As an avid student of Kung Fu (Wing Chun since 1989, other styles since 1977) and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (since 1998), I have sought out the higher level subtleties as well as the fundamentals. An ongoing quest.
Travelling such a path, one continually comes across claims of “Internal” Kung Fu, and “Invisible” Jiu Jitsu, and how abilities with such aspects of the respective arts are the hallmarks of the highest level practitioners.
I argue in this post that the intersection of these two concepts is significant. Perhaps much larger than practitioners of the individual arts might care to admit.
Internal Kung Fu
The definition of “internal” with regards to the broad and diverse spectrum of Kung Fu styles is highly problematic. To a huge extent it depends on who you ask, and just about everyone’s answer is self serving.
Among a host of definitions of what makes a style “internal” are:
- Arts based on the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine, rather than on animal movements or human kinesiology
- Arts associated with the native Chinese Taoist Temples of the Wudang mountains, rather than those associated with the Shaolin monasteries, into which Buddhism was imported from India by Bodhidharma – a definition based on politics as much as anything else
- Arts embodying the use of the Six Harmonies, specific and non-innate methods of force generation and movement
- Practices, methods, and implementation based on softness, employing relaxed force, body unity, sinking the bodyweight and using the ground as a base for applying and receiving force, redirection of force and using it against the opponent, integration with breath and internal structural alignment, rather than muscular force and aggressive, direct opposition of force. It is used for health cultivation using the principles of TCM as much as it is for combat.
I trained in the Wudang martial arts of Taijiquan, Xingyiquan, and Baguazhang from 1980 to 1985, under an instructor who was also one of the first Gwailos to study and be formally certified in acupuncture in Asia. I studied the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as an adjunct to this training, including a course on acupressure massage of about four months duration conducted by a very capable and knowledgeable (and entertaining!) associate of my instructor.
I met Sun Lutang‘s grandson on a trip to Shanghai with my instructor and fellow students. I watched an old lady perform a perfect Baguazhang form with double hooked swords, then drop into a full split, in People’s park in the same city. I didn’t do any rooftop Wing Chun challenge matches in Hong Kong, but I worked Taiji push hands against some guys who tried very hard to push me over on a rooftop in Taipei. With a few shouted tips from my instructor, I held my own, more or less.
My instructor’s claim and belief was that the each of the Wudang arts was based on the concepts of TCM:
- Taijiquan (Supreme Ultimate Fist), was based on the principles of Yin and Yang
- Xingyiquan (Mind Form Fist) was based on Five Element Theory
- BaguaZhang (Eight Diagram Palm) was based in the principles of the I Ching
As well as the martial techniques of these three arts, I also practised a form of Taoist Yoga under the same instructor. This consisted of five exercises, each corresponding to one of the elements of the Five Element Theory of TCM, upon which, as mentioned above, the Wudang art of Xingyiquan is also based.
The three main Wudang arts themselves (there are a few others) also work towards health cultivation and the balancing of Qi along the acupuncture meridians, though their primary purpose was for fighting.
The Wudang arts are also those belonging to the political demarcation I mentioned above.
Others claim that the Wudang styles embody the Six Harmonies, three external (the hands harmonize with the feet, the hips harmonize with the shoulders, the elbows harmonize with the knees), and three internal (the heart harmonizes with the intention, the intention harmonizes with the Qi, the Qi harmonizes with the movement). A type of movement named Silk Reeling, purportedly using muscle and tendon channels associated at some level with the acupuncture meridians, typifies the movements and techniques of the internal arts. The use of “external” muscular strength allegedly invalidates and nullifies this style of movement, and fighting. This is deep and confusing, and interested readers could start further investigation with this blog post.
Most, though to be fair not all, practitioners of the Wudang arts regard their arts as the only Kung Fu styles worthy of the term “Internal”. They regard their arts as superior to others … Oh, yes you do. Calling your art “Supreme Ultimate Fist” allows you no plausible deniability or false humility.
So if that includes you, the use of the term “internal” will be irrelevant and misplaced. Think of “soft” vs. “hard” if you are gracious enough to stick around.
Even that delineation is inaccurate where the Wudang arts are concerned – my instructor claimed that Xingyi is a very hard martial art, harder than Kyokushin karate, as hard as a fist of diamond.
The rest of this article deals with the last definition, loosely equating “internal” with softness and the use of breath, relaxation, “energy” (qi, jing) rather than strength, absorption and redirection of rather than opposition to the opponent’s force, and internal body structure to power the engine of combat, rather than muscular strength, speed and aggression.
A loose and wide ranging definition, a wide net to attempt to catch an extremely slippery fish.
Most non-Wudang martial artists understand “internal” arts as associated with health cultivation, softness, and qi; and external arts with attributes such as strength and speed.
