They popular or what?

extremely popular. Unfortunately, 98% of the IMA teachers in the US only understand and teach forms and 'chi gung'. (most of them tell their students that they can't teach them the fighting until all the basics are understood... which they say, takes 10 to 45 years. Or they claim they can't teach the 'martial' aspect because it's too dangerous and they want to avoid lawsuits)

2% teach IMA for fighting.

50% of the 2% invented their history to appear more legitament, while they do teach some cool stuff, it isn't really 'Internal Martial Arts' (it's just a big, dorky guy selling crap to whimpy little people).

I would like add that my previous post was not intended to be hurtful to Capt'n Dr. John Biff Painter of the American Texas Rangers, Erle Montigue or any other wannabe-real-IMA teacher nor any of their faithful, well-meaning yet irretrievably gullible students.

I tried to edit my previous post to make it less contentious, but too much time had passed and I'm unable to.

Are IMA popular? I guess that would depend on what area of the US you are in. They are certainly not very "common", but I believe their popularity is always growing. Taiji is pretty common in any "larger" city, but it is normally weak and all-health taiji. If we believe that BJJ is an IMA then it is probably the fastest growing of them all

it seems pretty popular with the senior crowd, who can appreciate it more. but for fighting, dont expect someone to use tai chi on you.

though i agree that it is an extremely applicable art in terms of fighting and self defense.

i feel that with the current globalization movement we'll be seeing alot more of the esoteric martial arts from china, i also feel that once people learn how to appreciate eastern medicine and stuff like that, popularity will grow rapidly.

Seems like most martial arts (the good ones anyways) are IMA.

Very true. If you find a good Karate dojo, Wing Chun kwoon, etc... you will likely learn some sound internal principles.

How exactly will you find internal principles in a karate dojo?

Internal principles in karate? The Goju-Ryu kata Sanchin and the Shotokan kata Hangetsu comes to mind. Hangetsu starts out very slow, similar to Tai Chi and contains a lot of circular movements. Hence its name...which means "Half Moon".

We must have a different understanding of internal principles. And fwiw, I've trained san chin, nothing internal there if you ask me, other than rooting.

It is very difficult to find a karate instructor that teaches IMA principles.

But the same can be said that it is very difficult to find self-defense training at an IMA school.

Funny how 98% of IMA teachers only teach forms and qigong, yet everyone (especially on the Internet) seems to be training with one of the 2% that are the "real deal."

FWIW, its hard to find practical self defense training in ANY martial arts school.

There is no such thing as IMA or EMA. There is only Martial Arts and if your doing dead training it ain't Martial Arts.

In defense of the "98% of IMA teachers" that only teach forms and qigong... If you already have an effective fighting strategy, learning the forms and qigong correctly will help you slowly develop attributes that are useful in a fighting situation.

I personally would prefer a Tai Chi teacher who has incredible attributes (rooting, push hands, hitting power) and teaches little to no fighting strategy, over a Tai Chi teacher who teaches a little bit of both but does not excel in the attributes area. I can learn the fighting strategies part elsewhere.

To quote Tim: "The most basic and important difference between internal and external martial arts is the method of generating power or "jing" (manifest energy). At the root fundamental level, the most important factor which qualifies an art as internal is the use of what the Chinese call "complete," "unified" or "whole body" power (jengjing). This means the entire body is used as a singular unit with the muscles of the body in proper tone according to their function (relaxed, meaning neither too tense nor too slack). Power is generated with the body as a singular unit, and the various types of energies (jing) used are all generated from this unified power source."

I know some karate teachers that emphasize relaxed whole body power just like you find in Xingyiquan.

Tim’s’ writing abilities are certainly very good. However, for myself, who cannot write as Tim can, I like short and to the point. So, I’ll shorten this beautifully written paragraph down to this: speed times mass equals power (force) the key is stepping. Relaxed means wave dynamics which amplifies the above. Very Positive stuff!