Budd

I am quite interested by where I see this discussion going . .

We've somewhat moved beyond "does internal exist and have value?" (thank goodness) and looking at methods . . but an important part of this discussion has to do with one's methods of developing internal power. Namely, is your practice of developing internal power . . one of the results of a martial art or tradition that you participate in (which has many other attributes besides internal training) . . or do you chase internal development for its own sake and your martial art is merely a container for how you express it?

Of those genuinely interested in the topic and incorporating it into their training, I think that's part of where the disconnect is coming in,with one side perhaps legitimately saying "This is the stuff, this is it and here's how I've been training it!!" while another side, also perhaps legimitately saying, "This is my martial tradition and it also/already includes internal training!!"

So, then it comes down to figuring out what your goals are for training and then honestly working towards fulfilling those goals. Neither of which is easy and both can be an evolving process that happens over time and is impacted by what's available to you. I think what's been interesting . . and something that Ellis's book hints at - is regarding how skills are lost over time . .

But a difficulty in ever truly assessing these things is that they have to be felt . . and you need something of an edcuated assessment filter to identify degrees of internal skill. I think there's something to the generic powerful hard, powerful soft and powerful ghost-like progression that I've seen come up more than once. But I'm still just a bum working on this stuff like a lot of other folks.