Internal strength is formed by practicing qi, which pays attention to breathing and breathing, adopts abdominal breathing, concentrates on work step by step, so as to achieve the purpose of exercising the internal organs. Wushu can improve endurance, combat effectiveness and strong self-protection function.
Speaking of internal skills, you may think of those mysterious things in The Legend of the Condor Heroes Eight Dragons. Many people say that internal strength is nonsense. So is there such a thing as internal strength? Of course, the answer is yes. Let's be clear about the fact that neither lightness skill nor hard qigong is an internal skill. Although these two kinds of kungfu use Qi, they are not used systematically. Compared with internal work, I prefer external work. Heavy work focuses on the body, while light work focuses on the waist and legs. Their qi is naturally formed in long-term exercise, not specially practiced. Let me explain one by one:
First, lightness skill.
There are many ways to practice lightness skill, most of which are gradual. For example, use a large bamboo basket (about 2 meters in diameter) filled with sand. Walk on the edge of the basket and run when you are skilled. The requirement is not to step over the basket. Of course, in the beginning, this requirement is easy to achieve. Then take the sand out of the basket with a bowl and run. You can dig out a bowl of sand if you are skilled ... If you practice like this, you will be as light as a swallow when all the sand in the basket is hollowed out. In this process, you will naturally form an air. As the saying goes, "lift the spirit, fit the intellectual man fit". But don't try, because no matter how you practice, you are unlikely to reach the standard, because there are some tips you can't say. Anyone who knows these tricks of using qi and practices them hard will be as light as a swallow at most 1 year.
Second, work hard. Hard training is mostly to hit various parts of the body with wooden sticks and other things, and use this stimulation to alleviate the pain when the body is hit, which is also called anti-beating practice. The outer skin and flesh are practiced to a certain extent, plus the know-how of hard work and gas. The body also produces a natural internal force.
Maybe you already think these things are amazing, but this is not internal work. Because their anger is natural, not uncontrollable. So, is internal strength magical? From the appearance, yes. Scientifically, no. As Luan Ying said, no one can break the shackles of the laws of natural science. Maybe some things can't be explained by natural science, but in any case, rice flour can't be turned into nuclear weapons. There are limits to internal strength. Through practice, a person can reach all kinds of almost "incredible" levels, but the human body can never beat the plane cannon. [Edit this paragraph] The internal skill of the Crane Boxing Road is adjusted, and the internal skill of the Crane Boxing Road uses Qi, which sinks into the abdomen. Pay attention to gas injection instead of force injection. And this "qi", according to the theory of Chinese medicine, refers to the subtle substances that can run and change in the human body, and has a certain running route. Martial artists believe that the movement of Qi can be exercised. Practicing qi is qigong, or internal strength. Crane boxing is to practice this spirit. He Quandao's internal skill is a display skill. Dantian can be divided into Upper Dantian, Middle Dantian and Lower Dantian. The key to boxing is to practice Dantian, that is, the point of Qihai in the middle of the lower abdomen, one inch and five points below the navel. When practicing, you should calm down and breathe rhythmically. Breathing should be soft, thin, deep, even, thin, soft and powerful. Stay in the abdomen. In this way, the abdominal position is relaxed and tight, and abdominal breathing is performed rhythmically. Doing this kind of exercise often makes you feel a warm blood flowing in your abdomen. Soon after each training, your whole body will gradually feel hot. This is the smooth circulation of qi and blood in the human body, following the meridians, descending from Danri to the heart of the foot (Yongquan point), then ascending through the back and neck to the top of the head (Baihui point), and then descending through Yanqiao to Dantian, becoming an elliptical circumferential manifold. This kind of qi and blood runs quickly, and it goes round and round. When practicing Dantian Kung Fu, the abdomen should feel full and elastic. Long-term practice will make the body and skin extremely tough and bear considerable fist impact. The so-called "one breath to practice bones and muscles, two breaths to practice skins" and "practicing boxing without practicing deficiency"
When people reach adulthood, more yin flourishes and yang declines. This "yin exuberance" refers to the appearance of strong body, and this "yang decline" refers to the lack of qi in the body. If the internal qi is insufficient and the qi and blood can't reach the four ends, many people will get sick. Therefore, we should use the method of weakening the compliant body to help the growth of internal qi, and finally achieve the balance between appearance and internal qi. The purpose of this practice is also. Scholars must know.
Therefore, teachers should be flexible, jump around, alternate speed and rigidity, and try their best to imitate if the balance of yin and yang is not reached, which will not only keep fit, but also hurt the body! Therefore, learning to practice crane boxing must follow the rules and not be rushed.
Before talking about internal strength, let's talk about something that natural science can't explain:
First, the acupoints and meridians of the human body. Most westerners don't believe this, while China people basically believe this. Anatomically, it cannot be explained, but the existence of acupoints and meridians is certain. India also has a theory similar to acupuncture points in yoga. Yoga holds that there are 14 life energy points on human spine, and the practice of yoga is to stimulate these 14 energy points, so as to achieve the effect of strengthening the body. China's acupoint theory is more detailed. Acupoints exist not only in the spine, but also in other parts of the body. Meridians play a role similar to programs. Eight strange meridians run through human acupoints.
Second, qi. Many people in China don't believe in gas, mainly because they have never seen it. Of course, qi is invisible. I haven't seen it, but I've experienced it myself. Its existence is also certain. Even Chinese medicine has many theories about qi and blood.
