I'm not so sure about that - from what I've read, there's a huge overlap between monastic communities in China, trading teachers, ideas, language and so forth. (The first Buddhists in China had to use Taoist vocabulary to translate their concepts, apparently - it was the only semantic equipment at hand).
Classes in China cover both.
And this article on some related styles explains the relationship pretty well.
quote:Although Waijia and Neijia follow different philosophies, there are many similarities between them. In China, the most popular Buddhism style is (Chan) Zen. Shaolin Temple is recognized as the place of origin of Chan. The basic Chan idea is a mixture of the original Buddhism and Taoism. This suggests that Chan includes some Taoism. On the other hand, one of the most famous Taoism sects is Quan Zhan (Complete Truth). Zhang Sanfeng supposedly belonged to this style. One of the main ideas of the Quan Zhan sect is that the three main philosophies, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, are based on the same principles, so therefore they should be united together in practice. These factors may have produced the many philosophical similarities between Waijia and Neijia.
This brief article, and this article too however, give you all the info you need on the differences between the two, and all the history and terminology you need.
quote:There are so many schools and styles of Chinese wushu that no one can exactly list them. Among several nationwide ones, there are much more regional modifications and even those which are practicized by members of not more than one family. Due to this, Chinese wushu cannot be classified formally. In fact, all schools of wushu are divided in two: waijia, or "external family", and neijia, or "internal family".
The schools of waijia concentrate on developing stamina, agility, physical force, strenghtening of body parts exposed to strikes. The neijia schools give priority to psycho-physical training and qigong (mastering of qi). Using a metaphor, waijia is training of body and neijia is training of spirit.
Such a division is rather relative, because every school of wushu has these two sides of training. The matter is the proportion between them.
Traditionally, external schools are under influence of Buddhism; internal schools are inspired by Taoism - the most famous one, known as Wudangpai is named after Mt.Wudang, the sacred place of Taoism.
quote:It is difficult to define the difference between the so called external and internal styles. The most significant differences are to be found in the underlying philosophies and have less to do with the speed or force of the movements. Many so called hard styles include soft elements and vice versa.
" Originally, the difference represented and arose out the two prevailing streams of religious thought; the foreign Indian Buddhism (Shaolin Temple) and the indigenous Chinese Taoism (Wudang Temple) and as such had little to do with the relative 'hardness' or 'softness' of the styles. This latter-day interpretation was most likely constructed in order to mystify a subject insufficiently understood thereby lending it an aura of exoticness." (Lainy Grönman)
Further reading here,
in this fussy-assed historical essay.
I think one of them mentioned that there's often more difference between different family styles of Shaolin or Wudang than there is between some forms of tai chi and related forms of kung fu.
A lot of the differences were artifically created as a part of nationalist propaganda during successive waves of invasion/ethnic power struggles. |
