The terms 'Internal' and 'External' can be very confusing. They are direct translations of Chinese terms and, apart from a couple of very limited circumstances, they are utterly meaningless in English. Likewise, everyone in the martial arts uses them a little differently from everyone else, thus adding to the confusion.

Technically, there are only 4 classically 'Internal' systems: Hsing- I, Tai Chi, Bagua, and Liuhopafa. Everything else falls under the 'External' category.

Most of the time External systems are physically demanding, and offer a great deal of physical conditioning and fast action. Internal systems tend to be scholarly, strategic, and meditative. These are classical generalizations however that leave wide areas uncovered, indistinct, and grey.

Internal and External refer to a methodology of training and a mind set, not a group of techniques or actions. There can be no 'Internal Martial Arts' and no 'External Martial Arts' because it's the 'How' not the 'What'. Not every method covers the Internal, but everyone begins in the External.

Essentially 'Internal' and 'External' are levels. We could as easily call them 'Advanced' and 'Beginning'. If we did, much of the confusion surrounding the terms would evaporate. You can neither practice the External way forever, nor can you start from scratch in the Internal method.

External movements are dependent on strength, speed, and endurance. They are physical, athletic actions. Most sports are practiced in this manner. All the actions of an External methodology are best performed by a young body with a high degree of natural talent. You get tired from performing them, and your muscles are sore the next day.

External systems are also characterized by rote memorization, and a focus on learning moves, drills, or techniques. The focus is on you: you drill your moves, your timing, your situation. You work on the system.

The purpose behind External training is to stretch the physical limits of your body, and thus force it to adapt and grow stronger. These movements are good exercise, and if you do them a lot you will get into very good athletic shape. The downside is that eventually the body has a hard time coping with the training regimen. To continue, you have to retire and become a coach, or adapt your methods to the Internal style.

Internal movements depend on structure rather than strength. Setting up a structure, much like building a house, allows a small amount of material to support a great deal of weight. If the walls are straight, and everything is lined up properly, the building will stand for a very long time. The same thing can be done with the body. Instead of using muscular strength to hold up the weight, or perform the block, or make the attack, you can let the body structure do the work for you.

Internal systems also stress efficiency rather than speed or endurance. They try to accomplish more with less. Looking back at the structure idea, instead of wasting muscular energy on holding up the body, they use structure. The Internal seems to have tremendous endurance compared with the External method, but it's a sham- the Internal simply does not work as hard as the External does, but it accomplishes more.

Efficiency also replaces speed. You do not have to be very fast if you don't have far to go to get into position. Likewise being able to sustain continual motion, because you are not working so hard, gives you a tremendous advantage over people who have to stop and rest or reset. Think of the Tortoise and the Hare.

The Internal method is also based on strategy. Knowing the equipment at hand: the body, and knowing the goals of the opponent allows the Internal adept to begin to plan a strategy worthy of a chess master. Most of the time the opponent can't help but fall into an ambush. Even knowing it's there doesn't always help, as a good technique will make the opponent's best option be the action which closes the jaws of the trap. Wai Lun Choi characterizes it as "Putting some cheese on the trap to see if the rat is hungry".

Internal systems are totally dependant on the opponent. Your tactics are entirely based on what he does to you. The rat chooses to go for the cheese. You can't make him do it, you can only entice. You study his moves and his motivations, learning what his options are, and what you can do in response to each option- by feel. This is what is called 'Sensitivity'. Essentially he defeats himself, you just help. Instead of you working on the system, the system works for you.

This dichotomy is found all over our history and culture. Look at the saying "Age and treachery always beats youth and skill". We are talking about the same phenomenon. It's the difference between working hard, and working smart. The thing to remember is that you need both approaches at different times.

Chinese martial arts are very broad based, flexible, and very inclusive. In any given system there is a huge variety of techniques and training methods. Virtually anything covered by system A is eventually covered by systems B, C, and D. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but it will be covered. So statements like 'External Styles do this' and 'Internal Styles do that' might well be accurate, but not terribly informative. It's like saying 'Male ducks swim'. True, they do, but then so do female ducks.

Every martial art starts in the External category, even the classicaly 'Internal' styles. You can't start anywhere else. In the beginning you don't know what to do. You start by memorizing strange postures and moves, and by waving your arms and legs. You might know what you are trying to do, but you don't understand, and probably don't have sufficient command over your body to even approach the correct technique. You will spend a great deal of time working on your own moves. This is a good thing, as the External has the greater capacity to develop the body.