Let's talk about internal strength theory first. Each family's internal strength theory is different, which means that each family's internal strength method is different. There are many martial arts schools in China. There are tai chi, octupole, form and meaning, gossip and so on at home. No matter what kind, there is a so-called "gas fist", and every move must be quiet for a long time. This is the cultivation of internal strength. In jargon, this is called "Gong Zhuang". Junior Gong Zhuang is just to experience Qi. For example, in a certain posture, you should feel the hot air spread from your feet to your waist. If you feel this way, you have practiced correctly, if not, you have practiced wrongly. When you are familiar with the internal force of walking, practice the more advanced Gong Zhuang. At this time, the methods of various factions are involved. How to guide and control one's internal forces, and how to make them run in the body.
The highest state of internal work is called "knowing the body", which means "the body itself knows the movement of Qi". To put it more bluntly, it is called "opening the second pulse of Ren Du". This statement is not unreasonable. People who study Chinese medicine have all studied acupoints, and there is a formula about the sequence and time of qi and blood running in human body. Which viscera to run at noon, which viscera to run at noon ... one day 12 hours so run all over the body. This is a Sunday (congenital big Sunday). This week was born to keep running. It takes an hour for a person who practices internal skills to control the internal forces to run quickly in the body to complete the operation that should be completed in one day. Can he still be like a normal person? And this Sunday (Sunday the day after tomorrow) is divided into two kinds, one is a big Sunday and the other is a small Sunday. Small Sunday means that the control of qi and blood only bypasses Ren Du (starting at Baihui point on the top of the head and ending at Yin Hui point on the crotch). The middle line in front of the body is ren meridian, and the middle line behind it is du meridian), and the long work is fast and slow. Big Sunday refers to controlling qi and blood to bypass all meridians of the whole body, fast and slow. This level of internal cultivation can only be achieved by people who know the body.
People who achieve "body knowledge" really give people an unfathomable feeling. There was a famous Taiji master (deceased) who was over 1.6 meters tall. Before his death (when he was over 80 years old), a strong man with a height of 1.9 meters pressed his arm with both hands and pressed him with all his strength. The old man just gave a cry and ejected the strong man more than 2 meters with internal force. This is the power of knowing the body.
In addition, there is also an internal skill that is not used to hit people. Wu Tangmen has a kind of kung fu called "Cold and Summer Iron Cloth Kung Fu", which was founded by Zhang Sanfeng. Practicing this kind of kung fu can make people not afraid of cold and heat, and they can travel around the world in four seasons with only their clothes on. This kind of internal strength involves not only the theory mentioned above, but also the unique world outlook and health preservation theory of Taoism. I won't repeat it here. But again, there is a limit to internal strength. Like I am in Changchun now, it often snows and the weather is cold, but I still only wear shirts and coats, not sweaters and down jackets. Iron cloth shirts are tougher than me in hot and cold weather, but it is impossible to explore the South Pole with only a pair of shorts.
The above explanation of internal strength comes from books and folk legends, without textual research and scientific basis.
Internal strength comes from China Wushu, and there are many profound points worthy of in-depth study and textual research.
Similar to qigong
China's internal skill should have been born in 1932, and its "inventor" was named Li Shoumin. Li Shoumin also has a pen name "Zhu Huan Landlord", and he and Zhang Henshui are both leading figures in the novels of Yuanyang Butterfly School in the early Republic of China.
Li Shoumin's masterpiece is The Legend of the Swordsman in Shushan, but his most famous achievement is to create a literary genre of "Martial Arts Novel", which combines the myth, strange tales from a strange studio, swordsmen and creates a prosperous martial arts novel, creating a precedent for a generation.
Li Shoumin first mentioned "internal strength" in Nineteen Heroes in Qingcheng Mountain, and then further improved "internal strength" and "theory" in books such as Seven Girls in Wudang and Biography of Long Eyebrows. In the book, he put forward the "theory" that Wutang School is "home kungfu" and Shaolin School is "home kungfu". After liberation, Li Shoumin changed his name to Li Hong. From 1956, he was instructed by his superiors to make a profound self-criticism on his own work "Feng Du Xiu Poisonous Grass" in the newspaper. Five years later, he was "criticized" to death by revolutionary teenagers.
While Li Shoumin accepted criticism, Jin Yong, a writer from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and others began to take over the banner of Li Shoumin, deepen his "theory" of internal strength, and started to establish various martial arts schools. As a result, this novel school founded by Li Shoumin developed independently from the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School and became a "martial arts novel" which was later talked about by the mainland.
After Li Shoumin's death, martial arts novels sprang up like mushrooms after rain. Some busybodies gave them the names of the heads of the major schools according to the martial arts schools founded by famous martial arts writers or the schools preferred by the protagonists set in the book. For example, Liang Yusheng, who founded a Tianshan School in his book, likes to set the protagonist or positive figure as a disciple of Tianshan School, so he is called "the head of Tianshan School". This is the so-called martial arts writers' abuse of the heads of the eight factions, the ten factions and the eighteen factions.
It is said that there is a martial arts writer named Liu who always likes to feed the protagonist some ancient vegetables in his books, such as ancient tomatoes (often written as Cabernet Sauvignon or Zhu Guo) or ancient eggplant (Kunlun purple melon). Therefore, after he was appointed as the head of a certain school, he was nicknamed "the head of the Wild Fruit School" and also known as "the head of the Ancient Cuisine School". Then, those writers who also prefer to feed ancient dishes to the "pig's feet" in the book are also collectively called "wild fruit disciples"
Before Li Shoumin was born, or before the 19th outstanding student of Qingcheng School, China would never have "internal strength". Before that, the theory of "internal strength" was never mentioned in China's ancient novels, so in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which was born in the early Ming Dynasty, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei had no internal strength. Even the immortals in The Romance of Gods and The Journey to the West can't do internal work. That was when wudang zhang sanfeng was alive!
Until the Qing dynasty, the chivalrous men in the heroic biography of the new sons and daughters could not learn internal skills.