{"id":21465,"date":"2022-08-14T08:01:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T13:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/internal-power-and-the-3-internal-harmonies-going-beyond-words-like-xin-yi-and-qi-to-direct-experience\/"},"modified":"2022-08-14T08:01:14","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T13:01:14","slug":"internal-power-and-the-3-internal-harmonies-going-beyond-words-like-xin-yi-and-qi-to-direct-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/internal-power-and-the-3-internal-harmonies-going-beyond-words-like-xin-yi-and-qi-to-direct-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Internal power and the 3 internal harmonies: Going beyond words like Xin, Yi and Qi to direct experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost by accident I watched Onama vs Landwher<\/em> from UFC: Marlon Vera vs Dominick Cruz<\/em> this morning and heavens above, that was one hell of a fight! Possibly the fight of the year. I\u2019ve no idea how you\u2019d score it. Landwher won by decision, but it was possibly the MMA fight of the year. Wild exchanges throughout with both fighters being so tired they could hardly stand up, but somehow kept going. It looked like they both had almost beyond the levels of human endurance, going from looking so tired they could barley move to pulling off flashy 3 move combinations.<\/p>\n

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You could almost see their spirit rising within to propel them on. It reminded me of all the phrases about the internal harmonies (san nei he) that we use in the Internet arts. The Xin (heart) leads the Yi (intention\/mind), the Yi leads the Qi (energy to work) and the Qi leads the Li (physical movement). Initially this seems rather simplistic, say if you want to do something like make a cup of tea then you first have a desire to do it (heart) that travels to the brain (yi) that decides and then it ends up in a physical movement (li) and you find your feet moving you towards the kettle.<\/p>\n

But that process happens automatically in humans and all animals, so why do we need to make a big deal of it and describe all the parts that build up to making an automatic process happen?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s often explained as putting the intention and will (the brains and heart) behind the movement. You can do things with a sense of purpose, or you can do them absent mindedly. In the internal arts, like Xing Yi, Bagua and Tai Chi, your actions need to have a sense of purpose. Your mind needs to be on the job, not half engaged. That\u2019s one reason, but I think there\u2019s more to these internal harmonies than just this.<\/p>\n

I remember in BJJ training sometimes being so exhausted it was like my mind left my body and I became somewhat detached from my surroundings. It\u2019s at moments like that that you start to be able to feel your \u201cspirit\u201d or mind as an identifiable thing. Through a sheer act of will you can force your mind to not give up and get back to the job and it can give you the energy you need to carry on fighting. That\u2019s what I saw happening in Obama vs Landwher. A sheer force of will was being used to make them continue \u2013 their internal was leading the external.<\/p>\n

Frankly, most people training only internal arts without hard sparring pay a lot of lip service to the internal co-ordinations, but do they ever reach an intensity of training where they can actually feel these things as tangible elements?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying that you need to get an an MMA cage to experience your internal state under extreme physical stress before you have any idea what it is, but you can experience it in a safer way through things like Jiujitsu. Maybe Systema, too. Just some food for thought, and another reason why I think all Tai Chi instructors who re physically able should try and get a blue belt in BJJ if they are teaching the art beyond the health aspects.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a risk, when reading this that people might think that using your Yi, or Xin in Tai Chi technique simply means to furrow you brow, put on a mean face, stare hard at something, get really tense and act like you really mean it, man<\/em>. Because that\u2019s not it either. That\u2019s not what using \u201cmartial intent\u201d or Yi means in internal arts at all. If I see people practicing internal arts like that I think it\u2019s just bad karate. Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with karate, of course.<\/p>\n

Your internal state can be serious, but come from a place of calm. It\u2019s a strange contrast between being expansive, yet laser focused, like the eyes of an eagle who is high up in the sky looking for prey. He\u2019s taking in all his surroundings, but can pinpoint down on a single point when required. That\u2019s using the 3 internal harmonies properly.<\/p>\n

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I think this is a Kite, not an Eagle, but you get the idea. Photo by Flo Maderebner on Pexels.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Tai Chi classics say:<\/p>\n

To fajin<\/em>,
sink,
relax completely,
and aim in one direction!<\/p>\n

There it is \u2013 the (sung) relaxed body is the first requirements, once you have it you can \u2018point your mind\u2019 in the direction you want your power to go, so that the internal movement matches the external movement. When the inner and outer harmonise together, then you have internal power.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Almost by accident I watched Onama vs Landwher fro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":21466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2816,2815,1647,1509,752,826,5281,1543,1786,1787,10285,1495,1492],"tags":[10265,926,2819,2817,1660,5272,5271,1435,1517,14279,8740,1231,1111,14278,5287,1555,1793,1794,8741,2251,1507,1504],"class_list":["post-21465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bagua","category-baguazhang","category-bjj","category-kung-fu","category-martial-arts","category-mma","category-qi-and-jin","category-tai-chi","category-tai-chi-applications","category-tai-chi-movement","category-tai-chi-notebook","category-xing-yi","category-xingyi","tag-accident","tag-almost","tag-bagua","tag-baguazhang","tag-bjj","tag-cruz","tag-dominick","tag-from","tag-kung-fu","tag-landwher","tag-marlon","tag-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-onama","tag-qi-and-jin","tag-tai-chi","tag-tai-chi-applications","tag-tai-chi-movement","tag-vera","tag-watched","tag-xing-yi","tag-xingyi",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martialartsclique.com\/ma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}