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Chris,
You continue to not only mis‐paraphrase, but mis‐quote me. Naturally, it is not appreciated. Again I encourage readers to compare what I originally wrote against how my statements have been re‐cast, and in addition the intentions of those statements have been mis‐represented. It is not productive to dissect this point by point, as that would likely lead to further unsavory and off‐the‐mark commentary. So again, nothing more to add regarding my previous statements, as they stand on their own merit, especially given I've provided sources with whom interested parties can take the initiative to do follow‐up.
To help move the discussion along, and as has been further clarified by Dan, the internal skills we've been discussing fall along a continuum, and not all skills we've discussed will work, or are intended to work, on a fully resisting uke/opponent. That does not make them inherently bogus. Otherwise, if such were the floor for internal skills, that would for all intents and purposes largely invalidate Daito‐ryu and its descendants as martial arts, as well as the vast majority of legitimate internal Chinese martial arts.
Dan is a proponent of, and a high‐level expert in, the martial efficacy end of the IP/IS spectrum; and as he stated in his opening post, he feels the bickering over provenance and ownership of terms should take a back seat to development of pedagogy and real skills that preserve the ability to transmit and give life to the concepts being debated. I wholeheartedly agree. I would hope that most folks reading this thread have an interest in attaining high-level skills vs. anachronism preservation in ritualized form and documentation only. Personally, I have a strong interest in what Dan's doing, as well as an interest in how the martial sublime skills relate to other aspects of Asian internal arts, including the healing arts (I study Hakkoryu, because it's logical that if you're gonna learn to tweak people, that you also be able to fix what you tweak). I offer up this account written by Stanley Pranin, who is deservedly recognized for his scholarship related to Daito-ryu and aikido, regarding his encounter with the healing side of internal skills within the Daito-ryu lineage: https://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=9 (see "Unsolicited Endorsement"). On this end of the spectrum, of course, the partners in the interaction aim to cooperate, as in the middle of the spectrum, but now outside of the martial context. I hope the preceding explanation further helps provide readers with a sense of why all is not B.S. in the internal scheme of things simply because it won't work against someone going after your lunch money at all costs. The Asian internal arts, as a whole, are about self‐development, with martial ability being one possible and worthy outcome. These skills, as Dan said regarding high-level martial ability, all fall within -- not beyond -- the range of human capability, and are worthy of study and preservation across the board.
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