“The origin of internal arts” is probably what I’d have called this really interesting podcast with Peter Lorge about the history of internal martial arts, however Kung Fu Genius decided to name it “Chinese Martial Arts History is Mostly FAKE” because, well, it probably generates more clicks, or something. Anyway, Lorge turns over a few sacred cows here, and I also liked what he had to say about BJJ.
Have a listen:
I think Peter makes a great point about all these different ‘internal’ things throughout Chinese history all definitely existing, but all being completely separate and unconnected until the 1920s Guoshu Institute needed to create the category of “internal” to exist in opposition to shaolin and external, so it brought them all together. (The gentleman whose name he forgets when talking about this is obviously Sun Lu Tang.)
I do wonder if instead of looking back for mentions of “internal” throughout Chinese history a look back for the phrase Liu He “six harmonies” would make a better connection between the dots of Chinese martial arts history. While the term “Neijia” may not appear very often pre-1920s, Liu He definitely did. If we’re looking at how we got where we are today, then that’s probably a better bet.
The Tai Chi Notebook 
Graham, I listened for while to the podcast and then gave it up. So far, in my career, I haven’t heard a single westerner pontificate on Chinese martial arts who seems to be very familiar with Chinese martial arts. Peter Lorge is no exception. You can “do Judo” and “do Taiji” and “do Bajiquan”, often for many years, without having had a real entre’ into the Asian martial arts.
Take a look at the ubiquitous ☯ symbol that all of the Chinese martial arts display in one way or the other. There’s a reason they do that: it’s a way of saying that they subscribe to a unique form of movement and body mechanics which they use as the basis for their own martial art. The problem is, as has been discussed many times, is that the body mechanics which are the real basis of almost all Chinese and Asian martial arts … those aren’t taught freely to outsiders. So when an outsider has no idea about these ancient body-mechanics and they try to write a history of those martial arts, they simply miss the important common-thread which runs through it all.
Each time some westerner comes out with a new “history” of the Chinese or Asian martial arts, I buy the book and I immediately flip through it to obtain an idea of how much this person really knows about the keystone body-mechanics that is so important all the arts display the same ☯. So far, the secrets are still safe, apparently. As a podcaster, you should arm yourself with some information and make ☯ the topic of some of your interviews.
2 cents.
LikeLike