Chris seems correct here.
For example,
Check out this passage from a book, one I slightly altered (by adding in x's) to prevent one from figuring out immediately which martial art it comes from by looking at martial art specific terms:
Quote:
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Then go into your action with all the physical resources at your disposal. All your energy must flow through arm and xxxxx hand xxxxx until it strikes the target powerfully. Then, relax immediately and completely-from right fingers to left foot. 'All the physical resources' does not mean brute force.
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By power, I mean that concentrated nervous energy which all xxxxx martial artists xxxxx must know how to store, and how to release suddenly, unexpectedly, and completely whenever necessary.
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It could be something straight out of a taijiquan book, talking about not using brute force, the power coming from the leg, through the hands, concentrated energy flow, etc. But it is from a fencing book (
On Fencing), from the 1940s. Last time I checked, fencing is not considered "internal", and moreover, it is "Western", and it is often claimed by some internal gurus that Westerners have not understand internal stuff properly.
To me, things like this, of which there are many examples, utterly demolish some internal gurus' claims that what they are teaching is new or even specific to certain types of martial arts, movements, or training methods, and claims that things are missing, and so many people (except them of course) don't know about such things.
In fact, a fun experiment would be to publish in a taijiquan journal, for example, an article that uses such passages from arts considered non-internal, and no one would even notice, then reveal in a subsequent article the arts (and not necessarily all martial ones) that they are actually from.
Justin