Eventually, as you master the techniques, you have the chance to begin practicing the Internal methods. The Internal is about refining rather than developing. Everyone starts in the External, but neither every person nor every style makes the transition. There is a deep gulf that has to be gotten over, both in methodology and in mindset.

Getting over the gulf can be done by talent, by inspiration, and by just sheer luck. Only you can make the jump, nobody can do it for you. Your level is entirely independant of the style you practice. A true master of any style/ system/ sport/ skill/ trade/ etc. works more via the principles of the Internal than the External.

Some examples: Michael Jordan, who played one of his best games- while suffering a 100+ degree fever. Mohammed Ali, who would slip an opponent's attack by the barest margin possible, or failing that, would put his body into the position that a successful strike would force him to take- thus robbing it of all it's power.

Many systems have tools and/or attitudes that can help the adept bridge that gulf. Getting there is still your responsibility, but some systems make the process easier than others. To suceed it helps to have both the tools and the attitude.

Some styles have neither the tools, nor the attitudes. Some have the tools, but they lack the attitude. Others have the attitude, but lack the tools.

So barring miraculus inborn talent, we all must start with the External. Even when learning classicaly Internal styles like Tai Chi. Day one in Tai Chi class you start memorizing wierd patterns in which to wave your arms and legs. You spend your time drilling postures and techniques you do not understand. Eventualy they become part of you, but in the beginning it is like learning any other dicipline.

By the same token, an experienced Boxer spends more time out- thinking his opponent than he does out- fighting him, though the world calls his art 'External'.

Sensitivity is the ability to move with an opponent based solely on the sense of touch. Like many concepts in the martial arts it is a semi- legendary skill that is made much of in movies and stories, and often misunderstood.

Stories of sightless fighters, blind swordsmen, and old blind beggars that make mockeries of their attackers are allegorical at best, referring to this ability to follow one’s sense of touch.

All higher level martial arts are built around the concept of feeling the opponent’s actions and reacting to them on a reflexive level, rather than on the level of conscious thought. We call this phenomenon ‘Sensitivity’.

There are no ultimate moves; no techniques that beat all other techniques no matter what the circumstances. A good tactic is one that matches the situation, and the tactic of the opponent. No technique is good or bad except insofar as it is a match to the circumstances in which it will be used.

Every move has strengths and weaknesses; each beats something, and is beaten by something else. It’s like the game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’. The Chinese call it the 5 element cycles of Creation and Destruction.

The names are different, but the concept is the same. The Chinese theory can be, and often is, taken to ridiculous lengths, but the idea of cyclic dominance is very important to the martial arts. It’s not the moves themselves that make the master successful, but rather when and where each technique is applied.

Sensitivity then, is the art of determining by touch, the tactic of the opponent, and performing the action that is the best response to the given situation. You don’t know ahead of time what action you are going to take. The opponent determines your tactic by his actions. He literally tells you how to defeat him, and ideally supplies the force necessary to do it.

Learning Sensitivity requires you to analyze the situation from a tactical, psychological, and physiological standpoint. You must seek the most logical response to every situation, and practice it until it is completely natural to you.

You must find the answers to questions such as: What will an opponent likely do in response to a given tactic? What are his options and his motivations? Given what he will likely do, what can you make of it? What is the intrinsic weakness of your own technique, how might it be blocked? What might the opponent do to you, and what can you do in response?

The human body being what it is, there are a limited number of responses to any given situation. Since all bodies work more or less the same, by knowing yourself, you also know the equipment the attacker will bring to the conflict. It is this knowledge that allows the adept to predict and control the actions of his opponent.

Tactically, you are planning to fail. There is not a single movement that you are counting on succeeding. Instead, you assume it will be blocked, and instead chain up multiple follow-up techniques that will take advantage of your opponent's offensive or defensive actions.

Like a chess master, the master of Sensitivity has most of the encounter planned ahead of time. Though he cannot know what the opponent will do, he knows what he himself can do in response to any logical move. From the opening of the encounter, he can predict the endgame.

He can see the movements developing, and knows the responses to every possible movement from a given situation. Furthermore, it will be his sense of touch- not his sight that will be responsible for observing the opponent’s actions, and for formulating an appropriate response.

Our bodies are designed to work in certain ways. They have intrinsic strengths and weaknesses. If our tactics are designed to work with our bodies, rather than against them, we work more efficiently: accomplishing more with less effort.

Most of us are familiar with the necessity of eye- hand coordination. It is a big part of our every day lives. However, we tend to take for granted what is involved in even the simplest actions.

