What Does Internal Arts Mean To You???

[Alan Armstrong]

What does internal arts mean to you?

What does external arts mean to you?

How can internal art be separated from external art?

Is internal a spiritual thing, feeling or aspect?

Is external for you being something tangible?

Why does martial arts consider internal and external to be something worth while?

[Himokiri Karate]

Sorry if its a late reply but here is my thoughts on it:

Internal means energy and life force as well as organ health as well as healthy heart and brain as well as digestion.

External means strong, powerful and durable. Like Muay Thai fighters shin or Kyokushin fighters ability to take body shots or a boxers ability to deliver power. Same with grapplers being able to be dynamic, strong and powerful on top of their technique.

Internal spiritual thing to me means psychology. Few days ago I got shook up by a street thug. Now I am suppose to be a martial artist and yet, I felt like I could have been more aggressive, even though I stood my ground, I could have been better. But my personal example. Universal example, staying cool under stress, not having shaky legs, handling yourself however you feel is best regardless if its right or wrong. What matters is, you followed up with your conviction without hesitation and did what you had to do with a level of proficiency that is on par with your skills.

External is tangle because it means muscle gain, better bone density, stronger muscle fiber, greater posture and luster to go with it. If we want to be esoteric, its possible that internal can compliment the external. But I am just speculating.

Internal is very important more than ever. Lots of pro fighters go broke, end up in a bad shape. Internal keeps your inner being intact, it gives you purpose and a reason to evolve and self perfect and that is important because as human beings we need to be engaged in activities with a purpose or else we fall in to depression and despair of living a life that has no meaning or that our life has no direction or adventure.

[stonecrusher69]

What does internal arts mean to you?

What does external arts mean to you?

How can internal art be separated from external art?

Is internal a spiritual thing, feeling or aspect?

Is external for you being something tangible?

Why does martial arts consider internal and external to be something worth while?

Internal arts to me means how one uses their whole body in a natural way instead of use brute strenght and speed to over come your opponet..

[bushido_man96]

What does internal arts mean to you?

What does external arts mean to you?

How can internal art be separated from external art?

Is internal a spiritual thing, feeling or aspect?

Is external for you being something tangible?

Why does martial arts consider internal and external to be something worth while?

Internal arts to me means how one uses their whole body in a natural way instead of use brute strenght and speed to over come your opponet..

I find this an interesting take, and look forward to further discussion.

I find it interesting because for some individuals, speed and/or strength are natural physical attributes. And strength is an attribute that just about everyone can increase with proper training. So, for such people, using speed and/or strength is a natural thing.

Thoughts?

[sensei8]

What does internal arts mean to you?

The opposite of external, and how MAists work and train how one move the energy within your body, how to heal, and how to find your center. Is it effective? I just don't know at all.

What does external arts mean to you?

The opposite of internal, MAists focus on the body, being able to execute techniques that serve for self-defense, combat and fighting. Is it effective? I just don't know about this either.

How can internal art be separated from external art?

I don't think that they can; they're connected not by choice, like a finger can't be separate from the hand, of which the finger had no choice but to be part of the hand, and the finger not becoming somewhere else on the body.

Is internal a spiritual thing, feeling or aspect?

Varies person to person.

Is external for you being something tangible?

In some ways. I mean, forces beyond my comprehension are at work somehow and someway, that I'm sure I can't deny.

Why does martial arts consider internal and external to be something worth while?

Why does the MA consider anything?! The diction of methodology and ideology serves the core of what's believed and what's not believed.

[tatsujin]

What does internal arts mean to you?

What does external arts mean to you?

I think that these two questions can be combined into one.

I think that when we look at what an internal art is (and therefore, what is not an internal art is an external art) has to do with power or power generation. In using the Chinese model, we have li and jin. The characters for each help to understand what is ment, The character for li is:

This character is ment to be a plow that goes through the earth or ground. It gives the connotation of pushing hard through resistance. In more general terms, it means physical force or energy.

This is the character for jin:

Notice that the right most portion of the character is li. So, there is li within jin (but no jin within li). Notice also that there are additional characters to the right. Those characters say "jing" (巠).

There are three (3) in total:

一 : this is yi and generally means one or "the whole"

巛 : this is chuan and refers to a river

工  : this is gong and refers to work...it is the same character that makes up gongfu or kung fu.

So jing is referring to something that is flowing or working and is under the surface. Jing when combined with li gives us jin.

Some folks (mainly external martial artists) take this the wrong way, but li is often referred to as "dumb power" or "stupid power". Jin, on the other hand is often referred to as "educated power" or "skilled power".

Use an example, someone joins a karate school of some sort. They immediately learn to punch, kick, strike, etc. Literally or almost literally from day one. It is all external strength/force/energy. Through training, they will hopefully learn the components of their art that make their external or physical strength/force/energy stronger.

When someone goes to a taijiquan, xingyiquan or baguazhang school (assuming the instructors are skilled enough), they are more concerned about what is happening on the inside than the outside. The first skills that are learned is "song" (only partially translated correctly as relax). This is where we get into the "mystical and mysterious" concept of qi. If you don't believe in it, that's fine. But the neijia (internal arts) are concerned with developing the structure that allows you to accumulate qi in the dantien and the to express it outwards when and how you wish. And, of course, it does take some degree of li to express it (fa). But when you have jin, you need less li. But the other side of the coin is that you can have all of the li in the world, but it won't give you jin.

Is internal a spiritual thing, feeling or aspect?

Well, an internal art CAN be spiritual if you are using it that way. Remember that the neijia started as Daoist arts. So, take baguazhang for example. You can certainly use it as a means of "moving meditation". And some people do just that. They never move off that and learn or utilize it as a martial art. Some folks do just the opposite and concentrate on just the martial aspect. Some do both.

As to a feeling, you do get different feeling and/or sensations when doing a neijia art correctly.

I am not sure what you mean by aspect.