Internal arts

The 'internal arts' are so-called because the focus is within.
You are required to feel rather than do.
Outward movement must reflect the inner condition and should stem from what is happening internally.
This sounds difficult until you consider it further.

Every movement made by the human body begins under the skin; nerves activate muscles and muscles move the bones.
There is nothing special about this; it is the normal process.
Tai chi simply reconsiders the way in which the movement is generated; it explores the how.

Indications of the external

External bad habits:

1. Force against force
2. More than 4 ounces of pressure exerted by you or expressed by you
3. Localised arm and shoulder movement
4. Deep, long or wide stances
5. Fixed legs - disconnected upper & lower
6. Tensed muscles
7. Over-emphasis of the waist
8. Incorrect use of the pelvis and hips
9. Pushing upon impact
10. Aggression

These will all perpetuate an external approach to tai chi chuan.

Mind

Yang Cheng Fu said "Use mind not force" and this one statement holds the key to understanding the difference between internal and external.
Intention requires considerable presence and awareness.
The student must have a calm, clear mind; focussed on the here and now.

The mind is used to create energetic outcomes within the body.
For example: a student seeks to 'sink' and 'root'.
A beginner may accomplish this by dropping deep into the hips, bending the knees and bearing the weight down.
Such a method would be fine in most martial arts, but in what way is it internal?

The physical action needs to be slight. No deep bending. No bearing down.
Use your mind instead.
If this seems difficult to you or unlikely, it reveals the fact that your training remains largely 'external'.

Body

Beginners treat tai chi chuan and baguazhang like external systems and rely upon deeply bent knees and exaggerated stances for power.
Their seeming root is accomplished through physicality not energy.
The jing of 'root' is created by mind, by energy, not-doing, by allowing - not by squatting.

In terms of something else

It can be difficult to perceive something new on its own terms.
The temptation is always to see it in terms of what you already know.
Yet, this approach closes your mind to the new.

Tai chi cannot be seen in terms of the conventional, external martial arts.
Yes, we require similar results:

1. Success in self defence
2. The ability to perform a variety of skills against a range of opponents
3. Appropriateness

But the means by which we accomplish and manifest these skills is quite different to mainstream combat systems.

You may know two hundred different martial arts but what is the quality of your movements? It's still just movement, it doesn't matter how many forms you know.

People with wisdom will use a tool properly, but a person with lower knowledge will recognise only one function of the tool. In the same manner, internal martial arts can be used for many functions because you use the same tool. This training method is only one tool, but it has many different uses.

You need to use one form for practice and include everything in it - mind, structure, movement and qi. If you can easily do all of these within each motion, that is the internal martial arts.

 

(Luo De Xiu)

Benton class

Central equilibrium

To feel central equilibrium you must find balance within your body.
The upper and lower must be united.
The front and back.
The sides.
Yin and yang (but that comes later).

Everything must work together.

Central equilibrium is not just the ability to stand on one leg.
It is about finding the middle way between apparent opposites.
If you are too much one way or the other, you will be weak.

Balance

Gaining a sense of balance is essential in tai chi.
You must never lose your balance.
Every step, every arm movement must be within the natural range of your reach, without compromising balance in any way.

Martially, you are vulnerable as soon as you lose balance.
You do not have to be falling over to lose balance, you just need to lift out of your centre.

Cross-training

When people ask Master Waller about cross-training he typically advises people to be cautious.
Why is this?

The problem is tension.
When people exercise they typically end up exerting. This results in tension in the muscles and inflexibility in the joints.
The problem is not with the exercise, but rather with how you do the exercise.
If you can keep tension-free, then do whatever suits you.

The one kind of cross-training that never works is mixing two internal and external martial arts together.
The tension you learn in the other style (and the bad body use habits) are always detrimental to your tai chi.

Master Waller does not cross-train.
The training methods in our syllabus are extensive and offer an extremely comprehensive, balanced daily workout.

Limbo dancing

Bending and twisting your spine is not encouraged in tai chi.
It can leave you vulnerable to back injury.

Maintain an upright posture, unless bending briefly forward at the hips in order to evade a strike.

