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Secrets of Building Internal Force: 10 Questions to the Grandmaster

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  • #31
    An excellent way to develop flowing force

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    • #32
      Question and Answer - 2 - Part 2

      Part 2 and two more parts to this question still to come

      Question and Answer - 2 - Part 2

      Question 2 (original question)

      How does development of consolidating force influence flowing force (and vice versa) and what are important practical considerations to ensure these processes are efficient and balanced?

      Jacek


      Answer (contd.)

      ... The realization of the influence of consolidating force over flowing force occurred even earlier. When I learned from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, vigorous energy flow was not encouraged, though we enjoyed slight spontaneous movements of “Flowing Breeze Swaying Willows”. When I had started teaching the Eighteen Lohan Hands to the public later on, I realized that chi flow was very beneficial, though at that time I had not crystallized the concept that it is chi flow that gives the wonderful benefits of chi kung.

      So with this habit and understanding, after practicing internal force training, like One-Finger Zen and Golden Bridge, I let go and found that I went into chi flow with much increase of volume and speed. This led to my conclusion that the more internal force I had consolidated, the more vigorous would be my subsequent chi flow. I also discovered from my own experience that the vigorous chi flow further increased remarkably the internal force I had earlier consolidated.

      I was quick to put this discovery for the benefit of students. So in my early years of teaching I often told students that if they did not go into a chi flow after stance training or any internal force building exercise, they would miss more than half the benefit. I did not mention this statement later on because by then chi flow after force building had become standard procedure.

      The benefit is not just a remarkable increase of internal force. It makes internal force training safe, a problem that many internal art practitioners dread. Any blockage or deviated practice unwittingly sustained during the training will be automatically eliminated by the immediate chi flow.

      It makes the practitioners balanced. Instead of concentrating internal force at certain parts of the body when the training is focused, usually at the arms, palm o chest, chi flow spread the internal force all over the body for better balance and elegance. Too much concentration of internal force on certain parts of the body may bring a practitioner adverse physical or emotional side-effects, which masters in the past actually suffered from. Yang Deng Fu, the great Taijiquan master, and Dong Hai Chuan, the great Baguazhang master, for example, were recorded to be easily irritable, despite their tremendous internal force.

      It also put internal force to its use, i.e. maintain life and enhancing life, instead of just enhancing combat, which rarely happens nowadays. When internal force is focused at the palms or arms, it may give a practitioner Iron Palm or Iron Arm. But when it is spread all over the body by chi flow, the internal force will nourishes all organs and systems of the bdoy, contributing to the good health, vitality and longevity of the practitioner, and excess force will be stored at the dan tian and eight wondrous meridians, to be drawn out for expedient needs for combat or for daily life.

      With this background, we can have a better understanding and be able to answer the questions directly as a form of recapitulation.

      Development of consolidating force gives volume to flowing force, making the flow smoother and more vigorous. In turn this further increase the volume of internal force, which we may consolidate if we want to, or just leave it flowing. Force, like cash, is more useful when it is flowing, and better contributes to good health, vitality, longevity, peak performance, mental clarity and spiritual joys.

      To ensure this process of flowing force is most effective, practitioners should be relaxed and not thinking of anything. Once a practitioner tenses his muscles or starts to intellectualize, he stops his flow of energy. Not being relaxed and intellectualizing are the two main reasons why a lot of people do not enjoy the benefits of flowing force even when they techniques they employ in their training are correct.

      Examples are plentiful, though those involved may not realize it or accept their mistake. They are found in the great majority of people who practice chi kung, Taijiquan and other internal arts.

      It is understandable that a practitioner may not be perfect in being relaxed and not intellectualizing. But if he knows the underlying philosophy, he can work on it, or rectify mistakes when he makes them. Don’t do anything is certainly easier than doing anything. Don’t tense your muscles, don’t intellectualize or don’t climb up a coconut tree is certainly easier than tensing your muscles, intellectualize or climb up a coconut tree


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      • #33
        Question and Answer - 2 - Part 3

        Question and Answer - 2 - Part 3

        Question 2 (original question)

        How does development of consolidating force influence flowing force (and vice versa) and what are important practical considerations to ensure these processes are efficient and balanced?

