Internal power generation

Discussion in 'Internal Martial Arts' started by Simon, Jun 21, 2016.

  1. aaradia

    aaradia Choy Li Fut and Yang Tai Chi Chuan Student Moderator Supporter

  2. Avenger

    Avenger Banned Banned

    How about if we look at what is internal and what is external by what we loose with time or with non exercise?, if as we age, ask the question what will we loose if we don't use it.
    We still will maintain health, but not maintain a above normal training routine directed at conditioning that supports normal health. If we do not do extra strength or speed exercises, what will we loose, maybe those things we loose should be categorized as external and abilities and those that we developed and don't loose as more internal ?.
     
  3. aaradia

    aaradia Choy Li Fut and Yang Tai Chi Chuan Student Moderator Supporter

    Sorry, but that seems like something you just made up on the spot. We can all make up our own ideas of internal and external if we want to. Don't see what good or use that is- no offense.

    Besides, one loses everything that one doesn't use. Including "exercising" the mind. What do you define as something that isn't lost when you stop "exercising it?"

    WHY is what you say above internal or external in your mind anyways?
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2016
  4. Rebel Wado

    Rebel Wado Valued Member

    I think 20/20 hindsight plays a role in internal training making sense as we get older. I just look at all the years of training and knowing what I know now, I may have done some things a bit differently.

    Health is very important and goes along with injury prevention. Hard style training leaves many people with injuries that never completely heal, but sometimes through training we come back stronger, even though the injury persists in some way.

    I would say that it can be the extremes that show us where we are lacking. Work out to exhaustion and then see where performance in sparring and forms is lacking. When older, it might not take as much to work to exhaustion (provided the correct exercises/routine). So when older, it is easier to find where we are lacking. I think this is why age can be a factor. When younger, you might get away with more before complete exhaustion (the exhaustion might be more mental and less physical).

    The extremes can be shown in a simple exercise too. Relax completely and drop the shoulders. Have someone measure how far your shoulders drop and how much tension is still in them. Then raise your shoulders and tense the body as much as you can. Then relax completely again. Most, including myself, show more relaxation and shoulder drop after the tension.

    Comparing what is done when younger to older is just relative. Really look at where in the extremes you move in each direction.
     
  5. Avenger

    Avenger Banned Banned

    I did just make it up on the spot.

    I also stated physical exercise in excess, nothing about letting the mind go.

    I just think that if you could analysis yourself, this might be something that would be interesting to look at, I am sure that we would all have variable results, but maybe some enlightenment or food for thought.
     
  6. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    I would call it technique over attributes. I agree with the distinction you are drawing but still fell internal external is redundant
     
  7. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Technique and attributes are similarly intertwined and inseparable.

    There is no such thing as a technique that does not rely on attributes in one way or another, and many that are only possible to perform once a certain attribute threshold is met.

    If we go with "internal" muscle recruitment; is that technique or attribute? Is weightlifting technique or attribute?

    It's all very yin-yang and interconnected.
     
  8. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Then you sir have never done ninjutsu.
     
  9. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    There is such a thing as a technique that doesn't rely on physical attributes.

    That doesn't mean attributes dint amplify technique or that the two are entirely separate.
     
  10. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Fat is an attribute :p

    The worst for that are the Tai Chi faeries. They use Qi, not muscles!

    Although, even if we take that on face value; wouldn't Qi be an attribute? ...but then the cultivation of Qi is done through techniques, and the yin-yang circle continues...

    Back on planet earth, the same can be said of physical attributes - without technique you cannot develop attributes. Musculoskeletal mechanics ("form") and building neuromuscular connections are technique-driven methods used to develop attributes through continuous practice.
     
  11. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    Or Brazilian jujutsu?
     
  12. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Without any attributes you cannot move. Strength, balance, proprioception etc. are all intertwined and inseparable.
     
  13. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    Well we seem to have different ideas about how we define attributes and I'm not going to say you are wrong.
     
  14. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    Last edited: Jul 5, 2016
  15. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    Strength is a skill - it gets better the more you practice it and goes away when you don't
    :)
     
  16. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

  17. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    And skill = technique + attributes! :)

    Knitting, sewing, painting 1/25th scale soldiers... is the hand-eye coordination needed to do these things technique or attribute?

    The technical knowledge of how to knit, sew or paint tiny things is certainly technique, but the actual praxis cannot be separated in the same way.
     
  18. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    Well strength could be looked at as an attribute and a skill from different perspectives. I'm not interested in a semantic debate around physical attributes though as Im happy for you to have a different definition than me and both our definitions fit with my original point.

    My point was this:

    A) in avenger's post he was talking about the physical decline of an aging martial artist and characterising what was left as internal and that which has diminished as external.

    B) I think the above is a less helpful description of how as you age your physical attributes either diminish or disappear (depending on how you define them ie strength diminishes or you are no longer strong) and your technical abilities such as structure and detail awareness remain.

    That's all I was really saying.

    Although high level physical attributes can aid learning and amplify technique, many techniques don't require a high level of a given number of attributes to work or to be aquired.

    I think of physical attributes as being things you excel at physically either through genetics or dedicated development and you appear to think of them as any underlying physical property irrespective of how developed it is ie the difference between fast and speed. There are probably other perspectives too. Of course without any physical capability the development of technique is impossible.
     
  19. David Harrison

    David Harrison MAPper without portfolio

    I get that. All I was saying was that technique and attributes are as intertwined as internal and external. You cannot have one without the other.

    If internal = musculoskeletal mechanics, neuromuscular recruitment, proprioception etc., and external = raw muscular power and cardiovascular capacity, then the above two statements would appear to have the same meaning.

    You have argued a semantic point about definitions, then said that you are not interested in arguing semantic points about definitions ;) . If you are happy for the definitions of technique and attributes to be variable, then why not internal and external?
     
  20. Knee Rider

    Knee Rider Valued Member Supporter

    Well, only by your own definition of them can you not have one without the other (but that doesn't mean I think there is no relationship).

    I see no martialarts training that exclusively focuses on raw muscular power so I reject internal/external as having any relevance as a semantic used to typify training practices within the martialarts. I see that what people term external training actually develops the properties associated with internal training in avenger's post. Overall there is a lot of existing baggage to the terms which contradict the separation in that post.

    We have different notions of what 'attributes' mean in this discussion but we are easily able to clarify to the extent we can agree (i think) that attributes can decline while technique can remain, which is the only reason I've discussed semantics - to acknowledge the differing interpretation but stress that I don't see it as interesting enough to get bogged down in. Although there might be differing interpretations to the terms 'attributes' and 'technique' I think they seem much clearer and less historically muddied and loaded than internal/external.


    You obviously disagree.

    I think sometimes the more semantics get debated the more obfuscating they become and the further away the convo drifts from the content to the terminology.
     
    Last edited: Jul 5, 2016

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