Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Tai Chi magazine had a good article recently called The Taiji Yin-Yang Formula. I especially enjoyed this quote: "If one wants to catch something, first it must be let go."

Naturally, I can't go into all of the principles included in this blog post, but one of the principles I'll practice with the class this week is "letting go" when force comes at you.

I practiced pushing hands with Master Chen Bing in Chicago last year. There was an exercise we did--he put his hand on my shoulder and I put my hand on his. When I pushed, he would relax and suddenly he wouldn't be there. His shoulder gave way under my push. Instead of greeting my push with force, he let go. He easily handled my force and before I knew it, I was off balance.

One of the things about Tai Chi that has always fascinated me is the idea of relaxing when force is coming at you. It's contrary to everything we've been taught to do our entire lives. And as the article in Tai Chi Magazine says, the very act of yielding create...

There's a quote that has been attributed to different people, but I believe it was first said by a Roman philosopher:

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."

When we study and practice martial arts, we work hard to be perfect. We want to have the perfect stance, throw the perfect punch, move with perfect body mechanics.

Sometimes we get so hung up on trying to be perfect that we forget to have fun, and we forget that being good just might be good enough.

I'm frequently stunned when I look at videos of some great Chen tai chi masters such as Chen Xiaowang, Chen Xiaoxing, and others. And when I see them in person, the difference in quality is surprising.

I've been told that some Tai Chi students who travel to the Chen Village in China come back to the U.S. and give up Tai Chi, because they realize they'll never be as good as the people they see there.

I like to compare my practice of the internal arts with playing other sports such as basketball. I can get together with a bunch of...

The first time I realized that chi kung (also spelled "Qigong") was having an impact on my life was in 1988, working as the producer of the 6:00 newscast at KMTV.

On one particular day, a wall cloud was passing the station, preparing to drop a tornado. People were running around the newsroom, doing live broadcasts, rolling big studio cameras outside the door so they could show the wall cloud on the air as it passed by -- there was a lot of shouting and screaming.

It was a little after 5 p.m. and I was at my desk, putting the final touches on the rundown and script for the 6:00 news. Suddenly I heard someone laugh. I looked to my right and the sports anchor was sitting at his desk looking at me.

"Doctor Chill," he said. "Everyone's screaming and panicking and you just sit there getting the job done."

I realized that I had been centering myself as I worked. I had become the eye in the center of the storm. The chi kung I began studying under Sifu Phillip Starr at the Omaha YiLi Chuan ...

People wonder if kung-fu is effective in a real fight "on the street." I was so proud when a student told me the following story.

Three days ago, Bettendorf police were looking for a man who had kidnapped a woman and her kids. He had taken the woman and kids to a hotel near our school.

One of my students is a police officer, and he was sent to the hotel when the clerk notified police that he thought the suspect had checked in with the woman and kids.

My student (I won't use his name here for privacy purposes) was standing near the door when suddenly the woman and kids came out. The alleged kidnapper/rapist came out next, and my student took him to the ground with an arm bar that we had practiced many times in class.

A few posts ago, I linked to a story in which an ultimate fighter put down kung fu and implied that it isn't practical in a real fight.

I beg to differ.

I was told the story of the arrest during class on Wednesday night, by another student who had talked to the off...

I read an interesting story about an ultimate fighter who was putting down kung-fu.

I've studied martial arts since 1973 and in all that time, I haven't been in a fight. My last fight was as a junior in high school. Okay, technically, it was the summer after high school, when I punched out a bully who had been harassing me for years, but he ran, so it wasn't really a fight.

As far as I'm concerned, I hope I'm never in another fight.

In the article about the MMA guy, it's implied that kung fu isn't effective because in one particular bar fight, a kung-fu "grandmaster" kicked a guy in the groin and bashed his head on the bar to end the fight rather than rely on the more elaborate techniques he had spent decades practicing.

My response is: So what?

In the current steroid and testosterone-driven view of martial arts that's a side effect of the ultimate fighting craze, we lose sight of some important principles.

For one thing, these are "arts." When you're young, you very often star...

 Here's an excerpt from a newspaper article about a Tai Chi teacher. I'm sure this teacher is a nice person, and her classes are probably doing people some good from an exercise and calming perspective. But this part of the story surprised me (well, not really). I removed the name of the teacher because this post is aimed at making a point about Tai Chi, not an individual.

Here is a clip from the newspaper story about the Tai Chi teacher:

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According to those who practice the exercise, someone has, receives and releases energy that is either positive or negative.

“In Austin, we had a young lady who was going for the high jump in the Olympics,” (the teacher) said. “The master had the young lady’s picture in the envelope, put it into a circle and did some forms sending positive energy her way. She didn’t win a medal, but she did go to the Olympics.”

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(Insert Deep Sigh Here)

Positive thinking is a wonderful thing. B...

You read and hear about different types of "energies" or "jin" in the internal arts. I read an interesting interpretation of this the other day. Something was apparently lost in the translation from Mandarin. When we talk about energies such as peng energy, we aren't talking about a "real" energy circulating through the body.

Instead, it's a cultivated energy or skill. I like to think of a baseball player who has spent many years practicing. He can swing a bat and hit a baseball out of the park, while I'd be lucky to even connect enough to hit a foul. His use of the bat represents a particular strength, or energy. Another example could be that of a carpenter. He can drive a nail with expertise, while I might hit my thumb with the hammer.

Americans, however, don't refer to the baseball player as having great "bat jin," or the carpenter as having great "hammer jin." It isn't part of our culture. When the heavyweight champion of the world knocks out an opponent, we don't say he has tre...

Some of my favorite martial arts memories are the times I spent training with Chen Xiaowang.

His workshops are physically demanding, but just watching him and having him correct you is a great opportunity to make little steps forward in your skill.

Here are links to two great videos of Chen Tai Chi Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang.

In this one, he demonstrates a form and adds explosive fajin (issuing energy) at the end. 

Here is another video showing Chen Xiaowang demonstrating ground strength and peng jin -- a good "root." I first put it on my blog in 2006. I have some new comments after the video: 

 In my original 2006 post, I said these are fun demonstrations to watch, and that's true. But in the 19 years since I put up the post on my old blog, I have a wiser perspective. 

2025 Perspective: You cannot stand on one leg and prevent someone from pushing you off-balance. Neither can Chen Xiaowang. Sometimes, these demos are simply show business. At least the student pushing on him ...