        Jacek


        Answer (contd.)

        ... On the other hand, development of flowing force is necessary before the development of consolidating force. Otherwise, the training becomes an external art of building muscles. Not many people, including those who eventually have succeeded in developing internal force, know this underlying principle. This development of flowing force happened haphazardly without their conscious knowing, thus denying them the great advantage of accumulated effect daily, even when they may train every day.

        In other words, they have ch flow in their training only once a while. Suppose they have a chi flow once in 10 days, with which they can consolidate 100 units of internal force. So they have flowing force which they can develop into consolidated force 3 times a month, and each time they can develop 100 units of force. But they don’t have 200 units of force in 1 month, because the force would have dissipated during the intervening period leaving them a negligible increase. Let us say they can develop 120 units of consolidated force a month, which is a fair estimate. If it takes to build 15,000 units of consolidate force before they can said to have some reasonable internal force, they would take about 10 years to achieve this level.

        If a practitioner knows the underlying principles, and enters into a chi kung state of mind every time he trains internal force, he will be able to have a chi flow every time he trains, and convert it to consolidated force. If he consolidates 100 units of force a day, he can consolidate 3000 units of force in 1 month as he has the great advantage of accumulated effect because his force building happens every day. Hence he will be able to consolidate 15,000 units of force in about half a year.

        Actually he will need less than half a year to have consolidated sufficient force to be rated as having some reasonable internal force because as the volume of flow increases, the amount of force also increases proportionately. But even if we presume the increase to be uniform, he will have acquired a reasonable amount of consolidated force in 6 months, whereas those who do not understand and implement this principle of internal force training will need 10 years! Our Shaolin Wahnam students today are in this elite situation, whereas past masters who had internal force, including myself in my own training, were in the other situation.

        Hence, the development of flowing force speeds up the development of consolidating force in an incredible manner, unprecedented before in all chi kung and kungfu history! Not only flowing force makes consolidating force incredibly fast and effective, but also it makes the training sure and safe.

        When students first develop flowing force, they will be sure to consolidate the force – if they have the skills. Of course, if they don’t have the skills to consolidate force, but only the skills to develop flowing force, they will only have flowing force, like a few Taijiquan masters who have internal force. If they don’t have the skill to develop flowing force, they will perform gentle physical exercise, even when their techniques are correct, like the great majority of Taijiquan practitioners.

        If they do not have flowing force, they will be unable to consolidate the flowing force into internal force even when they have the skills of consolidating force. Their training may become isometric exercise, like some Iron Wire masters. Worse, their training may give them big muscles instead of internal force, like some Wing Choon masters. They have a lot of muscular strength, but the big muscles may be detrimental to their health.

        Such statements may be sensitive, but they are given here in good faith. Whether the isometric masters or the big-muscle masters take heed of the advice is their own business.

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        • #34
          Question and Answer - 2 - Part 4

          Question and Answer - 2 - Part 4

          Question 2 (original question)

          How does development of consolidating force influence flowing force (and vice versa) and what are important practical considerations to ensure these processes are efficient and balanced?

          Jacek


          Answer (contd.)

          ... Further, having flowing force before consolidating force will also make their training safe, or at least safer than had there been no flowing force. Their flowing force will eliminate or at least minimize blockage or other deviated practice unwittingly sustained in their previous training session. In our case, even when our training is on consolidating force, we have a chi flow at the end of the session, which will make our training doubly safe by a big margin.

          When the force is flowing and you consolidate it, the risk of harmful side-effects is zero, unless you stop the flow by tensing your muscles or intellectualizing. As an analogy, when water is flowing vigorously, it is flowing force. When it consolidates into a glacier but still flowing, it is consolidated internal force. When it frozen into ice and not flowing, it is muscular strength.