If you need space, turn the hips and/or step.

Bandy legs

Flaccidity in the legs can be as bad as tension.
Floppy legs fail to support the body appropriately and in combat you are apt to fall over unnecessarily.

Standing qigong is the remedy for bandy legs.
Sink into your hips, relax the back of the knees and drop your weight internally.

Empty centre

The danger with being floppy is that you lack centre.
Without a pliable but flexible root, you cannot yield easily.

If you are tense, you will be brittle and hard.
Your centre must be strong but empty.

You may be capable of relaxing your arms, but if your torso is tense you have missed the point entirely.

Sung

Tai chi teaches the student to be loose, flexible and mobile.
But this condition is not flaccidity.
Going limp involves being disconnected, and will not usually work in combat.

When you have balanced softness appropriately, you will no longer be tense or floppy.
You will be 'sung'.
This is going to take some time, so be patient and practice.

Rooting

Rooting is a by-product of sinking - it is the feeling of inherent strength and stability that comes from the muscles and joints relaxing fully.
Allow the shoulders, elbows and wrists to become heavy and sink.

If you are successfully rooting then the insubstantial limb will feel heavy and solid when pushed.
This is a consequence of relaxed muscle, and is not a 'doing'. Be very careful not to brace or resist.

Relax?

Many people translate sung/song to mean 'relax' but this does not adequately capture the nature of this neigong.
Sung feels like the limbs are moving by themselves; all doing is gone.

It is a composite skill which relies strongly upon yielding.
Sung requires the body to be naturally sunk at all times and for the joints to open & close without conscious effort.
Peng permeates the body constantly, creating elastic bow tension although no conscious will is required to manifest or sustain it.
Resistance to force should feel anatomically uncomfortable.
The waist should return to the centre by itself once rotated and the elbows should be heavy.
Sung is not flaccid or inert - it is a cat-like readiness within the mobile structure.

You will not master sung until much later in the curriculum, but you can begin cultivating it immediately.

Getting it

The true sign of skill in tai chi is your ability to remain absolutely soft and gentle throughout your practice.
You will find that grace and fluidity emerge and you will be hard to manipulate.
Your movements will become smooth and flowing, and you can spontaneously adapt to the changing nature of the moment.
Strength will be present in your every movement, yet you will be unaware of it.

Expert students learn to feel only the movement, and not their own body.

This is called 'sung'. Until you stop being tense, this kind of skill is not possible.
Every time you move, relax. Then relax again. Repeatedly remind yourself to let-go.

Internal approach

An internal form is different to an external one.
Postures are like snap-shots, with the final position representing where the hands end up.
That final position is not the emphasis.
The emphasis is upon how you got there: which combination of body movements powered your frame.

Neigong cannot be incorporated fully into an external art because neigong requires the body to let-go and release stored tension.
Muscular usage must be imperceptible; at no time should you exceed 4 ounces of pressure.

Tai chi limbs are like boneless tentacles; heavy, loose, fluid yet connected.

No sense of strength should be felt by the student.
If you feel strong, then you're external and tense.
You should feel to be weak and yielding - which takes a leap of faith in the practitioner.

Only by letting-go can jing be released. How can it come out when you hold it in?

External obstacles

Training internal and external martial arts at the same time is not so good - the approaches contradict one another.
The external art will impede your tai chi progress.
Tai chi is concerned with whole-body movement, with the emphasis upon the movement itself; the how rather than the result.
Physical movement is largely concealed within the body, and only a small fraction is visible during the application.

External arts are strength-based and focus on speed and aggression.
The limbs move independently of the rest of the body, with a more superficial connection throughout the frame.
Strength is used against strength.

Hard-style attitudes

Many tai chi self defence instructors have an external martial arts background.
This is valuable experience but also an impediment.
Tai chi approaches combat in a very different way to the hard-style arts.

If you apply external methodologies and tactics to tai chi, it simply will not work in self defence.
At best, you'll have an external parody of tai chi.
At worst, you'll simply be defeated. 

You cannot train external and internal arts simultaneously and hope for the internal to work.
Under pressure the external would come out, not the internal.