Brief Comparison of External and Internal Martial Arts
2008-10-R13
(Copyrighted 2008 by Don M. Tow)
How are external and internal martial arts defined? What are their basic differences?
Chinese martial arts are generally classified into
external martial arts and internal martial arts.
The most well-known Chinese external martial
art is Shaolinquan, and the most well-known Chinese internal martial art is
Taijiquan.
There are more external martial arts than
internal martial arts.
Other examples of Chinese external martial arts
include Praying Mantis, Hung Gar, Monkey, Tiger, Wing Chun.
Besides Taijiquan, there are only two other
Chinese internal martial arts:
Baquaquan and Xingyiquan.
Some Chinese martial arts, such as White Crane
and Liuhebafa, are sometimes classified as combined external/internal
martial arts. Almost
all of the martial arts in the West, such as Boxing, Wrestling, Karate, Tae
Kwon Do, Judo, Jujitsu, and Kickboxing, are considered to be external
martial arts.
Aikido is one of the few exceptions and can be
considered to be an internal martial art.
External martial arts focus on external physical
power, such as strength of muscles and bones. Their goals are to make
the body to go faster, be stronger, and maintain the pace longer. They focus
on the individual external body components, e.g., arms, legs, abdomen,
chest, back.
They focus more on the near-term maximum
fitness of the individual body components, which could sometimes lead to
excessive usage or pounding on individual body parts and result in long-term
deterioration of those body parts.
Internal martial arts focus on the generation
and controlled circulation of Qi (some explanation of Qi is provided below).
They focus on the internal bodily functions (such as
the internal organs) and the body as an integrated whole.
Increasing the overall health of the individual
is a primary goal; internal martial arts are therefore very much related to
traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture.
In internal martial arts, it is critical to
relax body and mind, and the mind is much more involved, including
meditation.
Since we are much more familiar with external martial arts than with
internal martial arts and since learning an external martial art has a lot
of similarities with learning one of many commonly known sports, the rest
this article will focus on internal martial arts and in particular the
concept of Qi.
Since Qi is so crucial in understanding what an internal martial art is, I
would like to repeat some statements I wrote in the earlier article “The
Essence of Taijiquan - Part 2: Perspective from Taiji Qigong.”
First, what
is Qi? I don’t think that there is yet a definitive,
standard,
scientific answer to this question. However, just because we may not
yet have a detailed scientific definition of Qi that is universally accepted
by scientists, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Qi doesn’t exist.
Qi
is often defined as an energy, some sort of bioelectrical energy that exists
in the human body (mostly inside, but also near the exterior of the
body).
The
term “Qigong”
refers to
the practice that increases the Qi and its circulation within the body.
To
the many people in this world who practice Qigong on a regular basis, Qi is
as real to them as their breath, their heartbeat, their conscious mind.
They can feel the Qi in their body. They can guide the Qi to circulate
to different parts of their body.
Because the benefits of
Qigong from the perspective of martial applications (besides from the
perspective of long-term health) are also recognized by Chinese external
martial artists, most advanced Chinese external martial artists also engage
in some form of Qigong training.
But there are generally two major differences.
One difference is that Qigong training in
external martial arts is often a separate set of training from their form
and fighting training, whereas Qigong training in internal martial arts is
usually an integral part of their form and fighting training.
Another
difference is that external
martial arts focus on building Qi directly in the limbs and then move the Qi
from the limbs to the body. Internal martial arts focus on building Qi
in the body (where the vital organs are) and then lead the Qi from the body
to the limbs. In
traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture,
the human body has 12 major Qi channels (like rivers) through which the Qi
circulates, and has eight vessels (like reservoirs) which store the Qi and
also regulate the distribution and circulation of Qi in the body.
The focus of external
martial arts
is
on the Qi channels, and
the focus of
internal martial arts
is
on the Qi vessels.
Internal martial arts put great emphasis on breathing.
As a matter of fact, the word “Qi” in Chinese
also means air (the phrase
“Qigong exercise” is often translated as
“breathing and stretching exercise”).
The natural breathing method that we normally
use is to use the upper chest muscles to expand and contract the lungs.
When we breathe in, the chest expands, and when
we breathe out, the chest contracts.
In martial arts, especially in internal martial
arts (and also in yoga), one often uses lower abdominal breathing to replace
natural breathing.
With lower abdominal breathing, when we breathe
in, the diaphragm is pushed down allowing more room for the lungs to expand.
