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What's on your mind dude?

Ok, as I've posted a couple of times myself and my girlfriend are chucking tkd as my instructor has turned into a complete cocklord.
So were going to try out this local kungfu class, obviously I'll more about it when I try it out tonight but this is what I've found out from his literature:
He's a member of the Nam Pai kungfu assocition. From what I can tell with my googlefu skills this translates as northern-southern kungfu (?) which isn't exactly helpful.
His classes are a combination of southern mantis, southern shaolin boxing, southern shaolin animal forms and iron body training.
Basically I want to know your opinions of so called internal training and Iron insert body part here training. Up untill now I've concentrated exclusively on external stuff, i.e. hitting things really hard.
I've always considered the internal arts and chi to be complete gibberish, but I know this guy is well into his conditioning (which is good IMO) and chi cultivation (he runs a Tai Chi class before his kungfu class which he recommends people take part in aswell). So do you think internal training will improve me as a martial artist or something that I'll have to put up with to get to the good stuff? Basically do you think that kungfu is usefull in practicality as well as looking pretty? I know its hard to say without seeing a class but I've have been to one or two ages ago and it did seem to be a good hardcore class but with a noticable absence of sparring

It depends on what you want out of your martial arts training.

If you want to learn an authentic art form then that's fine but don't expect to learn anything that's going to be street effective. The fact that there is a distinct lack of sparring already sets off alarm bells and if you hear the classic line that's will sound something like:

"Our techniques are just too dangerous to use in sparring"

Then you'll know the type of school your in.

As far as the chi cultivation is concerned. You're better off doing regular cardio work. You'll gain the same benefits along with beeter C.V conditioning. Providing you do it right you wont suffer the joint damage.

I agree with Delmar. Any Kung Fu style that doesn't emphasize sparring, might as well be considered an art class.

In reference to Chi application... I have yet to see drastic achievements accomplished within the soft styles... however I do believe, and am aware of its existence. Medical Studies by the Harvard Science department have traced the Chi energy paths throughout the body, so the actual force has been proven to exist in an internal vascular system called Meridians (which is the basis of Acupuncture and Acupressure... along with Chiropractic sessions). Chi is documented as being a magnetic byproduct of the natural occuring human bio-electricity. So in short, its bio-electric magnetism.

As far as the manipulation of this energy, I have yet to see it.

Cheers for the input guys. I finally made it a class last night so here's an update:
All in all I was really impressed, this guy certainly doesn't mess about. Started off with a good forty minute warmup working the entire body. A solid five minutes of standing still with your arms out breathing from the dante (sp?), that really hurt but the breathing really did help. Followed by a load of kicking on pads for another forty minutes or so, no real differences from what I'm used to there just a bit quicker and more balanced. And then finished off the last forty minutes with learning the first form, which was enjoyable, the movements were direct and felt right if you see what I mean, natural. It was an action packed two hours of hard work that I so so needed after having 3-4 weeks off. Speaking to him at the end was interesting aswell. Yes he is very into his internal stuff but what that means in effect is lots and lots and lots of conditioning, forearms, hands, legs, and body. And there is sparring, it just starts slow with pushing hands and things. The large part of the syllabus is southern mantis which he described as a short hard style from hongkong very similar to wingchun. From what I can understand it seems to be a very good style for working on close work, angles and balance, which I think would do me good. And a last point aswell he showed us his lineage and the various people he's trained under which looked pretty damn good

Does anyone know how I can continue a decent training with only one arm?

Actually I was just practicing strikes and painfully doing 1armed push ups, I just don't wanna look deformed with an OBVIOUSLY stronger arm(my free one is my utility one).