Some practitioners of non-Wudang arts, such as Wing Chun Kung Fu, claim, based on such definitions, that their style therefore has internal aspects and can allow the practitioner to develop internal skills, as their arts rely on sensitivity, yielding and redirection of the opponent’s force and using it against them.
Aikido is strongly grounded in the use of Qi (called ki in Japan). To my mind it qualifies as an internal art under my working definition.
Arts like Judo have soft and yielding aspects. Jiu Jitsu, the Arte Suave, the gentle art, in its advanced forms and outside of competition, relies on the practitioner remaining relaxed and using the opponent’s movements against him to engineer his own defeat.
Is Wing Chun internal? And why would this matter?
The big big question is: superior for what?
Fighting? We have yet to see Wudang arts win big in the UFC, Bellator, or anywhere else.
There was the “Taiji Master” who got schooled by an “MMA fighter” in China some months back. Some had it that this was a young punk beating up an old man, but no, the MMA guy was 38 and the Taiji guy 41.
Josh Waitzkin, author of the excellent The Art of Learning, was a chess grandmaster and champion. He was also a world Taiji push hands champion and coach. Unlike what you see people doing in parks and Taiji studios, he makes Taiji push hands sound and look like Greco-Roman wrestling, with discussion of underhooks, overhooks, etc. He also discusses how he worked on his cardio, not a common subject in Taiji circles. There wasn’t much talk in the book of silk reeling, IIRC.
Significantly, Josh diversified and now holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Marcelo Garcia.
As an aside here, much of my class time at the Wudang school was spent doing fairly strenuous calisthenics – basic stuff, pushups, situps, jumping jacks. We would also run laps around the block in black Kung Fu uniforms barefoot near Central railway station in Sydney. Yeah, weird. My feet got tough, though.
I became as fit as I have ever been. In hindsight, I could have done the fitness program on my own and would have preferred to spend more class time on actual techniques and sparring. It was about as much to do with internal martial arts as aerobics.
As it happens, we had a lovely and charming female aerobics instructor among the students for a while, who took us through some workouts in class. Good times.
So … fighting? Supreme Ultimate? Not lately.
Google “Internal Wing Chun”, You will find a tonne of videos. I have yet to see one that defines what it is, other than in vague terms of qi, energy, expansion and contraction, softness, relaxation, lengthening and aligning the spine, not using muscular strength, etc. Some claim no more than that, and that’s fine. Others seem to hint at something more, something demonstrated in controlled conditions or drills like chi sao, on compliant students or paying seminar attendees. Few against a skilled, resisting opponent.
Some may want to tell me “you don’t know enough to understand”. I had a boss in my IT job who tried that approach with other managers, it didn’t go well for him.
I suggest two possible allegories apply to my allegedly ignorant situation (and their allegedly informed one):
- Pearls before swine
- The Emperor’s new clothes.
John Will has suggested that real practitioners of such apparently supernatural practices should stop hiding their lights under a bushel, do a show in Vegas, and get rich.
A prominent Chinese Wing Chun practitioner has said, “if all that stuff were true, China would win every medal in every Olympics.”
So what about health cultivation and being able to train into old age, embracing the Tao and living in harmony with the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine?
Legends abound of Taoist mystics and the like living well into double centuries. Many anecdotes exist of people at death’s door who were restored to glowing, abundant health through the practice of Taiji or Qigong. Even from watching someone else practice it from their sick bed.
The Australian writer and cartoonist Geoff Pike, who knew my Wudang instructor fairly well, and who I once met briefly, wrote a book called “Live Longer, Love Longer – The Power of Chi” detailing his battle with cancer, the recovery from which he attributed to meeting a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine who helped him cure himself with herbal and other treatments, and the prescription of various Qigong exercises. He avoided surgery … but accepted radiation therapy.
Arguably, two of the best known Wudang practitioners of the last century were Cheng Man-ching, popularized in the West by Robert W. Smith, and Wang Xiangzhai, the inventor of a Xingyiquan derivative called Yiquan. Neither made it to eighty years old.
Whereas we have Helio Gracie living until 95. The factors leading to extended lifespan are many, and interact in ways that make Chaos Theory look trivial, but you’d probably expect a better average than this amongst lifelong committed practitioners when the claims made are so extraordinary. We should await a comprehensive and rigorous scientific study on such matters before deciding finally either way, probably. It is worth considering that Helio and Carlos Gracie were both deeply involved in health cultivation practices of their own, most specifically with diet.
Rickson and Kron Gracie were and remain committed students of Yoga and related breathwork, as taught by Orlando Cani.
The use of internal martial art principles should allow us to vanquish our adversaries while expending a minimum of effort. We can avoid injury by not opposing the opponent’s force directly. But every martial art under the sun makes those claims. Even the highly external art of Western boxing makes a good case for embodying that approach.