          When big muscles lock up stagnant energy, it can be harmful. Your energy which is supposed to work your organs and systems are now locked up, giving you more mass, and forcing your organs and systems, already short of energy, to work harder. If your consolidated force is flowing, albeit slowly, it is alive and not harmful.

          You can have a clearer picture with this imagery. Visualize a mass of muscles in your arm. The energy in your muscles was the same energy a month ago. Now visualize consolidated internal force in your arm. The energy in the consolidated internal force was not the same energy a month ago. The energy as consolidated internal force a month ago is now doing useful work in other parts of your body, like digesting you food or clearing away virus.

          The following practical considerations are needed to ensure the beneficial influence of flowing force on consolidating force. You must be relaxed and not intellectualizing, otherwise the chi flow will stop.

          The requirement to be relaxed is more difficult when consolidating flowing energy than when letting energy flow spontaneously. To let chi flow, by not tensing muscles (as well as not intellectualizing), the chi will flow. To consolidate flowing energy, you have to bring a lot of energy together, and at the same time you have to let this mass of concentrated energy flow. You have to perform two apparently opposite actions at the same time.

          The mistake very commonly made by most people is that they tense their muscles when consolidating energy. This may bring energy together, but the energy stops flowing. This results in building isometric tension or building muscles.

          How do you overcome these two seemingly contradictory actions? There are two ways as follow.

          One way is to use physical movement while you consolidate your energy. A good example is “Double Dragons Emerge from Sea” in the triple-stretch method. As you consolidate energy at your arms, you also move your arms forward and backward.

          The second method is to use your mind. While your chi is flowing, you use your mind to consolidate the flowing energy.

          In practice, we combine the two methods. After the training, we go into a chi flow to enhance the results in many ways.

          By comparison, stance training is mainly consolidating energy. Hence, we enhance the result greatly when we go into a chi flow after the stance training.

          This philosophical understanding of consolidating force and flowing force not only make our training incredibly cost effective, but also bring us many benefits other students may not think possible.

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          • #35
            An excellent way of safely developing the skills of consolidating force

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            • #36
              Question and Answer - 3

              Question and Answer - 3

              Question 3

              For combat, are there more advantages in training consolidated force than flowing force? This question presumes that the practitioner is already healthy and skillful in changing between consolidated and flowing force.

              Stephen


              Answer

              If we consider striking or causing damage to an opponent, training consolidated force is more advantageous than training flowing force.

              But if we consider other aspect of combat, like throwing an opponent or being agile, training flowing force is more advantageous.

              When we consider combat as a whole, I still think flowing force is more advantageous than consolidated force. This may come as a surprise to many people because they often think of combat as causing damage to their opponent, forgetting there are other and more important factors, like being relaxed, having mental clarity, spontaneous movement, being flexible, being fast and having stamina and balance.

              I can think of two areas where consolidated force is more advantageous than flowing force, and they are striking an opponent and being struck. However, even if you don’t have much consolidated force, if you strike your opponents on his eyes, throat or groin, you can cause much damage. Or if you are being struck on these areas, even without his consolidated force, the damage can be serious.

              Relatively speaking, flowing force will make you more relaxed, contribute to your mental clarity, enable you to move more spontaneously, making you more flexible and faster, and adding to your stamina and balance.

              Consolidated force, by itself, is detrimental in all the above areas. It is far worse if the consolidated force, which is still flowing, is locked as muscles, where the energy becomes stagnant.

              For us in Shaolin Wahnam, we do not face this difficulty because we can readily change consolidated force into flowing force, and vice versa. Although this skill is common in our school, it is infrequent in most other schools.

              Knowing the answer to your questions is very useful to our students. They can convert their force accordingly. In practical terms, they can generally let their force flow, but consolidate it when they strike.

