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.
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“Grounding” (sometimes called “rooting”) is an essential skill in traditional martial arts and is often associated with the sanchin/sanzhan stance in many schools of karate and particularly external southern Chinese arts. It also features strongly in the internal arts of xingyi and its offshoot yi quan (see my articles “Sanchin in the Chinese martial arts”, “The naming of sanchin” and “Seisan - the universal kata” where I suggest a link between sanchin and xingyi’s “sa... Read More
