What distinguishes Internal from External?
Having been a ring fighter who turned to Tai Chi and Qi Gong due to injuries, I thought I had a firm understanding of what fighting was all about—I knew martial arts. At least, that’s what I assumed. What I failed to recognize was the significant difference between Internal practices and External ones.
The Tai Chi Classics come to the rescue
One thing my first Internal teacher gave me that was Gold was his reliance on The Classics.
He always had a large book, written in Chinese, at his feet when he taught. During our discussions, he would pause and say, “Let’s see what the Classics have to say about that.”
He would bend down, open the book, and flip through the pages until he found the passage he sought. Then, he would read aloud to all the assembled students the insightful words left by the founders of this art form.
The Ten Guiding Points
Nowadays, there exists unwarranted controversy where none should exist. I can only attribute this to a deficiency in knowledge and perhaps the individuals involved in the dispute were not properly educated.
The Ten Guiding Points act as a summary of what defines Internal, not just for Tai Chi but for Qi Gong also.
That there is controversy over the First Point strikes me as unwarranted, arrogant, and borders on not just ill-informed, but ‘not very smart’.
The first guiding point is very clear and is borne out by other writings by Taiji Masters.
Number One attribute of Taiji, and Qi Gong – Relax
Although we prefer to use the word Release because of the connotations of Relax. Some relate that word to Collapse.
Relax/Release does not mean weak. On the contrary, it refers to one method of ensuring Integrity.
When a person tenses their muscles they immediately separate that body part from the rest of the body.
If you tighten and raise your shoulder for instance the result is that the arm disconnects and the physics of power creation are sub-par. An aligned body/structure is the ideal way of creating power for anyone, Internal or External. An unaligned body must be supplemented with muscle to make up for that handicap.
The creation of a powerful body partly depends on how aligned it is. If you are full of tension you cannot be correctly aligned.
Contracting tension also pulls power back towards the fighter. It also stops or hampers the flow of blood and Qi.
Can you imagine setting out to increase the flow of Qi in your body and then purposely constricting the areas you want the Qi to flow through?
Number Two attribute of Taiji and Qi Gong – Sink
Sink or Root, comes from Relax/Release.
If you do not ‘let go’ you float. This is a provable fact and cannot be argued.
If you hold your breath, stick your chest out, pull your lower back in etc. you not only have way too much tension in your body, but will be top heavy.
Top heavy is the opposite of Rooting, which comes from Sink
How are these different from External?
Have you ever watched an MMA fight? Tight, tense fighters right?
You watch football? TIght and tense, right?
You could say that these athletes have a sense of grounding and balance, but nowhere near what we do in Taiji and Qi Gong.
Take for example the first movement of Press as executed in Yang style.
Most people just kind of loosely let their arm circle to the rear then upwards and forward in a half circle.
Done in a Rooted and Aligned manner the arm should be supported by the hip and thigh the entire time. If not it is not Tai Chi.
Who in football or MMA trains in this manner. It is rare enough even in Taiji to find people who practice in this manner.
Body As a Single Unit
This is another attribute of Taiji that is completely foreign to External sports and martial arts.
What it means is that All Body Parts are required to be rooted/supported and connected.
From the foot to the hip to the torso and arms, all movement must be connected and come from the hips and feet.
Most Taiji players today are not capable of this but at its peak they were, and in some parts of China there remain Taiji fighters who train this way. But it is rare.
Punches are not that common in Taiji but when we do perform them it cannot be the same as a Karate Lunge Punch. That is more like a hammer, we move more like a clockwork.
In the Classics, and in the first book on Taiji, written by Chen Xin, there is reference made to ‘the turning of the joints.’
Joint rotation is only possible in a released and aligned body. How can you adjust a joint when it is locked? You cannot.
If a boxer raises his elbow during a hook punch that arm is left out of the ‘body as a single unit’ equation.
If a football player locks his hip joints his lower and upper body cannot be adjusted or made one piece.
It is only in Taiji and Qi Gong that we pay attention to Relax, Sink, and Body As a Single Unit. No other physical activity does this, or at least not to the degree that we do.
Recently there have been a few saying that Taiji is neither Soft/Relaxed or Internal.
This is obviously untrue as during its development from a fundamental External martial art to one of the Supreme martial arts of China its main developer looked to Taoist breathing techniques, meridian theory, Qi Gong, all of which are Internally focused.
At its inception, Taiji was based on the Internal art of Qi Gong.
There is a saying that Taiji contains Qi Gong, but Qi Gong does not contain Taiji.
The controversy around whether or not Taiji is Internal or Relaxed is a fraudulent argument based on misunderstanding of the art and its creation, and continued by the many practitioners who have not been taught how to create Peng for use in our Applications.
When you see these people using External methods applied to Tai Chi postures you can be sure that they were not taught by a teacher ‘of proper lineage.’
