From: schan@birch.srg.af.mil (Stephen Chan x4485)
Subject: Re: Hsing I Kung Fu
Organization: SRG, Arinc Research Corp., Annapolis, MD
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 22:17:24 GMT

In article <74120@apple.Apple.COM> mikel@Apple.COM (Mikel Evins) writes:
>>	I've always been interested: what's the real difference 
>>between the so-called "hard" martial arts, and the "soft" ones, 
>>like Hsing I or Tai Chi or even Aikido?
>
>This is an endless debate on rec.martial-arts; however one
>person characterizes the differences, someone else always
>seems to disagree. I would say that in external arts the
>early training emphasizes gross movements, muscular power,
>and conditioning for strength and stamina, while in the
>internal arts the early training emphasizes fine movement,
>balance and relaxed flexibility. Practitioners of all
>sorts of styles assure us that, with sufficient advancement,
>the hard styles become soft and the soft styles become
>hard, presumably meeting eventually somewhere in the
>middle.

	Every week, my opinion on internal/external gets smashed and rebuilt,
and I realize what B.S. I've been spewing...
	Perhaps I should just shut up about it?

	BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Not a chance!

	Adam Hsu (a Bagua guy in the S.F. area) seems to be pushing the idea
that back in the 19th century, there were no arts that were distinctly internal
or external: all learning goes from external to internal. If your skill is
relatively shallow, then your art is external, but as you progress in skill
and subtlety, your art becomes internal. All the characteristics of "internal"
martial arts are also the goals of "external" arts.

	(this seems to jive with what little old Okinawan Karateka have told
Steve G. about how power should ultimately be generated in Karate)

	Earlier in this century, the marketting concept of the purely 
"internal" style was created, which emphasized health, philosophy and "qi"
(kinda similar to the rise of -do systems in Japanese MA, neh?)

	The internal stuff in Chinese MA always seems like it's supposed to
be built on top of the external stuff. I know that this is true in Southern
styles, but I've heard the same sentiment expressed by nominally Northern
stylists.

	A parallel which comes to mind is what someone said recently in a
thread about Daito Ryu - originally folks were taught jujitsu, and after
learning that, they might be taught aiki jujitsu, if they were fairly high
ranked.
	From talking to Duck Cohen, I get the impression that (in ONE Chinese
system at least), the broadsword forms are external, while the straightsword
forms are internal. Normally, as soldiers rose through the ranks, they used
broadsword, and then, when they became officers, they used the straightsword.

	From what I understand about how "internal" styles were taught, it was
pretty similar to training in "external" systems: lots of stance training,
practicing a lot basics, all kinds of physical conditioning (Chen Fake did lots
of exercises to strengthen his hand/forearm strength). In the beginning, you
had to use muscle, because you didn't know any better.

	Could it be that the styles which are more internal are building their
system on a shakey foundation?

	Is anything lost by not studying an "external" system before going to
an internal style? Or is it just a matter of putting off fighting ability, and
possibly getting rid of bad habits before they get started?
	I think this also affects folks in very soft styles like Aikido. Even
within Aikido, the Ki Society folks seem far more internal than, say the
Yoshinkan folks.
	Should folks study Judo, and then go to "graduate school" in Aikido?
	Should folks practice Shotokan Karate and then cap it all off with
studying Taijiquan (like Kanazawa Sensei)?

	It seems that, since folks don't have time to study MA as previous
generations of professional fighters did, segments of full curricula have been
cut out of older systems, which were then marketted as being complete
(or, as some of my old professors might say "necessary and sufficient").
Leaving folks in later generations to try and put them back together again -
hey, how many Taiji places practice a full art which includes stance
training, forms, tui shou, da liu, san shou, and weapons? How many Aikidoka
don't know how to apply effective atemi?

	Oh well, enough ranting an raving from me...
--
	Stephen Chan
	uunet!srg!schan or uunet!srg!schan@uunet.uu.net