There are no internal or external martial arts, there are just martial arts

After all the years of practicing martial arts, I firmly believe that there are no internal or external martial arts, there are just martial arts. What I mean when I say that is that every martial art has its external and internal aspects. The external aspects are visible as techniques. The internal aspects are the abstract principles like full body power, connectedness, awareness, sensitivity, responsiveness… the external aspects are just manifestation of internal aspects. The more you understand the internal aspects of martial arts, the easier it is to use the external aspects. When I used to practice taeqwando, everyone was bouncing up and down, in a proper taeqwando fighting stands during the sparing fights. Everyone was jumping during sparing except for my teacher. He used to just stand there calmly, and watch us. He would wait until you had both feet in the air, and would suddenly leap forward and push you off balance. He wouldn’t even have to kick you or punch you. He would use his hands. How was he able to do it? He attacked us through the gaps in our consciousness. We were all too busy thinking about what we were doing, and did not pay attention what he was doing. Especially when we attacked, we all gapped and completely lost the connection with what was going on around us. We committed not only our bodies but our minds as well. So he used internal principal of awareness, connectedness and full body power, and we didn’t. This is why his taeqwando was so much better than ours. This use of internal martial arts principals is very common in “external” martial arts. Good boxers for instance use this gap punching all the time. They wait until the opponent commits to a punch and his consciousness gaps, and then attack through this gap. This is a use of internal martial arts principles in what are commonly considered to be external martial arts. Also I have met so many people who practice internal martial art, who don’t understand and don’t use any of the internal principles. This is most commonly seen in tai chi. This is why tai chi is regarded as rubbish for fighting. Tai chi means supreme boxing. And if you get it, it is supreme fighting style. Here is an example of what you can do with tai chi when you get its internal principals.