖为种种社会应力所抑制，不能欲之即击也，意拳之妙用，即在恢复入之本能活力，其它拳术，皆 不能也，此即吾创此拳之目的。




and can you do it?


does WXZ says Yi Quan is Hard or Soft?

[Hendrik]

Since it is nothing to do with who is better or know more, but to understand where do you stand and your viewing angle, I would not response to your opinions.

Again, Thank you and appreciate for sharing your view.

What the hell does this have to do with anything?

I am not a great Chinese reader but these don't seem like lessons at all.
It's like an article or something.




Look. They teach all sorts of mechanics. I don't disagree that they teach internal mechanics and all this other stuff. I'm actually better at doing it than you since you've never even trained in Chen Taiji. What they don't do is stare at the cosmos and make you read a thesis all day.

The IMPORTANT question is:
Are internal mechanics used by Max Chen or some Karate guys? No.
Not from my viewpoint and I've actually learnt the techniques where you rotate your dantien and open and close your stance.

You claim they are! Based off only reading material.

And I've never seen those taiji teachers fight. There's little/no sparring. If they ever do, I seriously doubt they can pull any of the internal mechanics off. If they do it's still no stronger or more applicable than doing the same move without those mechanics.



I rotate my dan tien plenty. Do I say I know everything about Chen Taiji?
Keep trying to discredit me though.

I console myself with Edmund Taiji being 10000% closer to Chen Taiji than Hendrik Taiji.

Which makes me better than you at assessing who's using the taiji mechanics.




Another insult.

Perhaps if you bother to take some lessons in Chen Taiji then try to make the art work in a fight you can have something to criticize me about it. Until that point, you don't really have the grounds to claim I'm not training right.

Why internal training fail? You never shown it to work in a competitive fight. I've never seen it either. No one even tries to! So on a scale of 1 to 5, it gets "TBA".

They teach plenty of hippy stuff. You'd probably love it, you crazy *******. That doesn't mean it all works!

[Bo_toxic]

does WXZ says Yi Quan is Hard or Soft?

Why do you care so much about what WXZ says? You need to do your homework and study in order to improve yourself. Copying stuff from other people and pretending to be an expert will not help you in anyway. Do you want me to sing your song? Is this a joke?

[imperialtaichi]

Why Internal training fail? Wrong question.

Every good fighter does internal training.

Virtually every professional sportsmen train to increase there speed and power through meditations, visualizations and other mental training. No-one can become good just by pumping iron and just by purely increasing muscle bulk. I would classify these type of mental training as internal.

Internal training does not fail. Wrong internal training (including all the esoteric weird stuff) fails.

Cheers,
John

[Hardwork108]

It is my understanding of kung fu styles and their concepts that there are no completely hard styles. It is to do with the Yin and Yang balance. So if one says that he is learning a 100% percent hard style of kung fu then it is extremely likely that for whatever reason, he is not being shown everything.

Traditionally speaking, the softer or the internal aspects of kung fu were not taught to everyone., but to a select few. There seems to be a school of thought that suggests that not even the Okinawans were shown most of the internal elements by the Chinese masters and that is why karate is generally lacking in this department.

So the fact that Great grand master Edmund is unaware and clueless about most of the internals comes as no surprise.

Furthermore, there are even people here who practice Wing Chun as an external only system. Hence their knowledge is mediocre at best. And one can see that from the many clueless comments in threads such as this one, as well as their insistence that cross training in every other martial art is the only way to complete their abilities!

[Hendrik]

Why do you care so much about what WXZ says?

You need to do your homework and study in order to improve yourself.

Copying stuff from other people and pretending to be an expert will not help you in anyway.

Do you want me to sing your song? Is this a joke?

You claim to train Yi Quan, you clam you know it all.

You claim that Yi Quan is Hard.

You couldnt even explain what Wang Xiang Zai teaches on what is Yi Quan.

and then all the personal attack.


That really shows who you are isnt it? Clueless.

[Edmund]

Since it is nothing to do with who is better or know more, but to understand where do you stand and your viewing angle, I would not response to your opinions.

Again, Thank you and appreciate for sharing your view.

You brought up my experience because you couldn't back up any of your arguments and wanted to change the subject.

If you actually want to make taiji internal training work in fights rather than talk about it, you have to start by doing some taiji training at least. Only then can you separate the wheat from the chaff. You can't take every article as gospel. You think you know what basic training is but you haven't done any.

[t_niehoff]

A few years ago, one of the purple belts (now a brown belt) at my BJJ school was in LA and stopped by Rickson's school (our school is in Rickson's organization) to attend some group classes. While he was there, a well-known young BB who at the time was winning all the tournaments was going around the country, visting all the big boys. He stopped in at Rickson's too.

That night Rickson was teaching some old-school gi choke from side control, and the studetns were gathered around him on the mats while he explained and demo'ed it. The young BB shook his head and said he didn't think that would work against an opponent that really resisted. Rickson motioned for the young BB to lay on his back, Rickson took side control, and it was on. In a minute or two, Rickson had the choke and the young BB tapped. Rickson said "Again." And they tried it again. Same result. Rickson went back to teaching the group.

The point of my story is that Rickson didn't say "I've used this before" or "I know lots of people that have pulled it off" or argue the merits of the choke or why it would work. He just proved that HE could do it. That ended any argument, ended any doubt, etc.

People like Hendrik want to tell you all the reasons why "internal mechanics" should work, they want to refer you to writings from the past, to stories from the past, to everything but what Rickson did: just show that it works when someone is really fighting you. That's the only evidence that matters.