What is Internal Martial Arts ?
Internal Martial Artists have been called Warriors of stillness.
Martial Arts could be generalised into two categories “External” and “Internal”.
External
marital arts train and develop stronger muscles and bones as well as
tougher skin. It is a very demanding popular form of martial arts that
is recognized today. Advantage of this training way makes people achieve
some level in short period as it is easier to understand than internal
martial arts theory and training. Because external martial arts was
invented to be used in war for soldiers long times ago. They did not
have much time to train soldiers properly. Therefore, only hard physical
training was allowed to use quickly. It makes trainee strong in short
period, but makes trainee's body damaged too. The drawbacks of training
external marital arts is that many people would lose the speed, balance,
strength and reflexes as they aged, thus you might see many sports
players actually retired early. The reason is that our physical body
also ages and becomes fragile, thus could not cope with the intensive
training like when we were young. You may be able to do very high flying
kicks and jumps in your 20s, but when you age, your body become less
flexible and bones are easily brittle. Our muscles may also shrink over
time, and could not perform as well as when you are young.
On
the other hand, internal martial arts is training the tendons and
ultimately building the internal force with strong meditation method.
Old and small, it is absolutely possible to defeat bigger taller
opponent if you train very hard in the internal martial arts. Comparing
to the external martial arts, instead of learning the self defence
techniques and skills in the fighting system, the internal martial arts
slowly build the "Qi (Vital Energy)",
the internal force as well as improving every important organs in your
body. Some examples such as Tai Chi, Baguazhang, Xingyi quan or Aikido
are demonstrating this point above well. To emphasis the fundamental of
the internal martial arts, we utilise the force from the earth (related with gravity),
which slowly pass through our body, combining with the internal force
to transfer to our opponent. By regular training in internal marital
arts, we will develop stronger “Tendon , Ligament , and
immune system” to keep sickness away from us. Unlike muscles, tendons
and ligaments are long-lasting. By utilising certain parts of our body
like a "Lever", a smaller person would defeat a bigger opponent with minimal force.
When
we were baby or child, our body was relax, so we was able to not being
injured well. For example, we can see when baby fell down from high
position, but he or she was not seriously injured. However, when we
getting aged, we have used brain a lot to consider many things. In this
period, the tension of brain makes our entire body nervous and stiff.
Nervous body is easy to fall down and being injured as it is slow to
react. If your body is nervous, you can not use “Natural force”.
When you control your enemy, you should make your body relax naturally,
and then you should use the force of the opponent, gravity, and bounce.
Namely, you need to be a transfer, not main. If you become main object,
then your muscle will be stiff, and the force from the earth will be
cut. The weak can not against to someone who has stronger muscle. You
just need to make your body a “Lever”. The lever can
generate a big force with only a little force. And, you need to borrow
the force of the gravity from the earth, not using your muscle. Nobody
can against to the force of the earth in the world. When you use the
force of opponent, if the opponent has big force, he would get back a
bigger damage as strong as. In addition, if you add the force of the
gravity and your internal force, the opponent would get damage more and
more.
The
general sports players use red muscle too. Most of them can not keep
their force when they are old. Many people misunderstand Tai Chi is just
kind of a dance or old men's exercise. Of course, current Tai Chi has
been turned to an exercise for old people's health now a days. Howver,
traditional one is fighting arts, and include healing energy arts as
well. There are some reasons related with Chinese history when they
began communism, and it is a long story and has conspiracy. There are a
lot of complicate theories and cryptics in Internal Martial and Energy
Arts.
It is impossible to explain and learning in short term. It has been
handed by “word to mouth” between master and disciples only for long
times. The secrets should not be recorded on the paper. Plus, contact
experience can be gotten in person. People who study Martial Arts by
themselves with only video or book can not catch the “Specific Sense” and
can not correct themselves. Masters correct students' defect and sense.
If you practice by yourself in the beginning and then having bad
habits, it will take longer time correcting it than very
beginners.Beginners do not have bad habits and are empty. So they can
learn better than people who have bad habits.
Why
does Internal Martial Arts move and learn slowly in the beginning?
There are reasons as fighting arts, not only for meditation. The main
two reasons why Internal Martial Arts practice and learn slowly are as
below;
1.
The fastest thing in the universe is mind rather than speed of light.
You need to match your mind and body. After you can match them
completely, your body can follow your mind. When you practice, it must
be slow. However, it must be fast in real combat. If you practice
quickly in the beginning, you can not catch the sense to match your mind
and body. On the other hand, if you can synchronize the opponent's mind
(using Shin (Spiritual power)), you do not even need to move quickly.
2.
Most people have bad habits during they are grown up. People use red
muscle and it is waste of energy, and is not strong. Internal Martial
arts trains white muscle (Tendon and Ligament), not red muscle. The red
muscle is stiff and easy to lose, especially when you getting older. You
can not move quickly and will be easy to being injured, if your body is
stiff. But Tendon and Ligament go long last, strong and flexible. Like a
rubber band. In order to catch the sense of Tendon and Ligament, you
have to practice slow and need to catch the sense of them. First, you
should feel the energy inside your body. Second, you should follow the
flowing of the energy force. Eventually, you will be able to control it.
You
can learn quickly, if you want. However, you need to remember that is
as same as instant food. If you get something easily and quickly, it is
also easy to lose quickly. Internal Martial Arts are as same as process
to make a good medicine or a sword.
If you hurry when you make a medicine, the medicine would not work well.
If you hurry when you make a sword, the sword would be broken easily.
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