To interpret the world around us, we must take the visual data from our two eyes, and process it to create a three dimensional picture. Then we have to interpret the various objects in that picture, recognize our relationship to them, and arrive at the actions we will take in response.

We really don’t understand how eyes see. We are not sure exactly how we process the signals to make the picture, and then interpret them. We do know however that it takes a tremendous amount of processing. The human brain consumes as much as 25% of the calories that the body takes in. Thinking is hard work. It is also time consuming.

To see something, like an attack, and then judge its trajectory, and formulate probable responses takes a tremendous amount of time. Often more time than we have available.

Think of the path that the information must travel: in through the eyes, through all the higher sections of the brain for image processing, interpretation, analysis, and only then does a signal go out to the muscles to actually do something about it.

Of course the physical situation is constantly changing, so this process goes on constantly, with separate loops for feedback to tell you if you are in fact performing the actions you think you are taking.

If the technique is based on touch sensitivity rather than sight recognition and eye- hand coordination, things can move much faster than if our visual centers are involved. At the time of execution, the higher functions of the brain are essentially left out. Because the more time consuming sections are not involved in the loop, the techniques happen at a speed approaching the miraculous.

While it is not a true reflex, a Sensitivity response can approach it in speed. Learned physical responses are programmed in the cerebellum- a part of the lower brain located right off the brain stem. Signals from the body only have to travel this high before turning around and issuing appropriate tactical instructions to the muscles needed for movement. There is less ground for the signal to cover, and fewer steps to accomplish before a response appears.

Furthermore, since each response is keyed to the technique it beats, the response is exactly appropriate to the situation. The high brain functions were involved in the planning, just not in the execution. The whole package was used in carefully training the responses until they are as automatic as breathing. It is not a mindless response; it’s just that the heavy thinking has been done ahead of time, when there was time to do so.

So the sense of touch responds faster, and can be more discerning than the sense of sight. Interesting enough, it’s even a part of our language. How many times have you heard someone say things like “It looked fine, but something didn’t feel right.”?

We unconsciously put the felt onto a higher plane than the seen. We cannot always define these feelings, but we ignore them to our peril. With this wonderful system already built into ourselves, the next step is to learn how to use it. That’s where the training comes in.

Body Mechanics is a simple way of saying that you are using the body in the way it was designed to be used. They are a collection of physical habits that together will minimize stress, maximize performance, and provide a mechanism for self discovery and self defense.

The number one benefit to the practitioner of the martial arts is learning correct Body Mechanics as a method of preventative physical therapy/ sports medicine. The most obvious benefits are seen in the self defense arena, but for most of us, this is a benefit we hope to never need. The application of correct Mechanics to our daily lives, while less dramatic, is an advantage that can make every day more fulfilling.

An alarmingly large portion of the aches and pains we suffer, and the injuries that we sustain, are directly caused by our physical habits. We put stresses on our bodies as a natural result of our lives and our activities. These stresses can later manifest as chronic physical problems.

Unfortunately, we are born with a random selection of these physical habits, and we develop more haphazardly throughout our lives. No one taught us how to stand, how to walk, etc. We puzzled it out on our own, and were delighted when we were merely able to move across the room.

If we are lucky, we have habits that are close to the physiological ideal, or we are gifted with connective tissue so strong that our bad habits don’t come back to bite us. Unfortunately, most of us cannot look forward to this kind of luck. Our habits will eventually catch up with us. The resulting pain will be dismissed as a product of old age, general ‘wear and tear’, or caused by random accidents. There is however, another alternative.

When a person is injured, a sports doctor or physical therapist will teach them exercises and drills to help recondition the injured body part, and to learn good physical habits that will prevent further injury. For what may be the first time in a person’s life, they will be taught exactly HOW their body was designed, and how it was meant to be used.

Animals have the benefit of instincts that guide their behavior. Often their bodies are fused into positions and shapes that are best suited for their lives. We humans do not have that limitation, nor do we have that advantage. The advantage of being human is that we can learn to do anything. The disadvantage is that we have to learn to do everything. We do not have the fixed structure nor do we have the instincts of the animals.

Oddly enough, if we wanted to learn calculus, or engineering, or agriculture, we would find some source of information, and we would study the topic. When it comes to our bodies, we simply assume that we know what to do. Some of us do. We call them ‘natural’ athletes, and say they are lucky. The rest of us are just out of luck; but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can learn to become ‘natural’ athletes; through the study of Body Mechanics.

