Some Concepts From China

[Steel Tiger]

These are some developmental concepts from China.

Please note: Waijia = External Neijia = Internal

To Increase or To Change Natural Ability

The goal of Waijia practice is to increase natural human ability, the most basic elements of which are speed, force, and the natural or normal responses we all have to incoming stimuli. All fighting skills combine these abilities. Waijia practice is designed to increase the speed and force of movement and to enhance natural reactions. In this style, the criteria for improvement in skill level are relatively clear and direct.

In Neijia practice, the more important goal is to change rather than to increase natural abilities. Neijia practioners want to be quick and powerful but they seek to achieve these qualities by modifying their usual patterns of response. Although some Neijia training methods focus on increasing natural abilities, this goal is always secondary in importance and desirability to the goal of changing one's normal reactions. The Neijia criteria for improvement are complex and subtle and often too difficult to understand purely by logical analysis.

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Combat Techniques of Taiji, Xingyi, and Bagua

From Outside to Inside or from Inside to Outside

It is a mistake to think that Waijia students practice only external skills and Neijia students, only internal. All Waijia and Neijia practitioners must develop both. The only difference between the two groups of practitioners is in the training methods they use. It is said that Waijia is practiced from the outside (wai) to the inside (nei), and the Neijia from the inside to outside.

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Combat Techniques of Taiji, Xingyi, and Bagua

How well do these concepts gel with your own ideas of external and internal arts?

 

[exile]

Well, I'm probably looking at this from too parochial a point of view—TKD training of the `old school' variety is about as `external' as you can get; but I'm not just thinking of the statements in the OP in terms of martial arts. I'm suspicious of any approach, to anything, which contains components that are `often too difficult to understand purely by logical analysis'. If the approach has a principled basis, then it shouldn't be necessary to sacrifice logic to understand how it works. Certainly there are things which are counterintuitive, yet demonstrably true; that just shows that intuition is often a lousy basis for coming to conclusions, though it's usually an excellent starting point for hunches and hypotheses that can then be tested and refined, or even radically reformulated. But even things which are counter to our sense of how things should work typically turn out to have rigorously logical foundations; it's just that the starting premises are so unexpected. Modern science is a perfect example.

Any approach whose criteria for evaluation cannot be stated in such a way that you can tell whether or not those criteria are being satisfied in any give case has got a great big alarm bell ringing loudly right beside it. It's perilously close to the `it only works if you believe in it' sort of line that flim-flam masters have been using on the credulous probably since our earliest hominid ancestors were hanging out in Africa. Once you've rendered yourself immune to falsification using that kind of line, for example, you no longer anything that can count as possible genuine information...

 

[kaizasosei]

i consider power and effectiveness to be more internal, but external is important too for a number of reasons also relating to the internal agian.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Having read through the rest of Lu Shengli's book (its an English translation of a Chinese text), I think that counterintuitive, rather than defying logic, is a more accurate translation of what he meant.

 

[kidswarrior]

From Outside to Inside or from Inside to Outside

It is a mistake to think that Waijia students practice only external skills and Neijia students, only internal. All Waijia and Neijia practitioners must develop both. The only difference between the two groups of practitioners is in the training methods they use. It is said that Waijia is practiced from the outside (wai) to the inside (nei), and the Neijia from the inside to outside.

I wouldn't even venture into the philosophical realm re: these concepts. That's waaaay beyond my pay grade. But I can speak of my own experience. I've trained exclusively in external arts (three, the shortest of which lasted several years, and the longest, 15). Yet at around a dozen years in (3 years ago), began getting comments like, You're faster than you look (when advancing age should have been slowing me down); He hits hard (even though to me it was a tap); and, guys who were several inches taller and 40+ pounds heavier would sometimes wince when I blocked in practice.

To tell the truth, this baffled me. I wasn't doing anything different, wasn't noticeably stronger, in all honesty felt like the stress of the day-to-day grind was taking a toll on my strength and reflexes, so there was no external reason for their improvement. I finally concluded that the external practice and the internal had somehow, at some point, begun to merge. But then I could be all wet.

 

[Xue Sheng]

The phrase I have learned and go buy is outside goes to inside and inside goes to outside.

If you train external properly you can train it a long time. If you don’t you can have all sorts physical problems some pretty severe. If you train external properly you can train it for a long time, if you don’t you can have all sorts of physical problems and well as possible neurological problems as well.

I'm suspicious of any approach, to anything, which contains components that are `often too difficult to understand purely by logical analysis'.