              Flowing force is also more advantageous than consolidated force for health, vitality and longevity.
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              • #37
                Question and Answer - 4 - Part 1

                Question and Answer - 4 - Part 1

                Question 4

                Sifu, I have been very lucky to attend to many of your courses. Because of that, I had the opportunity to learn many ways for building Internal force. In the past St. Valentines Taijiquan Course (108 Yang Pattern Set) I could experience many different ways of building internal force. I name below a list of the ones that I usually practice:

                - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns with Yang Spirit.
                - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns with Chen Spirit.
                - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns really slow.
                - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns at the mind level.
                - Performing Tajiquan Set/Patterns exploding force.
                - Stances (I usually practice 5-10 minutes maximum).
                - Performing Cloud Hands walking through stances.
                - Performing Cloud Hands in goat/horse stance.
                - Performing Lifting Water in goat/horse stance.

                My questions are as follows:

                Sifu, may you give me advice for the best routine in my daily practice for building internal force? Which is the safest and the most effective way to do it with all the methods that I usually practice? Should I add/learn any other methods in my repertoire?

                Santiago


                Answer

                Congratulations for being able to develop internal force in so many different ways. It is mind-blowing that you learned all these methods in just a few days of the Taijiquan course in Ireland. Even masters in the past had only one method, and they took many years to develop internal force using that one method. Most students would have no chance to develop internal force.

                More significantly, we know the three main functions of internal force, namely, maintaining life, enhancing life and enabling us to have better results in whatever se do – in that order of importance. In other words, for us, firstly internal force makes us healthy, then it enhances our vitality and longevity, and finally it contributes to our peak performance in our work and play.

                Even masters in the past did not know this philosophy. Hence, they wasted most of, if not all, their internal force on combat. They were great fighters, but they might not necessarily be healthy, and they might not excel in their work and play. Yang Deng Fu and Guo Yun Sheng, the great masters of Taijiquan and Xingyiquan, for example, were great fighters, but they were known to be easily irritated, and did not lead a happy life despite their tremendous internal force.

                One main reason why students at the Taijiquan course in Ireland could learn so many methods of internal force training was because it came close after the Special Wudang Taijiquan Course in Penang, where the highest Taijiquan, in fact the highest kungfu, was taught, including many methods of internal force training. As many Shaolin Wahnam students know, my teaching methodology is progressive, which means that the benefits of the teaching methodology at the Wudang Taijiquan Course was carried over to 108-Pattern Taijiquan Course in Ireland.

                My best advice, though it may sound odd to many students, including you, is not to over-practice. Actually what you are practicing now is more than enough. You should practice less, and spend more time with your girlfriend or girlfriends. In your case, the phrase “less is more” is very appropriate. By training less, you will actually get more benefits, both in kungfu and in your daily life.

                As you know many different force training methods, you can take turn to train one method a day. You can find out from direct experience which method will give you more benefit or more joy, bearing in mind that the result may change through time or circumstances.
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                • #38
                  Dear Sigung

                  Thank you very much for answering my question. I'm very grateful for this wealth of information.

                  I already know this Q&A series on Building Internal Force is going to be my regular source of reference for many years to come. I'm going to put this knowledge and understanding to the best possible use in my practice.

                  Dear Sifu Barry

                  Thank you for opening this thread and for giving us opportunity to ask Sigung a question. What a privilege...

                  With Shaolin Salute
                  Jacek

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                  • #39
                    Question and Answer - 4 - Part 2

                    Question and Answer - 4 - Part 2

                    Question 4 (Original question)

                    Sifu, I have been very lucky to attend to many of your courses. Because of that, I had the opportunity to learn many ways for building Internal force. In the past St. Valentines Taijiquan Course (108 Yang Pattern Set) I could experience many different ways of building internal force. I name below a list of the ones that I usually practice:

                    - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns with Yang Spirit.
                    - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns with Chen Spirit.
                    - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns really slow.
                    - Performing Taijiquan Set/Patterns at the mind level.
                    - Performing Tajiquan Set/Patterns exploding force.
                    - Stances (I usually practice 5-10 minutes maximum).
                    - Performing Cloud Hands walking through stances.
                    - Performing Cloud Hands in goat/horse stance.
                    - Performing Lifting Water in goat/horse stance.

