China's 3 Internal Kung Fu Styles EXPLAINED

There are many styles of Chinese martial arts from Wing Chun to Shaolin to things like Praying Mantis Kung Fu to the Toad Style! Okay, I don't think that's actually a thing. Now, all of these are what we call external styles or 外加拳 in Chinese. They generally rely on aerobic ability, physical muscular strength and practical skill But there is another group of styles that in contrast to this take the route of relaxation, meditation and internal strength to win in a fight. These are the internal styles or 内加拳 in Chinese. And there are three of them. Well, I may get in trouble for saying that since there are many styles that claim to be internal or a mix of internal and external techniques but normally it is accepted that there are three styles that are 100% internal and 100% independent. Those are 形意 形意拳霸道 千万别轻敌 八卦 and 太极 and this is their story. Part 1 形意拳 So, 形意拳 or form intent boxing supposedly traces its lineage back to the legendary Chinese general Yue Fei from the Song Dynasty. The art was then lost for something like 500 years until a man named Ji Ji Ke discovered Yue Fei's old boxing manual and recreated the art from the book. This is at least the legend that many people believe. The art was then kept secret within the Dai family in Shanxi province who used it in their bodyguarding business until a man named Li Luoneng turned up and begged to learn the art from the Dais. After much effort, he got them to teach him and he then popularized the art accepting disciples from 1856 onwards. 形意拳 is based on the movements of the spear and it is the most aggressive of the three internal arts. Its defining characteristic is that it moves in a straight line and doesn't retreat. When delivering a strike a forward step is normally taken. Because of this aggressiveness and perceived hardness it is sometimes called internal karate. It is incredibly aggressive and hard on the surface. But 形意 still relies on relaxation to deliver power. So while it may feel hard actually inside the body is soft and relaxed. 形意 practitioners develop their internal energy by standing in a posture called 三体式. Here is a photo of a legendary internal martial artist Sun Lutang in that posture. This posture can be held for long periods of time as a kind of standing meditation. Basic length would be half an hour on each side and it is strenuous since 90% of the body weight is on the back leg which is bent and starts to tremble as time goes on. Energy then develops in the lower abdomen and this is where the power comes from in 形意拳. Practitioners then start practicing hand techniques in straight lines and there are five basic fist techniques based on the Chinese theory of the five elements of 金木水火土 or metal, wood, water, fire and earth. There are also 12 animal forms that mimic the moves and tactics of each animal. 形意 is rarely seen in martial arts movies but one of the most entertaining portrayals of 形意拳 is Jet Li's The One where two versions of Jet Li from different universes fight each other one using 形意 and the other using our next internal art. Part 2 八卦掌 Now 八卦掌 means eight trigrams palm and this is the only major Chinese martial art to call itself palm 掌 instead of fist 拳 although the name was used about a hundred years ago in the title of Sun Lutang's book you can see there 八卦拳 but later on they settled on 八卦掌 because the art does not use fists it uses an open palm to strike. The origins of 八卦掌 are somewhat a mystery. It was made public in Beijing in the 1860s by a man named Dong Haichuan who claimed to have learned it from a Taoist in the mountains. Now there are claims of other branches of 八卦 and there are other people who say they trained with mountain Taoists too but some of these people practicing in the mountains now may have just learned 八卦 that traces its lineage back to Dong Haichuan. One of these styles is Ermei Mountain 八卦 where some of its practitioners claim that it is an independent system from Dong Haichuan but this is disputed and research has shown that it does really just come from the lineage of Dong Haichuan Although 八卦掌 does have some static standing postures to build up internal power like Xiyi does the primary training technique is circle walking where practitioners walk in a circle using 八卦's signature footwork and since you're walking in a circle the body is always turning. This is a feature of 八卦掌 practice constant turning no straight lines there are eight mother palms or 八大掌 and 64 palm changes 8 is the number of trigrams in the Chinese philosophical text the Yijing and 64 is the number of hexagrams which is 8 times 8 when the trigrams are all combined There are also eight animal forms in 八卦 the most common you'll see now is the Cheng style 八卦 which was practiced by Dong Haichuan's student Cheng Tinghua and is based on the dragon form you can see the dragon stepping technique where the front foot glides along the floor another well-known style is the Yin style practiced by Dong Haichuan's most senior student Yin Fu now if you want to look for this style in movies you can see 八卦掌 portrayed in Ip Man 2 although it's kind of a goofy representation with a guy who keeps turning his back on his opponent like look there is no reason for him to do this and look there it is again he needs to listen to Bruce Lee never take your eyes off your opponent even when you bow and although there are some cool moves in the fight the guy ends up getting beaten you also see it in the Grandmaster where Zhang Ziyi's character uses the style and it is a pretty accurate representation although it is shot very artistically with a lot of close-ups so it's hard to really appreciate it from a martial arts point of view and you also see it in The One where the version of Jet Li wearing black in this footage is doing 八卦 and it is probably a somewhat exaggerated version of the art for the film but it does look really cool although it has great benefits for health and spirituality 八卦 like Xingyi is primarily known as a martial art unlike our third Chinese internal Kung Fu style so when you think of Tai Chi or in Chinese it's pronounced Tai Chi Quan you may think of old people in the park in the morning practicing slow movements for health but you may not realize that Tai Chi has a long history as a martial art the legendary founder of Tai Chi is the Taoist immortal Zhang Sanfeng who supposedly lived for over 200 years he is often displayed as having supernormal powers in movies he is the grandfather of Wudang martial arts and it's also believed to be the creator of Tai Chi but if that is true what Zhang Sanfeng actually taught at the time is already lost at least in public and modern Tai Chi is split into five family styles the Yang style which is the most popular especially for health the Chen style which is probably the most associated with martial arts here's a comparison of the Yang and Chen style side by side you can see the Chen looks way more like a martial art and then we have the Wu style the other Wu style which is also called the Hao style and the Sun style created by master of all three internal arts Sun Lutang now in fact all of these styles are martial arts but since the Yang style is so widely practiced and there are simplified Yang forms that were compiled in