Cultivating Skill in Internal Arts

In Chinese martial arts, the perspective of arts being “internal” as opposed to “external” likely was developed in the 19th century, when instructors of Tàijíquán, Bāguàzhǎng, and Xíngyìquán decided that their arts shared similar underlying ideas and organizing principles, even though outwardly they appeared different. They wanted to distinguish themselves from arts directly derived from Shaolin martial arts, whom they felt were organized differently at a foundational level. Specifically, they referred to their arts as nèijiā (internal) and the Shaolin-derived arts as waijiā (external).

The nèijiā are often not as old as waijiā – precisely because they are generally a reaction to the existing practices prevalent during their time as opposed to the culmination or epitome of them. The term waijiā should, however, not be taken immediately as being pejorative. The subject of what is internal versus what is external is a complex one, but always it is a mistake to conflate the dialectic of good vs. bad with internal vs. external in discussions of martial arts. Indeed, there are skilled and mediocre practitioners of nèijiā and waijiā both.

In general, however, one can think of internal training as developing a different or nonintuitive reaction or reflex or quality in a specific domain (e.g., strength, speed, balance) whereas external training is concerned with taking the normative expression of a quality and developing it to its logical conclusion. For example, developing the speed of a punch or kick is an external skill, whereas developing relaxation and sensitivity so that one’s own punch is quicker than an opponent’s, no matter what their speeds are in of itself, would be an internal skill. There is generally, in internal training, a focus on inner awareness and awareness in relation to the world that a skill is measured within (e.g., how hard can I punch a moving, reacting, opponent, and what effect does that punch have on him) rather than only its effect in of itself (e.g., how hard I can punch a stationary object).

Often in Tàijíquán practice we are reminded that besting someone is not enough. If the method by which an opponent is defeated does not respect tàijí principles, the result was not a proper expression of Tàijíquán, even if we can push the other person offbalance. Also, body development in of itself is not necessarily external or internal – one may develop skill at Tàijíquán or Bāguàzhǎng, but when you strike someone, the result will depend on your body, its development and organization, irrespective of the art whose tactic you used to do so. So, body development methods drawn from various qigong have their place in both internal and external martial arts. However, training methodologies and intent may differ between the two. Regardless of methodology, different levels of body development and organization provide some of the key discriminators between high-level and lowlevel skill, irrespective of a particular style.

I continue to work on my breath and posture as part of my martial arts practice, to help develop connection between the different parts of my body. In yoga, I continue regular breathing practice to purify and energize the body – helping prepare it for meditation. I view my hatha yoga practice as a spiritual pursuit: I engage in asana (yoga posture) practice to balance out the body and bring my awareness to the way in which my breath can unify body and mind. Doing so, I am aiding the development of my skill at meditation.

One common refrain seen in martial arts practitioners interested in internal martial arts a quest for greater amounts of power – by this I mean psycho-spiritual willpower or strength of personality but also the more prosaic ability to move fast, be strong, and resist damage and pain. Maybe a place to begin in discussing this general topic is to consider what working definitions of strength, energy, and power are.

We notice energy not always by feeling it directly, but often visually by watching its effect and inferring its source. Often, that inference is mistaken. For example, we see someone throw someone, and when there is a big movement resulting, we instinctively believe there was a great amount of power exhibited by the thrower. Wanting to be able to do the same, we might try to get stronger by lifting weights or working on our technique. However, some displays of skill are so profound we begin to wonder if, in a superstitious way, there is not something more involved.

While qi or prana figure importantly as an organizing metaphor in both Taoist ideas of transformation and healing, as well as esoteric practices of transformation and self-realization, one does not in any of these traditions look upon the ability to use prana or qi in external ways as the beginning motivation for or end goal of one's practice. When we practice breath work, we develop certain internal sensations of what we perceive as energy moving through our bodies. If we assume that energy can manifest itself external to our selves – rather than just being our own physical sensations of cultivating circulation of the blood, enervation of the nerves, and pressure and stretching and conditioning of the body – we will direct our focus and intention outward instead of developing an inner awareness of force and structure. We need to develop an ability to listen to our bodies so we may improve our ability to experience those sensations. In doing so, we can make our body more and more integrated and connected. We are then able to exhibit more efficient posture, relaxed movement, and skillful absorption and discharge of force. But that force is entirely physical – the product of an increased integration of body and mind.

The required method of development in this area is quite foreign to many martial artists. It involves an inner awareness and slow and steady training of the body to perceive the forces acting on it. One hopes to gain the ability to convey forces through the body's structure in a very efficient manner. To do so, we must also define and improve this structure. This is far from blind extension or contraction of a single muscle or muscle group. It is also far from simply coordinated movement of the body, although a great deal of coordination is required. Merely recruiting more joints and muscles into a movement does not allow one to reproduce the higher levels of internal skill in martial arts. That is the start, not the finish. Rather, we need to replace our original instincts about how we stabilize the body, how we respond to, and how we generate, force. A great deal of the effort involved is dealing with the nervous system – how the reflexes of the body work when the body is enervated and when relaxed. Qi, if energy, is potential energy – the ability to do work, not mass or kinetic energy in and of itself.

At first, when we engage in breathing practice and do a moving meditation, we cultivate sensations in our bodies and can make our martial arts practice feel much more vibrant and alive. But without knowledge of how to apply the force of the ground through our bodies in a relaxed manner – the simple normal force in response to a push against a fixed structure like the ground in the sense of static analysis – we can feel enervated by our breathing or qigong all we like, but it will do us little benefit in a martial encounter. In essence, if we do not know the path we are attempting to walk, and are not being properly guided, we can delude ourselves into thinking that we are more "powerful" because of our breathing or stance-training or meditative practice, but we cannot put that "power" to use. Not knowing any better, some people rationalize these internal sensations as a presence external to their own body. They then don't have a mechanism by which to apply the little sensation they do feel in a constructive manner.

There can be energy or stress/strain within the body as well as potential energy from the weight of the body. There is also the normal force of the ground acting back on the body's structure or form. Force issued or momentum imparted in an opponent, when a product of these three ideas, can be said to be "internal". Proper application of internal force is not felt by the issuer – it is transmitted completely into the target of a push or strike. Any force felt by the issuer is force that was not conveyed along a pure path into the other person – inefficiencies in direction or guidance caused, like friction, the force to act on ourselves instead of the other person. The most profound applications of correct technique I have to date succeeded in (limited and as rare as they were), during execution I have always felt absolutely nothing. In the most profound applications of correct technique I have ever felt – the forces involved have been an order of magnitude more powerful than what I could imagine possible. This points not to some other-worldly development but rather to an integrated use of the body in a very specific and refined manner.

In that neijia such as bagua, xingyi, taiji develop the body in specific ways, and thus the body's ability to manifest qi, they are said to be a form of qigong. Conversely, some forms of qigong are actually standing martial arts practices in disguise – yiquan is a good example, as well as people who practice taiji exclusively for health. So, qijong and neijia are related. There are also Taoist religious practices, called Taogong or Neigong, which are physical-spiritual efforts to transform the body into an immortal state. Qigong is a fundamental part of these practices as well, but they go far beyond the ideas I describe above in the context of martial arts, and are a path into themselves.