Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Sometimes, stories are told of long-dead masters, and the story is embellished to the point that the master did push hands with a challenger and "sent him flying back ten feet through the air."

Sometimes, we see photos that are obviously faked, showing students a few feet in the air, flying away from the "master." There are prominent teachers right now who have used these images.

Sometimes, teachers tell us that they have also sent people ten feet through the air while doing push hands.

Really? You launched a full-grown adult ten feet through the air — without a running start, on level ground, doing push hands and using nothing but your internal power?

See the photo at the top of the page? From the edge of the charcoal gray floor to the edge of the blue mat is exactly ten feet. Someone would have to make me fly all the way back to the mat.

 It insults the intelligence of the people hearing the claim, reading about it, or seeing the pictures, and it hurts the image of Taiji.

So le...

In the November, 2003 edition of Inside Kung-Fu magazine, my challenge to so-called "chi masters" was published -- 21 years ago.

That's when I began offering $5,000 to any chi "master" who could knock me down without touching me.

The challenge was triggered by an article in the August, 2003 issue showing an alleged Tai Chi "master" knocking his student down without touching him. The headline on the magazine's cover said: "No-Touch Chi Force: Is it For Real?" And, of course, the article, written by a student of the "master," said yes, it is real.

The teacher was Henry Wang, and the article was written by his student Peter Uhlmann, a psychiatrist from British Columbia. The article describes how Henry Wang learned over time how to "interrupt" the chi of an attacker. Some of Wang's students quit over this nonsense. I consider them the students with integrity. 

Here are three photos from the Inside Kung-Fu article showing Henry Wang knocking down his student.

Here is the letter I ...

I was listening to a podcast last week when I heard a well-known Tai Chi teacher say there are chi masters in Asia who we have seen ignite paper with their Qi. Some other fantastic claims were made on the interview. 

Here is the truth: noboby can ignite paper with their Qi. 

Some charlatans pretend they can ignite paper with their Qi.

But it's a trick.

When an adult goes to a magic show, and a magician saws a women in half, and you see the woman's body being separated, and then in a moment the body is reconnected and the woman is walking off the stage, no rational adult walks away telling everyone, "Did you know you can be sawed in half and then you can be reconnected? I saw it happen!" 

If you tell them, "Hey, man, that's just a trick," the believer will say, "You just don't understand. You have to open your mind!"

Nobody with an ounce of intelligence says that after seeing a magic show. What they actually say is, "I'd like to know that trick."

However, demonstrate a magic tr...

I first launched the $5,000 Chi Challenge around 2002. It was published in Inside Kung-Fu magazine in 2003 (see the headline halfway down the left side of the magazine cover in the photo).

To date, no one has accepted the challenge. The most recent teacher to receive my challenge was Richard Clear, but after an initial acceptance in messages (he said he would be "happy" to take my money), when it was time to sign an agreement, it fell through. 

After it fell through, I began to receive messages and emails from his Business Manager with what I considered veiled threats to "visit" me.

Here is what happened, boiled down as simply and accurately as I can do it:

On the Fajin Project Facebook page -- I am a member of the page -- we look at videos by martial artists who appear, whether stated or not, that they possess "chi" powers that defy physics. Often, these are teachers who pretend to knock their students down without touching them, or they touch them lightly with push hands, for exa...

Do you know what a skeptic is? The word has been given a bad name by people who want you to believe their crap so they can take your money.

A skeptic is someone who simply asks for evidence -- solid evidence -- before believing an extraordinary claim.

I am a skeptic. 

If someone wants to sell me a used car, I expect some evidence that the car is not going to break down when I drive it off the lot.

If a doctor wants me to take a medicine, I ask for information on the side effects and exactly why I need the medicine and how it will help me.

If a martial artist or a "chi master" claims that he can knock people down without touching them, or have a push hands partner hopping and bouncing away with the slightest touch, I am going to demand evidence, and video is not evidence.

You will not get evidence from anyone who makes money off of fantasy. You will not get evidence from con artists and swindlers. Here is what you get:

1.  You are told "you just don't understand."

2.  You are ...

My teacher stood in the middle of the kung-fu school, explaining how you can disrupt your opponent's chi during an attack by drawing a circle in the air as you drop to the ground.

Here is how he explained it to us. Your opponent is rushing at you to tackle you, and if you drop to the ground you can guide his chi over you with this half-circle you draw in the air as you drop. His chi will be disrupted and he will fall over you, unable to touch you.

My teacher said we would all try it, and he picked another student, a very nice and very loyal student, to go first.

The student ran across the floor, and just as he was about to reach him, my teacher dropped to the floor and drew and half circle with his hands in the air.

The student fell over him and did a breakfall on the other side. 

It worked! My teacher was untouched.

Except that I was standing there watching, my critical thinking skills firing on all cylinders, knowing that you can't control someone that way. It can't be done. An...

In recent days, members of my website have asked some questions about breathing during Taiji, Xingyi, Bagua, and Qigong.

I replied to one question last night, then saw that the great Kevin Costner movie Bull Durham was playing on cable. I turned it on and within a minute or two, Susan Sarandon gave Tim Robbins some pitching advice.

"Breathe through your eyelids," she told him, "like the Lava Lizards. It's Mayan, or Aztec, I get them mixed up."

I laughed pretty hard because of the good timing. The "breathing through his eyelids" joke was repeated throughout the movie.

This is the type of Hooey that a lot of internal arts instructors give their students. Gullible students are told to "breathe through their skin" or other silliness. It would be fine if the instructor said that this is simply a technique of mental visualization, but there is no qualification, and that encourages people without critical thinking skills to believe that they can breathe through their skin.

But it gets ev...

I have been warning about the martial con men for 15 years -- the teachers who claim to use "Empty Force" -- or chi -- to knock down students without touching them. 

First of all, they completely misunderstand what Kong Jin, or "empty force" actually means, but they throw in dishonesty because they know students who really need to belong to the group will play along.

But what if some martial artists don't play along? What happens? This is what happens. Every time. 

What do we do about the image of Taijiquan when the world believes its a slow-motion exercise for health and meditation designed for the elderly?

How do we show it for what it is -- a powerful martial art?

One thing that would help is for Tai Chi teachers to stop pretending it's mystical -- that you can control a motivated, violent adult with your mind and with something vague called "intent."

Here is a video on YouTube showing Wang Peisheng, a famous (now deceased) Wu style Tai Chi master demonstrating push hands.

The principles he describes are great, but as he demonstrates, he uses a partner who is willing to fall in dramatic ways so the master looks good.

The problem is -- it doesn't work like this, and any decent martial artist who sees this knows it's a crock. Anyone who has ever fought another human being knows none of this works the way it does here. 

Here's another video that shows the fantasy of Tai Chi -- not the reality. It involves another famous Wu style master, ...

I got a Google Alert on a blog post that I found interesting. The post sort of brushed aside people like me who are skeptical and require extraordinary proof of the existence of chi. When a "chi master" does a miraculous feat with his chi, I always want to find out how he cheated. In my opinion, too many in the world of tai chi turn their heads, or say "well maybe it's true because you can't explain everything that happens in nature," or "Western science is biased against chi," or things like that. A lot of folks say, "I've felt and seen strange things I can't explain, so maybe it's true."

Today, another tai chi teacher told me that I was too critical. I admit I'm critical of people who make extraordinary claims that crumble under a test from a skeptic. I'm guilty.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a biography about Houdini (photo at left) on a cable network. He was a magician and escape artist -- one of the fascinating people of history -- and in his final years, he exposed many f...