Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Martial artists with any experience at all believe they're generating a lot of power with their movements. In my first kung-fu class as a student--way back in September, 1973--we stood and punched, snapping our hips with the punch to add power to the technique.

As I've studied and taught the internal arts, I had to learn body mechanics that are very different from the other kung-fu, taekwondo, and boxing instruction I had received in the past.

A little over a week ago, I held a workshop for all martial artists on the fighting applications of the Chen Tai Chi 38 form. Attendees included students and teachers from a wide variety of arts, from Shaolin and taekwondo to a Yang style teacher. There were white belt students and very high-ranking black belts.

And almost every one of them made one mistake. I knew they would, because everywhere I go--every martial artist I meet--makes this mistake.

Their movements are not connected from the ground through the body.  

Here are some photos ...

I stopped at a Border's bookstore the other day and looked for the latest issues of my favorite martial arts magazines.

There in the Sports section, I found Black Belt and Kung Fu Tai Chi among the MMA and wrestling and karate and TKD magazines. I thumbed through the magazines to find the latest issue of T'ai Chi magazine but it was nowhere to be found. 

And then I had an idea. I went to a different part of the magazine section where all the psychic, spiritual, religious and strange publications are. Sure enough, mixed in with all of this stuff was T'ai Chi magazine.

And there you have it -- the biggest problem facing the art of Tai Chi Chuan. Even a bookstore chain doesn't recognize it as a martial art, and places it with in its mystical and supernatural section.

I'm going to begin a little campaign to get Border's to put the magazine where it belongs -- in the martial art section. You can help by talking with the manager at each store you visit and request that it be moved.

Tai ...

This is a photo taken during a private lesson I had a few years ago with Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang. We did the lesson in the backyard of Jim and Angela Criscimagna in Rockford, Illinois.

I like to look over some of the notes I've taken over the years. It's hard to retain everything you're told during a martial arts lesson, so I try to write things down as soon as possible after leaving a class or workshop.

Chen Xiaowang says "natural is best." He also believes that until you learn proper structure, you shouldn't try to do tai chi movements in a very low stance. Form and balance are most important. Proper structure is more important than low stances. And it takes us years to get proper structure.

Good kung-fu, he says, is proper structure, not low stances.

There is one principle and three techniques involved in tai chi, according to Chen Xiaowang. He's worded it differently at different times, but the one principle boils down to "when one part moves, all parts move. When dan t'ien ...

Each time I've had the pleasure of learning from a teacher or a tai chi master, I've taken notes. It's hard to retain everything, so I try to write as much after each session or day as possible. I've been sorting through papers and tossing stuff, and I ran across a lot of notes that I hadn't seen in a while.

One of my favorite memories of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang was at a workshop near Washington, D.C. sponsored by C.P. Ong. Nancy and I flew to D.C. so I could study at the workshop. The participants were doing standing stake and CXW was going around the room correcting everyone. When he came up to me I had my eyes closed and he moved my hands in just a little. I smiled, opened my eyes, and he was smiling at me, his face just inches away. He softly chuckled in a friendly way and went on to the next person.

CXW likes to compare tai chi to driving a car. He says if a wheel is broken you can't drive well. If your posture is broken, it's hard to do proper tai chi. That's why, when you be...

The martial arts are full of legends--tales of masters who could fling a larger opponent across a room with the flick of a finger, or masters who could defeat a crowd of martial artists without being injured.

One legend tells of a young student who wanted to learn a form from a master. According to the legend, the master performed the sequence of movements one time, turned to the student and said, "I will be back in one year. You master this form!"

One year later, according to the legend, the master returned and the student had, in fact, mastered the movements. And he didn't even have a DVD player!

I'm a visual learner and I've studied martial arts since 1973, but I still can't memorize more than two or three moves in a row by just watching a performance once. In 1978, however, when I bought my first VCR, it opened up a new world of martial arts training for visual learners like me.

Imagine if you had videos of some of the great martial arts masters of the 19th Century. Imagine if you coul...

I'm working on the new website (www.internalfightingarts.com), putting new DVD-quality video on it every day. It's an intense job to try to put all of our curriculum onto videos, into e-books, and get it up on a teaching site. The videos teach all the techniques, forms, and practice methods of the arts that I've been teaching for the past 11 years. I'm hoping to launch it to the world by July 1. In the meantime, there's SO much to do.

Today, I'm editing more video of basic chin-na and getting ready to put a 10-minute clip on the site. As I was editing, it struck me how easy self-defense can be if you can just switch to a different mindset. It struck me because I talk about it in the video that I'm placing on the new site today. :)

A lot of us, in the early years of our training, focus on techniques. For example, if he grabs me here, I should do this specific technique. Or if he pushes me here or punches there, I should do this or that.

The key to effective chin-na or any aspect ...

This photo of me and Nancy isn't taken at the best angle. We're both having bad hair days. I was playing around with a camera and suddenly held it in front of us and snapped the picture. Although it isn't the most flattering shot, I love this picture because it captures an essence that is at the heart of our marriage.

After 4 1/2 years of marriage, we can't wait to see each other at the end of the day. We can't wait for the weekend so we can hang out. We laugh our heads off every day. We're both able to be ourselves. I can be silly and so can she. And both of us know for certain that I've got her back and she's got mine.

This is my third marriage. It took me nearly 50 years to find Nancy. I treat her the same way I've treated every woman I've every known (we don't really change our personalities, you know). The difference is that she's the first woman in my entire life that I've been able to depend on. And a year ago she turned to me and said, "There's one word that comes to my mind...

We practice techniques in class--chin-na for example--and we do it in a way that won't hurt our training partner. If we go too far, we can snap something and our partner won't be able to train for a while.

Unfortunately, a lot of beginners who haven't developed the right self-control tend to apply too much force too quickly and can hurt the people they're training with.

The result is a watering down of techniques. Too often, an arm bar is practiced as a technique that causes pain and puts your opponent in a bent-over or on-the-ground position of vulnerability. The same happens when practicing a wrist lock such as the one we call "half-moon" against a grab. Enough pressure is applied to cause pain and that's it.

In reality, if you get into an actual fight, it's a very serious matter. Someone is likely to need a trip to the ER at the end of the fight. At this point, you certainly don't want to worry about hurting your attacker. In fact, you want to hurt him quickly before he hurts yo...

I've studied several arts since 1973 -- Shaolin, wushu, taekwondo, boxing -- and attained ranks in Shaolin (brown belt) and TKD (green belt) before finding the internal arts.

The internal arts that I practice -- Hsing-I, Chen Tai Chi, and Bagua -- are the most difficult arts I've encountered. For a beginner, it's impossible to learn them properly from books, photos, or videos.

It Has To Be Shown (IHTBS).

My first encounter with top-level internal arts instructors (those with training in actual internal body mechanics) was Jim and Angela Criscimagna in Rockford, Illinois. They also introduced me to the Chen way of training and masters such as Chen Xiaowang and Ren Guangyi.

I met Jim and Angela after reading internal arts posts on the Internet that I didn't understand, using terms I'd never been taught. One hour after training with Jim for the first time, I drove away from Rockford realizing that I had to start over.

Not everyone can make that decision. We invest a lot of time, mo...