Bingo! Give this man a prize!Originally Posted by GlennR
I personally, after practising a lot of martial arts, and reading a lot of books on the history of martial arts, the philosophical and religious traditions out of which they developed and the historical concept within which they developed began to doubt that "internal" was anything more than a modern appellation to three disparate arts.
Xingyiquan is a very practical spear art adapted to bare hands. The thrust-and-twist power generation that constantly comes up in Xingyi isn't a reference back to a byzantine Taoist yin/yang metaphysical dichotomy, it is how any sensible person stabs with a spear.
Plain And Simple.
Taijiquan, on the other hand, is pretty much indivisible from the Taoist metaphysical aspects built up around it. In fact, so much attention has been given to the metaphysics that it is entirely divorced from any sort of martial root, having become a good, low impact, method of keeping fit while practising meditation-in-movement.
Bagua is about half-way between these two extremes, it includes Taoist metaphysics but retains a fair bit of the original wrestling and locking content that it was intended for.
Circle walking isn't the wisest course of action on a battlefield (in fact it'll get you dead fast) but in a duel being to change angles rapidly could have been of use, suggesting that Bagua may have evolved out of gentlemanly duelling arts as well as a grapple / lock basis.
Considering the significance of standing locks and arm control to sword and knife practices this actually makes a certain amount of sense and, when perceived through this filter, provides a rational basis for how we might have ended up with something anomalous such as Bagua.
Please don't think I'm ignorant of the creation myths for each of these arts. I know them in detail. I just don't think them to be that relevant to discussing the actual evolution of the "internal" school.
So what do we have as "internal?"
1) A battlefield art - xingyi
2) A duellist art - bagua
3) A meditative / fitness / cultivation art - Taiji
Where do our references to "internal" arts mostly derive?
Why from the writings of a general on a well-rounded syllabus!
What social status did generals occupy in dynastic China?
Why I do believe they were gentlemen!
Who were expected to know how to duel? Gentlemen!
Who would be expected to practice personal cultivation? Gentlemen again!
Wow, surprising how that all fits together.
But these three disparate arts all sort of got blended a little, mostly in the last 150 years. A lot of the Taiji metaphysics rubbing off onto Xingyi and Bagua practice.
Fast-forward a hundred years more ant that "internal" metaphysics has started to rub off onto completely disparate arts like Wing Chun. It's not internal, there isn't anything internal about it. As with Xingyi, and to a lesser extent, Bagua, the apparent anomalies in how power is generated are actually things with rational explanations - the principle of the shortest path for instance.
However part of why Taoism has survived for 2500 years is because it is changeable. Successful religions and philosophies are. So, being changeable, it is easily adapted.
Somebody adapts Taoist metaphysics, drawn out of Taiji, to the power generation of a martial art and slaps the label "internal" on it.
What frustrates me is that by creating "internal" you create an opposite "external" which is defined as everything that is-not-internal.
My reading of the dedaojing is such that this is not the true Tao.
Only in the dissolution of opposites into unity will you find the Tao-That-Cannot-Be-Named.
Therefore the orthodox Taoist interpretation would be that there is no internal.
Of course, I am a crafter of beautiful lies that speak to truth. It is my stock in trade both to dissolve opposites and also to mislead in a way. So perhaps I am doing that right now.
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