Tim Cartmell on Sport Fighting and Internal Principles

I was reading a book with interviews of various Neijia (Internal Martial Arts) masters. There is a lot that is interesting in that book, but one part was of particular interest. Tim Cartmell, has loads of experience in the Chinese Martial Arts as well as attaining a black belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu. Always interested in what he has to say since he experience in both "traditional martial arts" as well as neijia and BJJ. Interesting what he said about Jack Dempsey's book, Championship Fighting, and how it relates to Xingyi (Hsing I).
 

Tim Cartmell on Sport Fighting and Internal Principles

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If you read the original Judo documents, what Jigoro Kano actually wrote, you wouldn't know that you weren't reading the Tai Ji classics - they're virtually the same. The Ju in Judo is Rou in Chinese; it's the word that people translate as "Soft." It doesn't mean soft like Jell-O. You're always halfway between hard and flaccid. Rou is like bamboo, or like grass. Rou is flexible, you have structure and strength, you yield and snap back, that's the idea of Judo. Ju means to be pliable, to use the opponent's strength against him, have a superior angle, all those things that the Chinese recognize as what we now call internal. 

These principles should be present in sport fighting as well. They talk about using the lower abdomen, sinking your weight, not using force against force, and using whole body power. Read Jack Dempsey's book Championship Fighting - it's the best book on Xing Yi striking mechanics you could ever read and it's about Western boxing. It's about how to move your mass, how not to use force against force, so if you're talking about what I would actually call a martial art, they're all based on these principles. It just depends on how you do them. 

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Nei Jia Quan: Internal Martial Arts - Teachers of Tai Ji Quan, Xing Yi Quan, and Ba Gua ZhangEdited by Jess O'Brien
Second Edition - Revised and Expanded
Pages 19-20
Blue Snake Books
Berkeley, California
Copyright 2004, 2007