Body Mechanics are simply a set of physical habits which are indistinguishable from the reflexes of a ‘natural’ athlete, or the structure and instincts of an animal. 80-90% of what we call the martial arts is simply a method for learning these habits.

It all starts with body core strength, and moves outward to the limbs. Postural habits and core training takes most of the strain off of the lower back. We learn how to turn the leg as a whole unit, preventing the knee from separating under the strain of sudden direction changes. Shoulders are allowed to hang in their natural position, preventing injuries to the rotator cuff.

We could, if we wished, prepare a list of exercises that each and every person should perform daily to build good Body Mechanics. Unfortunately it would be mind- numbingly boring. It would likely go the way of every other exercise program- we mean to start it, and maintain it, but life gets in the way.

The martial arts give us a framework of drills and routines that link various exercises into cohesive groups. The routines are varied; it is difficult to get bored. They are interesting, and fun to do. There is a purpose for each movement, and they can be beautiful and even artistic in their expression.

The martial arts have the added benefit of including many other aspects of training too. While you are working on your Mechanics, you are also developing your strength, flexibility, endurance, sensitivity, and your command over your own body; all things that otherwise might be their own training programs. They have the added benefit of being useful in self defense situations as well.

Martial arts are famous for teaching self defense skills, and indeed, they were primarily designed with this in mind. However our worst enemy is often ourselves. We are, through our unconscious habits, undermining our own strength, energy, and health in every minute of every day.

Body Mechanics teaches us first and foremost how to defend us from ourselves. It is usually taught in terms of defending against others, primarily because it is easier to feel what is going on with help from a partner. With help from the outside, we can learn about the inside.

Hopefully, we will never need to use our skills to prevent another from doing us harm. However, if it does happen, good Mechanics provide self defense benefits that are both amazing and unexpected.

We like to think in terms of strength. We want to have powerful muscles, and powerful looking bodies. To most of us, a powerful body is large, and sports many bulging muscles. We look at body builders, or any large person, and this defines our idea of strength.

Strength by itself is not enough though. Having muscles that can generate a great deal of force does not mean that we can use that strength for anything useful. To use our strength, we must have structural integrity and coordination- i.e. Body Mechanics. No amount of strength is useful if we cannot bring it to bear.

In fact, for most of us, if we get the Mechanics right, we don’t need to be very strong. The average person has more than enough muscular power to do any task in their daily life without a great deal of effort and without injury. This includes defending themselves from any attacker- no matter how big or strong. They simply must learn to use what they have correctly and efficiently.

When a person’s mechanics are good, they seem incredibly strong; incredibly powerful. They can do more work with less effort. (Work in the physics sense, i.e. moving objects around) They might have much less strength than the ‘Arnold’ types, but they can accomplish much more.

When striking a target, the whole body is coordinated behind the movement, loading up maximum mass on a small, precise section of the attacker. In defense, the same relationship holds true, but in reverse. The opponent is faced with moving the whole person each and every time they attack. Even a 100 lb. person is a great deal of mass to move around. The opponent is forced to work very hard, and tires quickly.

For athletics, good Body Mechanics means that the sport is played well within the body’s performance envelope. The athlete is less likely to push the edges of the envelope, where catastrophic failures occur most often. Most of the game is played well within the comfort zone.

Even in extremis, when you do wish to push the envelope, the body is used in a manner congruent with its design. Your opponent’s best is your easy, and he cannot match your best.

Our bodies attempt to make up for poor structure and mechanics with muscular tension. Relaxation without good structure is problematic or even impossible, as the body knows it cannot perform the actions needed without the muscles working constantly to hold the body in place. Once the Mechanics are improved, the body relaxes almost as if by magic, because the tension is no longer needed, so we unconsciously turn it off.

Good Mechanics will also improve your energy levels. You are using less energy to do any action- from the most athletic, to the most simple. You seem to have more energy, as you are no longer wasting it on ordinary motions.

An understanding of Body Mechanics is so vital that historically, a student seeking to learn Traditional Chinese Medicine was required to study the martial arts. To heal the body, you must understand it. To understand the body you must study it. Your study of the body began with your own; from the inside out.

So the study of martial arts is essentially writing an owner’s manual for your own body. It will contain all the information you will need both to get maximum performance out of your machine, and where to look under the hood for maintenance.

Need for repairs will be kept to a minimum, but in the event that you need to seek help from an expert, you will not sit idly by. You will be able to direct the rehabilitation yourself, and the experts will just be there to help you.