Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

There was a guy several years ago who was one of the first Americans to begin educating us on internal body mechanics. His name is Mike Sigman. Most Americans practicing tai chi were doing it very badly. When he pointed out mistakes and then, rather bluntly I'll admit, told people how to do it better, he made a lot of enemies.

When I began teaching I had a kids' class. I was coaching a 10-year old through a form one day and he began crying. He told me, "You're always criticizing me."

Now, no one is more polite in their coaching than I am, so his tears took me completely by surprise. Not long after this, I stopped teaching kids.

I've had new students come in with martial arts experience, and some of them would look at me as if they were the hired gunslinger when I pointed out the "internal" way of moving, as opposed to the external way they were accustomed to. Sometimes, they didn't want to hear it.

Each time I visit a teacher, a different school, or attend a seminar, I empty my cup...

Ever since I began studying the martial arts--34 years ago--I've run into a lot of guys who think that in order to show your skill, you need to hurt someone or prove how tough you are by taking hard shots or a lot of punishment.

You see them in classes, inflicting pain on others. You see them putting their own bodies through painful ordeals from pounding on makawara boards for hours on end to breaking blocks of ice with their foreheads. You see them bragging about how they got their nose broken, or how they got hit real hard in the head (and their bragging includes how well they can take a good punch or kick).

There is an interesting psychological thing happening here. I don't know if it's insecurity, a bad self image, or they didn't get hugged enough as kids. But these guys will always tell you that you need to endure a lot of physical pain and abuse if you're going to be a "real" martial artist.

Bull crap.

Often, the Dog Brothers are held up as icons of "pure" martial arts becaus...

Working on forms is one of the foundations of a good martial art. Forms teach many things, including proper body mechanics, posture, balance and precision.

I once read a tai chi article by a guy who said if you practice the slow Yang form for 20 years, you'll be able to fight when a self defense situation arises.

No you won't. You'll be seriously injured or killed. That's what will happen.

If your practice is only on form, you're missing the heart of any internal art, which is self-defense. You must practice fighting applications in a way that helps you internalize them so that you can react without thinking.

Sparring is one way to do it, but let's face it. Sparring the tournament way limits your techniques. And you can't really use all the techniques of these arts against classmates because you can't drive your palm through their faces, break their elbows and wrists, dislocate their shoulders, twist their necks until they snap, throw them to the ground to smash their head, etc.

H...

On Wednesday, Oct. 24, a new show will debut on NBC involving Uri Geller, who claims to be able to bend things (like spoons) with his mind. He's teaming up with magician Criss Angel for a new show called Phenomenon.

Geller became famous in the Sixties and Seventies with his famous bending trick, and everyone assumed he could actually bend spoons with his mind, because Americans can be easily fooled (ummm, like when they believe in chi masters and chi "healing"). Johnny Carson was a magician and with the help of James Randi, he exposed Geller to be a fraud on national TV.

Geller has survived because there are a lot of people who believe this type of garbage no matter what the facts show (ummm, see the above comment about chi masters), and in this new show, he and Angel will be searching for people who possess miraculous and supernatural powers.

This will be very interesting.

James Randi is still around. He exposes frauds all the time (like chi masters who claim to knock people down ...

I remember the first week I started teaching, ten years ago this month. My class was held in a fitness center in Muscatine, Iowa. Some young guys came in who wanted to learn kung fu. There were four or five of them, ranging in age from 16 to 24.

They lined up and we began warming up, stretching, doing pushups and crunches, and then I demonstrated a form and some techniques that they would be learning, in an effort to excite them about things to come.

And then it hit me. I had to be perfect.

The pressure was immediate. Every move I made in class had to be teacher quality. I couldn't make a mistake. If I did, I would lose credibility with my students. It was a feeling I hadn't expected. These guys were looking at me as if I was the expert, and I needed to prove it every class.

My reaction to this? I trained every day--hard. On weekends, I would train four or five hours a day, refining my technique, working on forms, studying applications and chin-na deeper. In one way I was fortunate...

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...

Dr. Tom Morris received his Ph.D. in both Philosophy and Religious Studies from Yale University. For more than 15 years, he was a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame.

In one of his books, he writes about the power of belief and tells the story of when he bought a gas grill. The delivery men from Sears wouldn't hook up the propane tank because of the dangers. So Tom hooked it up, holding his breath while he worked so he wouldn't breathe any fumes. After a minute he would walk away and breathe clean air, then go back to the grill. He accidentally took a few breaths while at the grill and could smell the propane. The fumes began making him light-headed and he began feeling sick, and even when he hooked the tank up, he could still smell the gas.

He called Sears to report the problem. They asked, "Where did you fill up the tank?" He hadn't filled up the tank, and didn't realize that Sears delivers a new grill with an empty propane tank.

Tom's family got a big kick out if this, and as ...

Good balance is crucial in any martial art, but especially the internal arts. Here is a balance exercise you can do at the gym. It works core muscles and forces every muscle in the legs to work at balancing and stabilizing yourself.

Stand on one leg on a Bosu ball and do the switching move from bagua. Turn the waist and change hand positions while balancing on one leg. If you begin to lose your balance, try to save it and don't fall off the Bosu ball. If your core muscles are strong, you'll be able to avoid falling. Switch legs after a minute or so.

My personal trainer introduced me to the Bosu ball and I've seen an improvement in balance as my leg and core muscles have grown stronger. 

I was reading a bagua book the other day, and there were photographs of a sequence showing one application against a jab. The person throwing the jab put his fist out there and held it while the defender went through a couple of techniques including a strike.

If you've ever fought someone who uses a jab, you know that they don't just hold it there for you. It flicks out quickly and then returns out of your range. It's very difficult to do very much in that short amount of time.

Too often in class, we do "one steps" in which the attacker does a punch or kick and lets us have our way with him (or her). And that's okay to learn concepts, but it isn't going to work in a real fight.

I was watching a video clip of a real "Bagua" fighting match in a Chinese tournament. There was very little Bagua happening. It was mostly using muscle to throw someone or using fists to hit their chests and stomachs.

There's a reason for that. Bagua is extremely difficult to use against a moving opponent wh...

Yeah, that's me standing over this young hotshot karate guy at a tournament in 2002. He was about 20 years younger than me, maybe more. I knocked him down. At the end of the match, he threw up.

One of the reasons I've continued fighting in tournaments is because most internal artists don't. I've attended several huge Chicago tournaments. At the beginning of the forms competition, the internal artists--Hsing-I, Tai Chi, and Bagua--went down to one end of the gymnasium and did their forms. Then most of them went home.

I never understood why I was the only one who competed in the internal forms competition who stayed and fought along with the "external" guys.

And we wonder why they call us the "soft" arts.

You can argue all you want that tournament sparring, even semi-contact sparring, isn't "real" fighting. And it's true that you can't break your opponent in these tournaments, which is the goal of Tai Chi. But a lot of people come to watch, and when they see you doing something reall...