What it Takes to Succeed in Martial Arts

internal arts training May 12, 2009

On Saturday, Alex drove three hours from Milwaukee for a private lesson (pictured above). We worked in my basement for three hours and then he drove home. A 9-hour day for Alex. In the photo at left, I'm working with him on establishing and maintaining the ground connection--step one in learning the internal arts. We went through several of these exercises, plus peng jin, silk-reeling and whole-body movement. It was a lot of fun and I could tell he learned a lot.

I admire someone who does this. Alex has been a member of the online school, and he had the Internal Strength DVD, but he wanted to understand it better so he spent a day traveling to my home for some hands-on training and correction.

This is what it takes to succeed, and I admire someone who goes to that kind of time and effort.

It isn't easy finding good teachers to study Tai Chi with, and that's why--in 1998--I began making a 4-hour round trip to study on a regular basis (sometimes twice a week) with Jim and Angela Criscimagna. They lived in Rockford, Illinois at the time (now they live near San Diego and aredisciples of Chen Xiaowang). They sponsored workshops with Chen Xiaowang and Ren Guangyi, and I was there at every opportunity.

I later had another teacher, and traveled to California to study. I also hosted seminars with my teacher, flying him here and losing a thousand dollars a pop just to experience the training. I once flew to California to study privately for a day with Grandmaster Chen Xiaoxing (photo at right), and later I sponsored his visa so he could come to the U.S. the following year for a seminar tour. That's when he visited my home for a week.

I sat on the plane after the day in California with Chen Xiaoxing, flying back to the Quad Cities, writing furiously in my notebook -- notes on every movement of Laojia Yilu I had been through and the advice I had received. I still have those notes, and I work on them and practice the concepts with my students, both locally and online.

I did the same after flying to Washington, D.C. for a weekend workshop with Chen Xiaowang, hosted by C.P. Ong. Or driving to Chicago for a day of push hands with Chen Bing.

When you hear people complain that a class fee is too much, or the school is way across town, or they don't want to commit to $19.99 a month online, it sort of separates the people who like to "think" about being a martial artist and those who are serious. When you're serious, you'll practically crawl through glass to get the training you need to take just one more step forward.

It wasn't always easy going to Rockford. I worked in Iowa City at the time, so if I went up on a weeknight, I'd leave work around 4:00 and drive 3 hours to get to class. But after class, I would be bouncing around in the car all the way home, my mind buzzing with the movements and the concepts Jim and Angela were teaching. And the drive home always went pretty fast.

Each time I made these trips, I knew that what I was learning was going to take more time to develop -- years. When you first learn internal arts concepts, you might understand them intellectually, but it takes a LONG time to reflect them physically. But I was willing--like Alex--to invest the time and the money to take just one more baby step--to understand just one more concept a little more--even though it might be a few years before I could do it right.

The name of the internal arts game--whether it's tai chi, hsing-i or bagua--is time and practice and hard work. That's why they call it kung-fu. The next photo on the left is the group that participated when Jim and Angela (front row standing 2nd and 3rd from left) held a workshop at my school back in 2001. Again, I lost money, but that wasn't the point, was it? When you receive good training, what's it worth in the long run? As they say in the TV commercials -- priceless.

Just like Jim and Angela did for me, I allowed Alex to videotape the entire private lesson on Saturday. That way, he won't have to worry about retaining everything in his memory. You can only retain 10 or 15% anyway, if that, unless you have a LOT of notes. Most lessons are so full of advice and tips that there's no way you can reconstruct it all from memory, so the video will help as he works on it in Milwaukee.

He says he'll be back in 2 or 3 weeks. I think this young man has a future in the internal arts. :)

What are you willing to do to learn--to improve your skill--to find out where you need to work harder? The answer you provide yourself is the key to your long-range future as someone who likes the idea of being a martial artist and one who becomes a martial artist--one difficult step at a time.

JimQCSeminar250

Try Two Weeks Free and Get Step-by-Step Training in Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua from Basic to Advanced Skills with No Mystical Mumbo-Jumbo

More than 850 Video Lessons and Downloadable pdf documents -- and You Get It All During Your Free Trial!

Click this Button to Learn More and Watch a Video!

Okay! Let Me See More!

Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

What it Takes to Succeed in Martial Arts

Try Two Weeks Free and Get Step-by-Step Training in Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua from Basic to Advanced Skills with No Mystical Mumbo-Jumbo

Author - Instructor

Stay connected with news and updates!

Two Step