China supported by the state for health it really gives the impression that this is a health practice although when you see Tai Chi actually practiced as a martial art it is as ferocious as any but the problem nowadays is how skilled actually are the practitioners are they really using Tai Chi moves or are they just resorting to moves that are available in other martial arts this problem is made worse by the fact that there are many fake masters like the supposed Tai Chi master in China who attempted to use Tai Chi in a fight and got beaten up within seconds by MMA practitioner Xu Xiaodong so finding genuine Tai Chi for martial purposes where the practitioner can rely on Tai Chi moves alone to win fights is hard and the people who really know it don't really engage in contests but anyway, what are the characteristics of the style well Tai Chi is practiced in slow motion to develop balance and energy Tai Chi practitioners will also hold static postures from the form in a standing Qi Gong meditation to develop energy as well internal arts practitioner Bruce Francis said in his book The Power of Internal Martial Arts that he asked a Tai Chi instructor called Chung Yi Chung in Japan how to improve and this instructor replied that he should focus on standing holding static postures for many hours and added that this has been told to many students but few take the advice Francis says in his book that he did take that advice sometimes standing in static postures for as much as six hours a day and within two years he could surpass many senior students of that master some of whom had 10 years experience the hugging a tree standing Qi Gong posture or Zhan Zhuang is also a common training method in Tai Chi as well as other internal arts in addition to generating power Tai Chi also focuses on absorbing an opponent's strength and then redirecting them off balance or redirecting the power back at them rather than directing force straight ahead like Xi Yi does if you fight or spar with a Tai Chi practitioner it feels incredibly soft you attack and are often met with empty space or arms that feel they have no power behind them and just direct you in a certain direction until the crucial moment when you have been coaxed into a position where you're off balance and suddenly you get attacked and knocked over Tai Chi practitioners use a training method called pushing hands to train this capability which is a sense of balance and feeling your opponent's body weight balance and trajectory in addition to this traditional Tai Chi also incorporates attacks on acupuncture points as well as joint locks if you want to see a portrayal of Tai Chi in film It Man 4 features some cool fight scenes where Donnie Yen uses Wing Chun against a Tai Chi practitioner Yen also performs Tai Chi fight scenes himself in the movie Drunken Tai Chi where although some of the moves look a bit more like external martial arts you do see some distinct Tai Chi movements Then there is Tai Chi Zero which has some cool representations of the art although the story is kind of all over the place and very much fictional Then there is Man of Tai Chi directed by Keanu Reeves where actor Tiger Chen did actually practice Tai Chi but you don't really see the distinct look of Tai Chi techniques in most of the fighting in the movie except for this section near the end the fight with the main villain where you do actually see something that looks a lot more like Tai Chi deflecting the enemy's force and counterattacking The movie is a bit cheesy though So what are the differences and similarities between these three internal martial arts systems? Well Xing Yi Quan is the most warlike which makes sense if it really was developed by Yue Fei It moves in straight lines It never retreats and the hand movements are actually derived from spear techniques Xing Yi develops power through standing in San Ti Shi and then practices straight line drills at full speed It feels very hard when you spar with a Xing Yi practitioner Bagua Zhang moves in circles always changing direction It relies mostly on palm strikes and feels soft yet firm when you experience a sparring match with someone who does Bagua It also contains standing Qi Gong postures but its primary training method is walking the circle Tai Chi should feel incredibly soft in combat until the crucial moment when you get hit It also relies heavily on standing postures and practicing the form in slow motion to develop incredible balance and powerful energy There is a saying that Xing Yi is soft on the inside and hard on the outside Tai Chi is soft on the outside and hard on the inside and Bagua is kind of a combination of the two like metal that can be bent but is still very strong The big thing that they all have in common is that they use relaxation and advanced body mechanics to generate power not muscular strength in the traditional sense They all rely on hours of standing and hours of practice in their basic techniques to have that internal power In the modern world not that many people who are actually willing to fight in tournaments practice these styles to a high level In my opinion when you see someone in a sparring match who does one of these styles it very often degenerates into some sort of generic kickboxing There are some rare examples where this is not the case like this Bagua match that the channel Fight Commentary Breakdowns posted So I like this because you actually see what we think of as Bagua It's not just reverting to kickboxing, right? The reason things like this are rare is probably just down to the amount of time it takes to get good at these arts You can become a kickboxer and compete in competitions in a couple of years But to use a pure form of Bagua or Tai Chi without adding any other techniques and have genuine internal power to deliver the techniques with effectiveness takes probably over a decade In the modern world people are more interested in quick gains and the people with patience to train for a decade aren't really interested in competitions anyway Out of the three Xing Yi is generally looked at as the one that you can learn the fastest and the most likely to be used in a competition But there was a period in the early 1900s where these three arts were widely practiced especially in Beijing and were used regularly to win real fights and competitions Right now the emphasis is more on just preserving the styles since with each progressive generation knowledge gets lost Modern Wushu and now MMA have taken over But China's internal martial arts remain a profound field of study Arts that not only have martial effectiveness but also improve one's health and spiritual awareness Maybe in the future another Dong Haichuan will come out of the mountains to teach and the internal arts will rise again Thank you for watching this video guys The internal martial arts are somewhat of a passion of mine and I've practiced all three of them to some extent with various teachers both Chinese and Western over the years If you like content like this please subscribe and consider joining as a member for 4.99 a month You'll get early access to videos and your comments will be highlighted so if you ask us a question we will reply Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time Bye bye