NèijiÄ (Chinese: 內家; “internal family”) denotes the internal (or “soft”) styles of Chinese martial arts, as opposed to wà ijiÄ (外家; “external family”), the external (or “hard”) styles, which are associated with Shaolin and its many derivatives. Traditionally, it is the three arts of T’ai Chi Ch’üan, BÄguà zhÇŽng, and Xíngyìquán that are regarded as internal, although other styles claim the designation also (e.g. see Liu He Ba Fa).

Stanley Henning presents the Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan (1669) by Huang Zongxi as the source of the dualism between the internal and external martial arts. Huang Zongxi was an opponent of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, as was Wang Zhengnan, the man the Epitaph eulogizes. The Epitaph’s identification of the internal martial arts with the Taoism indigenous to China and its identification of the external martial arts with the foreign Buddhism of Shaolin (and incidentally the Manchu) may have been an act of political defiance rather than one of technical classification (Henning).

Another proposed etymology for the terms “nèijiÄ” and “wà ijiÄ” is that some martial arts were taught exclusively to those inside (å…§; pinyin: nèi) one’s family (家; pinyin: jiÄ), whereas instruction in other martial arts, such as Changquan, was available to all, i.e. those outside (外; wà i) one’s family (家; jiÄ).

The Yang family of T’ai Chi Ch’üan is known to have possessed documents describing the distinction between internal and external martial practice at least as far back as the second half of the 19th century.

In the 1920s the nèijiÄ master Sun Lutang identified the following as the principles that distinguish an internal martial art:

1. An emphasis on the use of the mind to coordinate the leverage of the relaxed body as opposed to the use of brute strength.
2. The internal development, circulation, and expression of qì.
3. The application of Taoist dÇŽoyÇn, qìgÅng, and nèigÅng (內功) principles of external movement.