                    My questions are as follows:

                    Sifu, may you give me advice for the best routine in my daily practice for building internal force? Which is the safest and the most effective way to do it with all the methods that I usually practice? Should I add/learn any other methods in my repertoire?

                    Santiago

                    Answer (Contd.)

                    ... Any one of the methods you mentioned above is an excellent method. Because of your skills and philosophical understanding, even if you had chosen the worse of the above methods (even this worst method is still a very good method) and your practice is only mediocre, your results will still be better than the results of most practitioners, including some masters.

                    Other people reading my comment may think we are boastful, and may become angry, but the comment is true. How many people practicing Taijiquan today have internal force? Even those few masters who have internal force will take a year to acquire what you can acquire in a month. Let’s say they acquire 12,000 units of internal force in one year, which you can acquire in a month. Even if your result is mediocre and you attain only 40% of your potential, you still acquire 4,800 units of internal force, whereas the masters working at their best acquire only 1.000 units a month.

                    In our school all the methods are safe. This is because of our chi flow. But this is not so for most practitioners in other schools. Many practitioners, especially advanced ones, are constantly concerned that they do not train wrongly. It may be a surprise to many people in the West, but in fact a main reason why many Chinese are afraid to train any internal art is a fear of deviation, known by a frightening term in Chinese as “escaping of fire and entering of devil”.

                    In our school, “escaping of fire and entering of devil”, or its less frightening modern term of “deviation”, is effectively prevented, or erased had it happened, by our chi flow, unless a practitioner over-trains or excessively intellectualizes.

                    Of the methods mentioned by you, if all other things were equal, the one that is most easily practiced wrongly is performing Taijiquan at the mind level. The second most easily practiced wrongly is performing Taijiquan very, very slowly. But if practiced correctly, they are the ones that are most effective in producing tremendous internal force respectively.

                    The safest method is performing Taijiquan in Yang spirit. If all other things were equal, it is also the method that, relatively, produces the least internal force. But other things are not equal. Even when you use this method, you will produce more internal force than practitioners in other schools performing at the mind level or performing very, very slowly, in which case they have high risks of harmful side-effects.

                    Though it is not necessary, if you have the opportunities and within your means, it is, of course, beneficial to add or learn new methods to your repertoire. Not only you have new methods, they will also give you breadth and depth.
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                    • #40
                      Exellent Answers

                      Hey Barry,
                      I really like Sifu's most current answer and it seems to confirm what we taught on our most recent course around people falling into sensations that they may experience

                      Peace

                      Mark
                      Sifu Mark Appleford

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                      • #41
                        Hi Mark,

                        yes if people train correctly - just going with the chi flow they experience, without getting frightened of it or making more of things than they need to it is very safe.

                        One of the things that is said less now than it used to be is, whatever the experience in chi flow, "Very good ... carry on" . This was incredibly helpful to me for times when lots of things seemed to be happening and those when nothing seemed to be happening.

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                        With metta,

                        Barry
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                        • #42
                          Question and Answer - 5 - Part 1

                          Question and Answer - 5 - Part 1

                          Question 5

                          You mentioned on your website that you believed past masters like the Venerable Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng were all rounders. And how their general level in terms of arm sensitivity or Iron Arm was of a higher level than masters who were particularly known for those arts (like Yim Wing Choon).

                          My question's are:

                          How did the Venerable Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng achieve this?

                          Was it from practicing many force training methods as opposed to only one or two methods?

                          Is it unfavorable to practice only one or two methods as opposed to many over one's Kungfu career?

                          Sham.


                          Answer

                          Hoong Hei Khoon was famous for his powerful punch. He developed his tremendous power using the triple-stretch method. Yim Wing Choon was noted for her internal force. She developed her internal force by practicing Siu Lin Tou. Thiet Kiew Sam was well known for his powerful arms. He developed his powerful arms by practicing the Iron Wire Set.

