Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

I am currently updating my instructional videos for the Chen Tai Chi form Laojia Yilu, replacing video shot between 2008 and 2010. As I was shooting instruction on Sunday for the second movement of the form -- Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounds Mortar -- the concept of "intent" came to mind as something a lot of people misunderstand.

A lot of Tai Chi instructors talk about "intent," but too many students are left with the impression that intent is somehow connected to "cultivating chi" or other mystical, healing energy nonsense.

Let's cut out the noise, eliminate the middleman, and cut to the chase.

"Intent" means exactly what it implies. What is the intent of the movement? What are you intending to do with this movement?

The answer is almost always a self-defense application.

Tai Chi was created as a martial art. Every movement in the form is a self-defense movement. 

When you perform Tai Chi movements with the intent of self-defense, it informs how your "energy" should be use...

I belonged to an internal arts school that had some rules that were carved in stone. Here are some of them:

**Each time you approach the training floor, you stop and bow to the floor. Each time you leave the floor, you bow to the floor before stepping off.

**Street shoes are NOT allowed on the training floor.

**At the beginning of each class, there is a moment of meditation and a bow to the shrine at the front of the room, designed to honor past masters.

**Only instructors are allowed to touch objects on the shrine.

**If you drop your sash to the floor, you must kiss both ends before putting it back on to show that you intend no disrespect to yourself.

**Men wear the knot on their sash on the right side and women wear it on the left. Once you reach Master level that reverses -- men wear the knot on the left side and women on the right.

**The sash is never washed because according to tradition, washing your sash will wash away your strength.

**When we perform techniques, we coun...

One of my favorite quotes from Bruce Lee was not completely original. The concept was already part of Taoism and Zen long before he said it, but Westerners had not heard it in the early Seventies.

"You must empty your mind," he said. "Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. Put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

My partner Colin aims a punch at my chest.

I think of this often when I work with my students on push hands and other close-up self-defense skills. I try to be water, and flow around resistance to find my way to my target.

What happens when you punch water? Bruce Lee talked about an inspiration he had when he was frustrated and punched water one day on a lake. Whether this story is true or not doesn't matter. Bruce said that when he punched into a lake, he was inspired because the water gave in to his punch and yet flowed around his fist.

Taoism says "the softes...

I received an interesting email from a website member in the United Kingdom. It started as a discussion about Hsing-I and the relationship of the Five Fist Postures to the 12 Animals. It went on from there to discuss the evolution of fighting movements into art.

In our 21st Century, MMA-obsessed culture, traditional arts are often criticized or brushed off as ineffective. That's pure B.S. of course, another one of those "my style is better than your style" type of arguments.

These are called martial "arts" for a reason. The styles that I study are internal martial "arts." The movements in Hsing-I, Tai Chi and Bagua can be used for fighting, but the word "art" is part of the name. Over the past 40 years of practicing, the reason has become more clear to me.

Let's look at a movement in the Bagua Swimming Body form called "Black Dragon Slashes Its Tail." It's part of the 3rd section of the form. I just put a long video lesson up on the website last week with detailed instruction. ...

When I began teaching, I was practicing and teaching Yang Tai Chi, Hsing-I, Bagua and Qigong. Questions from students made me study harder and do research, and I found some glaring holes in the curriculum of the style I was teaching. That ended up to be a good thing because it led me to Chen Tai Chi.

As I taught for a while, I realized there are qualities that great students bring to class that make it a lot more enjoyable for the teacher -- qualities that indicate the student is serious about the martial arts and will become a great martial artist. 

Here are my Top 8 Qualities of a Great Martial Arts Student:

1. Empty Your Cup. One thing a teacher does NOT like t...

One of my favorite scenes in a Bruce Lee movie is when he lectures a young student about what he perceives as a lack of "emotional content" in the young man's movements.

When I was a younger student, practicing techniques with fellow students, one of my teachers would occasionally warn us to maintain our "spirit." When we received a certificate of rank, the certificate mentioned the "spiritual discipline" involved in achieving the rank.

In Tai Chi, the Chinese term "shen" means spirit. It is not a supernatural spirit -- it is an awareness of your action and a physical fullness that means you are giving it 100%. You are in the moment. 

Shen is also translated to mean "heart," but it is the same thing. You are emotionally connected (the heart is often associated with emotion) to the intent of the movement or activity.

It applies to any martial art and it also applies to other aspects of your life, from relationships to work and other activities and endeavors.

How many times have you...

A young student was excited to meet a Kung-Fu master. Before his first class, he asked, "How long must I study before I become a master?"

The master replied, "You must study for ten years."

"But I will practice very hard!" said the young student.

The master replied, "Then it will take twenty years."

The young man said, "But I want to be your best student!"

"Ahh," said the master. "Then that will take a lifetime."

I love that old story.

If you've been teaching for any length of time, you'll be asked, "How long does it take to get a black belt?"

As if a black belt is something great. Once you earn a black belt, if you have any sense of reality, you understand that you have just begun. It's the same as getting a Bachelors degree in college. Advanced study is next.

It's always amazed me how many people talk about loving martial arts but how few have the drive or the commitment to reach even a black belt level.

I'm not sure when I realized that I would never become a master of tai...

I receive messages occasionally from anonymous Internet trolls who see my YouTube videos and make comments such as, "How will that work against an MMA fighter," or most recently, "What good is a sword going to do you in a street fight?" 

Insert deep sigh here.

When I was young, I thought you studied martial arts to learn how to kick major bootay. I wanted to feel safe everywhere.

It was shallow thinking. There is a lot more to martial arts than fighting. But you can't expect young people to think at a higher level. That takes time, experience, and study.

I am not a religious man and I do not believe in invisible beings. I don't believe invisible beings are watching us, guiding us, controlling what happens (saving us from accidents, etc.) or planning to judge us when we die.

But I am a spiritual person. I believe in being kind to people, helping those less fortunate, and treating everyone I meet with friendship, humor, and cooperation. I believe in treating my wife with love and r...

My daughter, Harmony in 1988.

There have been very few bright spots in the darkness following the Sandy Hook school massacre. Many of us have shed tears at the faces in the photos -- the innocence lost and young lives stolen. 

There were several acts of bravery. Some of them -- especially stories of teachers being killed while saving their students -- brought tears to my eyes. But one act of bravery made me cheer.

Imagine the self-confidence of the 8-year old boy who -- hearing the gunshots in the school and seeing his classmates crying and afraid -- spoke up and said confidently, "I know karate," then offered to lead them out.

I would like to know more about where he studied and how far he had advanced. When we are children, we tend to overestimate our ability to be super heroes, and for this young boy to imagine that he could take on a gun-toting killer was a lot more fantasy than reality.

But he was confident in the face of chaos and tragedy. He was ready to control the sit...

One of my teachers - Jim Criscimagna - coaches me on push hands around 2004.

When I worked in TV news, few veterans took the time to coach me. I had the good sense, however, to watch good people and take note of the way they were writing and delivering the news. I pushed myself to get better.  

I probably hit my peak just before I left the business when I did an award-winning series called Robb's Life, which is now on YouTube in about 36 episodes.

In 1989, I became a news director -- in charge of the entire newsroom. I decided that I would do for people what nobody had done for me -- give them real coaching so they could cut years off their development. I would regularly sit down with employees -- reporters, videographers, anchors, producers -- and I would look at their videos and give them tips on how to push the creative envelope, how to shoot better video and tell a story, how to write more clearly.

Once, I was coaching a sports veteran whose stories were tired and cliched -...