The Way of Least Resistance

This morning we filmed an application of the last two movements in taijiquan, "apparent closure" and "cross hands".  As a joke, my students filmed one application with some " hopping " - à la the " fajin fantasists ". I belong to various Facebook martial interest groups.  One in particular is a skeptical internal arts group called The Fajin Project. After uploading the video to my YouTube channel, I posted a link to the group.  The conversation that followed has to be read to be believed! The internet is indeed a strange and wonderful place. Copyright © 2015 Dejan Djurdjevic

Let me say this upfront: I have  absolutely nothing against people practising any martial art for non-defence/combat reasons. In fact, my own reasons for practising martial arts have, for a long time now, mostly been of the "non-fighting" variety.  I love the "art" side of it: the physical expression through movement, the perfection of form, the development of skills and coordination.  I love the exercise, the movement that ensures practical flexibility into old age despite the toll of wear and tear from injury, illness... and just life . If you're looking to martial arts for "effectiveness" in the sense of an activity that will keep you physically and mentally well, I can't recommend martial arts enough - in particular the Chinese martial arts and even more so the Chinese "soft" or "internal" arts. But effectiveness for "fighting"... well, that's another story. To examine that issue, we first need to...

More about the “soft” arts of China and the nature of “qi” In my article “ Internal vs. external martial arts ” I explain that the term “internal” is a reference to neijiaquan ("internal method fist") – a group of martial arts in China comprising taijiquan, baguazhang and xingyiquan, as well as some related arts and offshoots (eg. liu he ba fa and yi quan). These are easily identifiable arts with a very specific set of techniques based on common principles. The internal arts are commonly distinguished from other arts (named waijiaquan or “external method fist”). Many argue that this distinction arises because the former rely on “qi” (“ki” in Japanese) – a term literally meaning “breath” and often used to describe a metaphysical “energy”. Accordingly the term “internal” is often mistakenly seen as a reference to the “cultivation of qi internally”. In fact the word is just a reference to “inner family” in much the same way as some schools use the term “inner circle”: so ne...