                          These masters famous for their particular arts were associated with their particular ways of training with their specialized sets – Hoong Hei Khoon with the Triple-Stretch Set, Yim Wing Choon with Siu Lin Tou, and Thiet Kiew Sam with Iron Wire Set.

                          On the other hand, kungfu geniuses like the Venerable Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng were not specially associated with any particular arts. They were all rounders. In other words, when we think of Hoong Hei Khoon, we think of his powerful punch. When we think of Yim Wing Choon, we think of Siu Lin Tou. When we think of Thiet Kiew Sam, we think of his powerful arms.

                          But when we think of the Venerable Ng Mui or Zhang San Feng, we do not think of any particular art to be associated with them, though Ng Mui’s specialty was the Flower Set, and Zhang San Feng’s specialty was Wudang Shaolin Kungfu, which is now better known as Wudang Taijiquan. This is because they were good at everything that no single art stood out for them.

                          Even in the arts the other masters were famous for, Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng were still better than them. Ng Mui’s and Zhang San Feng’s punch, for example, was more powerful than Hoong Hei Khoon’s punch, and Ng Mui’s and Zhang San Feng’s arms were more powerful than Thiet Kiew Sam’s arms. Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng did not practice Siu Lin Tou, which was invented later by Yim Wing Choon. Yet I believe that having seen Siu Lin Tou once, Ng Mui’s performance and Zhang San Feng’s performance of Siu Lin Tou would be better than Yim Wing Choon’s performance.

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                          • #43
                            Question and Answer - 5 - Part 2

                            Question and Answer - 5 - Part 2

                            Question 5 (Original question)

                            You mentioned on your website that you believed past masters like the Venerable Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng were all rounders. And how their general level in terms of arm sensitivity or Iron Arm was of a higher level than masters who were particularly known for those arts (like Yim Wing Choon).

                            My question's are:

                            How did the Venerable Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng achieve this?

                            Was it from practicing many force training methods as opposed to only one or two methods?

                            Is it unfavorable to practice only one or two methods as opposed to many over one's Kungfu career?

                            Sham.


                            Answer (Contd)

                            ... It is inspiring to note that such a situation also occurs in our school, not even amongst our masters but just amongst our students. I do not mean to be presumptuous, but I honestly believe that those students who attended our Baguazhang course as a supplementary art for just a few days are better at Baguazhang than students elsewhere who specially practice Baguazhang for many years. The same situation applies for other supplementary arts like Tantui, Eagle Claw, Praying Mantis, Iron Wire, Wuzuquan, Xingyiquan, Wing Choon and Choy-Li-Fatt.

                            We have more than enough material to justify our claim. How many students elsewhere who have practiced the relevant arts for many years have the type of internal force related to their arts, and can apply their arts for combat? How many students elsewhere have the skills specially associated with their arts, like getting to the back of opponents in Baguazhang, or being able to respond correctly even when blink-folded in Wing Choon Kungfu? How many students elsewhere have a sound philosophical understanding of their art? Most, if not all, our students who attended these supplementary courses have these abilities.

                            How were Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng better than the other masters in their latter’s specialties? How are our students better than students elsewhere in their arts? The answer is spread and depth. Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng had spread and depth. Our students have spread and depth, whereas students elsewhere spend their time on only the external form of their art.

                            Yes, one of the reason why Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng achieved this superiority in spread and depth was practicing may force-training methods as opposed to only one or two methods. I believe that Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng, being kungfu geniuses, would have practiced all the force-training methods in Shaolin and even elsewhere, such as triple-stretch, the force-approach, the flow-approach, One-Finger Shooting Zen, Eighteen-Lohan Art and Sinew Metamorphosis.

                            More significantly, being a Buddhist nun and a Taoist priest respectively, Ng Mui and Zhang San Feng would have practiced mediation deeply. I recall the advice of my sifu, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, that if one wishes to soar the heights and depths of kungfu, he should practice chi kung; if he wishes to soar the heights and depths of chi kung, he should practice meditaion.

