It's an amusing process... there are quite a number of martial art teachers out there now who use the branding of the traditional internal arts to attract business, but who claim to have seen through all the traditional bullshit about internal energy and to have re-formulated an instantly effective method (single weekend seminars!) whereby students can learn the truth of the so-called internal power, which in their revisionist view resolves down to stuff like mechanics, vectors, physical structure (static or dynamic), big or small muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments, joints, anatomy, posture, pole-fluttering, and other attractively tangible constituents.
I call these guys the Neo-Internal Mecha-Pimps (NIMP's).
Neo-Internal because of the cross-branding. They usually have done some kind of bare bones background work in one or more of: Taiji, Xingyi, Bagua, Yiquan, Aikido, Daito, and others of that ilk. They're also generally big guys well north of 200 lbs. Helps to be that size when you are running a seminar and never know in advance what kind of animal may plunk down the fee...
Career trajectory of a NIMP:
Phase 1: DENIAL - Stridently deny the existence of anything remotely resembling the traditional concept of qi/shen/ki etc. To the extent you recognize those terms at all (for business development purposes), you claim that you know exactly what Ueshiba, Yang Luchan, Wang Xianzhai etc. were really meaning when they carelessly and rather stupidly (or deceitfully?) threw around those bullshit mystical terms - they meant your brand of physics/anatomy/mechanics, but hell - you can parcel that out in a weekend. All talk of ki/qi/shen and so on is pure stone age cultural garbage.
Phase 2: RIDICULE - After working for many years you kind of stumble upon the actual qi/ki/shen phenomenon in yourself. Very shallowly of course, just a few buzzes and tingles. But ... whoops... looks like ... hmm there actually is something going on but since you can't really use it for anything, you can still salvage your original marketing message (see Phase 1 above) by now claiming to know all about what the masters called qi/ki/shen etc. it's just a little bio-electric buzz thing, you of course have known about that all along (oops... !) and it was just beneath discussion cause it's so fucking useless. But you can teach/demo it on demand for those small minds that are still easily distracted by the traditional hangover. Basically carry on as before.
Phase 3: MARKET THE FUCK OUT OF IT - Well most of these guys haven't reached Phase 3 quite yet and probably most never will due to the instrinsic nature of their physicalized training methods. But at some point a few of them will finally stumble into the full permeation phase of the energy training and then they really be poleaxed to realize that those old masters meant what they said and said what they meant, end of story. Don't think any of the main guys have hit this yet, but someday maybe they will and it's going to be fascinating to watch how they are gonna spin the cognitive (and marketing) dissonance.
But one basic element you know is gonna be part of their 'Internal Power 3.0' schtick:
"WE KNEW IT ALL ALONG"