Invisible Jiu Jitsu
Jiu Jitsu as performed by experts is an art that does not rely solely on strength or speed. Good Jiu Jitsu practitioners use concepts and principles of
- Base (connection to the ground and using the ground as a platform to apply or receive force)
- Structure (correct skeletal and tendon alignment and kinesiological principles to manage force, rather than reliance solely on muscular strength)
- Posture (which is arguably a subset of structure)
- Frames (use of the skeleton an the body’s structural integrity to manage distance, rather than muscular strength. Arguably another subset of structure)
- Levers (Force multipliers. We use levers provided by the opponent’s body to control and attack him in situations where our ability to apply force exceed his)
Just about any student with a few month’s Jiu Jitsu experience can understand these principles and how to employ them at a gross level. They are profound, but not obscure or complex.
Ryan Hall’s “Defensive Guard” DVD set expresses the Jiu Jitsu concepts of posture and structure with great eloquence. The video below by Rob Biernacki gives a pretty good overview of the above conceptual framework. Rob Biernacki admits his debt to Ryan Hall in developing these concepts in several of his videos.
However, there are situations where small technical or postural adjustments which, while not visible to any but the most attentive and discerning observers, can make large differences in the efficacy of a particular technique. Most often such adjustments are best felt, rather than seen. Hence the expression “Invisible Jiu Jitsu”.
Rickson Gracie and his student Henry Akins are probably the most celebrated exponents of what they term “Invisible Jiu Jitsu””. Another principle of their Jiu Jitsu besides those mentioned, they call Connection.
Employing this principle is often about as close to invisible as it gets. Tiny adjustments, big changes.
It needs to be shown rather than described, and felt rather than shown. Technology to provide the last remotely is not available as yet, so:
Structure and Connection are not always appropriate. There are some situations where you want to deny the opponent any structural platform or connection to apply force or techniques on you, through the principles of “Collapsing Structure”and “Becoming Formless”. Kit Dale and Nic Gregoriades discuss this on their “Beyond Technique” videos. I have previously reviewed Volume 2 of that series.
It is this type of “invisible force” that allows Dave Camarillo, who fought as a lightweight, to feel like he is a B Double truck parked on your chest when he wants, or to slither around you weightlessly like a python consisting entirely of ectoplasm.
Coral belt or higher practitioners like Pedro Sauer, and Carlos, Jean Jacques, and Rigan Machado, seem to have an understanding of equilibrium and body control that allows them to manhandle you effortlessly and in ways that you find totally unpredictable. Several of my Jiu Jitsu seniors told me that former MMA fighter Carlos Newton could kneel head to head in front of them and make them fall over with what seemed like a cursory touch. None of these gentlemen would claim any arcane or supernatural abilities.
Comparison
Here we have a video of “Real Internal Wing Chun”, looking rather like a Taijiquan demonstration. A judgement on my part which might not sit well either with this Wing Chun practitioner’s followers or Taiji practitioners. I’ve seen similar Systema demos.
This appears to be soft, grounded, sensitive movement. Undoubtedly there is a skill demonstrated here.
A more impressive demonstration would involve successfully employing such skills against a skilled wrestler, judoka, sumotori, or Taiji practitioner, rather than paying students at a seminar. There may be Wing Chun practitioners who are also Jiu Jitsu black belts that would like to experience this, also.
I was taught beginner-level drills to develop qualities similar to those shown in the video above at a Steve Maxwell seminar early in 2017 on Gracie Jiu Jitsu: Core Concepts. Under “Non-resistance”. The mechanisms may be subtly different, internally, of course. But, if the outcome is the same and energy expenditure roughly equivalent, how does that matter?
Compare this with Rickson Gracie’s demonstration of “Invisible Jiu Jitsu” to Budo Jake on This Week in BJJ.
I would contend there is a large amount of intersection on the Venn diagram between “Internal Kung Fu” and “Invisible Jiu Jitsu”. Do we need to put up mental barriers that lead to unnecessary divisiveness and inhibit cooperation and learning?
Early in 2017 I attended a Qigong seminar given by Stanley Tam, one of China’s first BJJ black belts, who I met at the Steve Maxwell seminars. Stanley is also Steve’s Qigong teacher. I have kept up the practice and Stanley has provided me with guidance via email, video and Facebook. I occasionally feel the tingling, trembling and throbbing in the extremities espoused by adherents of Internal Kung Fu. I enjoy the relaxation and meditative aspects of this and other breathwork.
I remain skeptical about the more exalted claims made for this type of training, but intend to continue it on the basis of my own corollary to Pascal’s Wager, viz. It might be imaginary, but you have nothing to lose and potentially a huge amount to gain by acting as if it is real. I live in hope.