When we breathe out, the diaphragm is pushed up
to help contract the lungs.
There are two advantages to lower abdominal
breathing.
One is that by pushing down the diaphragm and
allowing more room for the lungs to expand, we can breathe in more oxygen.
The other is that with the diaphragm moving up
and down during breathing, the internal organs inside our abdominal area are
being massaged.
Such massaging is like exercising the internal
organs.
When we exercise other parts of our body, like our
arms and legs, we strengthen those body parts.
Similarly, when we exercise our internal
organs, we strengthen those internal organs.
It is interesting to note that babies use the
method of lower abdominal breathing.
For some reason unknown to me, as they become
older, they change to natural breathing.
There are also different methods of lower
abdominal breathing (see my earlier article “Breathing
and Taijiquan” for a slightly more detailed discussion).
Even though breathing is very important in internal
martial arts, in an introductory course, the instructor would often tell the
students not to pay any attention to breathing while doing the forms, i.e.,
they should just breathe as they normally do.
The reason is because beginning students
already have their hands and mind full with trying to learn the forms.
If they also have to integrate breathing while
doing the forms, it may be just too much to learn and retain simultaneously.
When I teach an introductory Taiji course, such
as the “Simplified Yang Style 24 Forms,” during the first half of the
course, that is exactly what I tell my students (although I still emphasize
breathing while doing some of the warm-up or stretching exercises).
It is only after about half way through the
course that I start telling the students when to breathe in and when to
breathe out as they are doing the forms, but still using the natural
breathing method, and not the lower abdominal breathing method, which is
reserved for subsequent courses.
Besides breathing being
an important ingredient in developing Qi, the mind also plays an important
role.
Even though while practicing an internal martial art
(for that matter, all martial arts) we should remove other matters from our
mind, our mind is not empty.
The mind should concentrate on what we are
doing. We
should use the mind to lead the form and use the mind to visualize the
oxygen and Qi flowing to various parts of the body.
There is a saying “the mind leads, the Qi
follows, the blood follows the Qi, and the strength follows the blood.”
As we become more experienced in Qigong, we
begin to develop the ability to feel where Qi is being blocked in our body,
or where there is too much Qi or not enough Qi, i.e., a yin-yang imbalance
of Qi.
We can then concentrate our training and practice to
focus on that part of the body to try to remove the blockage or to eliminate
the yin-yang imbalance, thus improving our health from the perspective of
traditional Chinese medicine.
Qigong development is not
a simple skill to learn.
It takes extensive training by a qualified
instructor and extensive practice.
However, there are several well-known and
simple Qigong exercises that one can learn and practice even in an
introductory course.
As a matter of fact, some subset of such Qigong
exercises are often used as part of the warm-up or stretching exercises in
internal martial arts courses, such as Taijiquan.
Here are two common examples.
One is the “Eight Silk Brocade,” a set of
Qigong exercises dating back at least 2,000 years.
Another is a more recently formulated set
called “Eighteen Breathing and Stretching Exercises.”
There are many more and
some highly complex Qigong exercises.
Many of them involve some degree of meditation.
Describing them is beyond the scope of this
article and also beyond the expertise of this author.
The objective of internal
martial arts is to strengthen the whole body from within, giving rise to
better health and better martial techniques.
Better martial techniques mean more powerful
strikes, more capacity to withstand strikes, and more rapid reflexes and
movements.
Better health means better ability to maintain
the skills and execution of those skills even at more senior ages, like into
the 70s and 80s.
Many of us have witnessed the effectiveness of Qigong in increasing the
capacity to withstand strikes when we witness
in martial arts
exhibitions a martial artist
resisting a
pointed spear pointed to a spot below his throat (the esophagus area).
As a matter of fact, the martial artist not only can avoid
puncture of
that area of the body, but can actually bend the spear.
This
is accomplished by the martial artist concentrating a large amount of Qi in
that part of the body.
An example of the ability
to continue to execute high level martial skills at senior ages was
described in B. K. Frantzis’s book
The Power of
Internal Martial Arts:
Combat Secrets of Ba Qua, Tai Chi, and Hsing-I.
He described as a nineteen-year-old karate
champion who had studied various kinds of martial arts in the
In summary, external
martial arts focus on training the external parts of the body and often on
the individual parts, and internal martial arts focus on training the
internal parts of the body and usually the body as an integrated whole.
Breathing and involvement of the mind are much
more important in internal martial arts.
A key ingredient of internal martial arts is
the generation of Qi and controlled circulation of Qi.
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