Agreed and the problem is with most internal styles that many make such statements when, from my experience, it is more like don’t over think it. Think about it to much and it won’t happen kind of thing. Once you can make it work without thinking then analysis it but before that if you think too much, and we all do, you get is

HEY!! COOL!! That actually work, let me try that again…oh wait… I was standing this way…and ummm… I threw this punch…and aaaa….

Basically you are now thinking too much and way to tense to get the same result.

Relax, and it is not that hard…. However relaxing is that hard when applied to CMA or any MA for that matter

To Increase or To Change Natural Ability
The goal of Waijia practice is to increase natural human ability, the most basic elements of which are speed, force, and the natural or normal responses we all have to incoming stimuli. All fighting skills combine these abilities. Waijia practice is designed to increase the speed and force of movement and to enhance natural reactions. In this style, the criteria for improvement in skill level are relatively clear and direct.

I agree with that

In Neijia practice, the more important goal is to change rather than to increase natural abilities. Neijia practioners want to be quick and powerful but they seek to achieve these qualities by modifying their usual patterns of response. Although some Neijia training methods focus on increasing natural abilities, this goal is always secondary in importance and desirability to the goal of changing one's normal reactions. The Neijia criteria for improvement are complex and subtle and often too difficult to understand purely by logical analysis.
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Combat Techniques of Taiji, Xingyi, and Bagua

I do not completely agree with that.

It is learning how to react differently, not tense up when you react, to relax under stressful situations not have the “fight or Flight response”. But “increasing natural abilities” is not secondary it is equally as important. You need to increase you natural ability to sense you opponents movements and force you have to increase you natural ability to be able to do the forms properly, you need to increase you natural ability to do stance training. All of this is teaching you how to relax in your form in your stance and all is necessary so that once you are able to relax you can unify upper and lower in order to use fajin or to simply defend, weight and be patient if necessary. However this is not the same as doing a lot of push ups or lifting weights or wearing iron rings while doing the form which you might use to train a Waijia. It is more of learning how to use what you have more efficiently. But from the postures and the stances you will gain strength. I think what could be considered secondary along these lines is the use of external means to make gains in ones natural ability. In other words leg presses although rather good at gaining strength are not teaching you how to efficentyl use the muscle fibers you have but increasing the size of the ones you use.

The problem I see with a lot of writings on Neijia is that they tend to go for the magical route or the superiority route when in fact it is not really all that different in goal and result than training external

One of the best descriptions I have come across for taiji and I think it applies to all neijia CMA styles is this one

Taijiquan is not a mysterious bizarre magical art; neither is it the shallow skill of body guards and street performers. Rather, it is a natural self-defense, exercise, and health system that arises from the natural world -- Wu Zhiqing, student of Yang Chengfu

 

[Steel Tiger]

But “increasing natural abilities” is not secondary it is equally as important. You need to increase you natural ability to sense you opponents movements and force you have to increase you natural ability to be able to do the forms properly, you need to increase you natural ability to do stance training. All of this is teaching you how to relax in your form in your stance and all is necessary so that once you are able to relax you can unify upper and lower in order to use fajin or to simply defend, weight and be patient if necessary. However this is not the same as doing a lot of push ups or lifting weights or wearing iron rings while doing the form which you might use to train a Waijia. It is more of learning how to use what you have more efficiently. But from the postures and the stances you will gain strength. I think what could be considered secondary along these lines is the use of external means to make gains in ones natural ability. In other words leg presses although rather good at gaining strength are not teaching you how to efficentyl use the muscle fibers you have but increasing the size of the ones you use.

I think that you are right about this. If it were a simple case of sustitution then the difference in time to reach a competent level would not be so great. I think, rather, the neijia require additional training rather than just different training. If this was not the case then I would not have learned a tiger form and a snake form before moving on to the true bagua forms. I had to have the basic training and concepts before I progressed to the neijia training.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I can see that as being necessary in Bagua, as I have said before, I trained a bit of Bagua, 2 forms 1 form Yin and 1 from Cheng, but I was not given any basics so it made little sense and it was just a form and I was depending on strength to execute the form. It looked pretty and I got so I could hit pretty hard but I was using way to much force and I am pretty sure, without those basics, over 10 years later I could not do that form in the same way, even if I had kept training it.

And this is why in taiji you train the long form and related qigong forms and stances before you get into much else. This is why Xingyi emphasizes Wuji, and Santi before 5 Elements and 5 Elements before Animal forms. Learn how to use what you have (your natural ability) efficiently. Then the internal comes naturally too, they develop together, at lest that has been my experience. You just don’t realize it until after you have been at it awhile.