                            For most other people it is unfavorable to practice many methods at the same time because the different methods will cancel the effect of one another. But for us in Shaolin Wahnam and for kungfu geniuses, it is favorable to practice many methods at the same time because these different methods will enhance the effect of one another. This is because of the magic of chi flow.
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                            • #44
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                              Double Worshipping of the Buddha

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                              • #45
                                Question and Answer - 6

                                Question and Answer - 6

                                Question 6

                                My experience with building internal force has clearly demonstrated the fact that internal force has benefitted my physical/external body - health, endurance, strength. I have also noticed that when I maintain a moderate level of external stimulus (physical labor/construction job, cycling, rock climbing, heavy yard work - moving rocks, etc), there seems to be a cross over benefit to my internal training (i.e. stance training is more relaxed and at a deeper level, condensing force feels more powerful, etc). I have experienced the opposite to also be true, and if my lifestyle is too sedentary, it seems to have a negative impact on my internal training.

                                Is there a link between external stimulus and building internal force? Typically, Water Buffalo methods are used to build external strength, but can they also be used as an adjunct to internal force training, for even more benefit?

                                Sifu Matt Fenton


                                Answer

                                Internal force certainly benefits the physical or external body. If all other things were equal, internal force contributes more to health, endurance and strength than external strength. Indeed, some forms of external training, like lifting weights and jabbing palms into iron filing, can be detrimental to health, although they may contribute to strength and endurance.

                                On the other hand, a moderate level of external stimulus, like physical labor and moving rocks, can enhance internal training, provided that the external stimulus is not overdone. This benefit leads to the recommendation known in Chinese (Cantonese) as “noi ngoi seong sau”, or “internal-external double cultivation”.

                                Great kungfu masters in the past were known for their internal-external double cultivation, never just cultivated internally. However, their external cultivation did not refer to such external methods like lifting weights, jabbing palms into iron filing, hitting sand-bags and striking wooden-man, which were regarded as third-class methods, but referred to methods like performing kungfu sequences or sets, Children’s Art, Thousand Steps and Art of Flexibility.

                                If a master, for example, performed only Abdominal Breathing, which was considered internal cultivation, but neglected the practice of his kungfu sets, which was considered external cultivation, he would not be very advanced. He might have a lot of internal force from his Abdominal Breathing, but lacked agility which could be derived from set-practice.

                                If a person’s lifestyle is too sedentary, he would not be healthy. The great Chinese physician, Hua Tuo, described this condition as “a door not in use would soon rot”.

                                Yes, there is a link between external stimulus and building internal force. They contribute to yin-yang harmony.

                                Water buffalo methods, when used judiciously, can be used as an adjunct to internal force training. For example, after practicing Golden Bridge for some time, which develops internal force, a practitioner may place a staff over his extended arms, hanging some light weights at both ends of the staff. The added weight will enhance his training, enabling him to achieve more internal force in a shorter time.

                                Strictly speaking, this is not water buffalo training; it is smart training. If the practitioner started with the staff and weights at the beginning, and tensed the muscles of his arms to support the weights, he could develop external strength and endurance, but it would be water buffalo training. He would develop more internal force, compared to his external strength, and in a shorter time, had he not used the weights at all.

                                Similarly, those who have developed internal force using the Iron Wire Set, may wear copper rings in their forearms to enhance their training. But had they used copper rings at the start and performed Iron Wire with muscular strength, it would become water buffalo training. They would have big muscles and be powerful with external strength, but it was not internal force.

                                I myself underwent water buffalo training, like practicing Iron Palm, hitting wooden-man and jabbing my hands into beans. But I found internal cultivation far superior. It produced a lot more internal force. Not only my internal force enabled me to break bricks (instead of opponents’ bones) and take punches and kicks without sustaining injury, but more significantly it contributed to my health, vitality and longevity, and daily peak performance.
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