Connecting with Your Opponent's Center in Tai Chi
When you and a partner are doing push hands, or if you find yourself in a situation that calls for self-defense, one of your primary goals is to "remain centered."
Remaining centered requires you to maintain your mental balance and physical balance. If you lose your balance -- mentally or physically -- you are vulnerable. The same is true for your opponent.
This means that one of your goals when facing an opponent is to find his center, connect with it and control it.
On my website there are videos related to this topic. You can meld with your opponent's center as it is turning, helping it continue in the direction it is traveling. That's my favorite way to control an opponent's center, but there is another way.
When you practice push hands with a partner, you try to remain sensitive, and you do not want to give him an opening. You hide your internal strength from him. You are relaxed but aware, connected through the body, but you are flexible, moving, and able to respond and ...
The Value of Silk-Reeling Exercises in the Practice of Internal Arts
Last night, my practice consisted of a few Silk-Reeling exercises. I selected four or five that I don't practice as often as I should (including shoulder reeling, ankle and leg reeling and a couple more) and I worked them over and over, trying to feel the connection from the ground through the body. Relax, sink, feel it from the ground, spiraling through, connected and strong.
If you get one Silk-Reeling exercise right, you are doing good Taiji, and good Bagua. The exercises I do were made popular by Chen Xiaowang during the past 20 years or so. The exercises are among the first lessons that my students practice, laying the foundation for all of the body mechanics
 that are crucial for the internal arts -- Taiji, Bagua, and Xingyi.
Silk-Reeling "Energy" is not really a real type of "energy" in our body. The word "Energy" is often misinterpreted when translated from kung-fu texts. It should be thought of as a "method," a way of moving the body as you deal with an opponent's forc...
A Lesson in Kung-Fu Etiquette for the Straight Sword (Jian)
Some people think it's useless to train in martial arts weapons such as the straight sword because we no longer have swordfights on the street.
I believe training with weapons is important to train body mechanics, coordination, and the ability to transmit internal power through the weapon. The same techniques that make a straight sword useful can also be used if you are attacked and can pick up a stick.
And, of course, weapons are cool, and isn't that one of the reasons we began studying in the first place? One of the coolest parts of Enter the Dragon was when Bruce Lee whipped out different weapons. His nunchaku action was a crowd favorite. I saw that movie in 1973 and spent a lot of time practicing nunchaku moves.
I still train weapons including the single and double sticks, staff, straight sword, broadsword, spear, and elk horn knives.
The straight sword, known in Chinese arts as the "Jian," is considered the "master's" weapon because of the skill it requires. In traditional A...
Qigong - Chi Kung - and the Eight Pieces of Brocade
It’s impossible to trace the origin of many chi kung exercises. The Chinese people have a military history that dates back thousands of years, and the value of exercise and stretching were probably recognized very early as being beneficial for the success of battlefield troops.
The images above – and below – were found in the tomb of King Ma, who lived before Christ, died in 103 BC and was buried with many documents, including military training manuals. The documents were discovered when his tomb was found in 1973. Some of the images are very similar to chi kung exercises, including movements from the Eight Pieces of Brocade.
I first learned the Brocade exercises as chi kung, but the more I practiced, the more I came to believe that these were also used as stretching and leg conditioning exercises for Chinese soldiers. It is possible that the chi kung interpretation was added many centuries later.
The Eight Pieces of Brocade is not a mystical or magical routine. Practicing the...
Cheng Man Ching - the Birth and Marketing of Tai Chi in the U.S.
Cheng Man Ching was one of the first notable people to bring Tai Chi to America. He was born in 1902, studied some Tai Chi before meeting and becoming a student of Yang Chengfu, historically known as the most famous early teacher of Yang Tai Chi. Cheng studied with Yang Chengfu for six years.
By 1946, Cheng Man Ching had developed his own short version (37 movements) of Yang Chengfu's long Tai Chi form. He performs it in the video below.
He moved to New York City in 1964, no doubt causing quite a stir since Tai Chi was mysterious at the time. In 1967, he teamed with Robert W. Smith and T.T. Liang to write a book about Tai Chi. He died in 1975, but by that time, as Tai Chi teachers are bound to do, he became a legend.
I am grateful that he was a pioneer who helped to bring the internal arts to America. When I watch video of him performing, or one of his more famous students, William C.C. Chen, I am always disapp...
How Do You Find Inner Peace? A Story of a Journey Within and Without
My favorite poem comes from a book I bought back in the Seventies, Man of Contrasts, by taekwondo master He Il Cho. Here is the poem:
I can find peace amidst the city's roar
In the dry, frayed face of confusion
the exhausted hour.
My peace is cradled within.
Where does peace come from? I started finding the answer to that question when I began practicing Qigong in 1987, about 14 years after I began studying martial arts and reading about Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Qigong (also spelled Chi Kung) took it to another level. Before long, the ability to center myself in tense situations or moments of crisis began to develop somewhere inside me, and it was noticed, both by me and by others.
Around 1988, when a wall cloud was passing outside the newsroom where I was preparing the 6:00 News (I was the producer), people were racing and shouting in the newsroom, wheeling cameras outside to broadcast it live. I was trying to write some final teases and copy for the 6:00 News. It was total chao...
Breathing and the Internal Arts -- Hen, Ha and A Bunch of Hooey
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...
Two Effective Ways of Critiquing Your Own Form in Any Martial Art
I am putting together my 8th Kindle ebook this week on the Cheng style Bagua 8 Main Palms Form. In working with more than 300 photos for the ebook, a couple of effective techniques have become very obvious for giving myself feedback on my own movement and posture.
Videotaping yourself is one of the best ways of seeing yourself as you are actually performing the movements. We all think we look like Chen Xiaowang or Jet Li when we are doing our forms and techniques. More often than not, we more closely resemble Jim Carrey.
I recommend shooting video as you are performing a form at fast speed, then perform it at a slower pace. Both times, be as specific as you can on precision, power, and body mechanics. Then watch the video. Run it normally and then in slo-mo if you can. Ask yourself if your structure is sound, if your stances and stepping is right, if the timing of your hand movements is right -- there are a dozen things you cou...
The Epic Failure of Empty Force - the No-Touch Knockdown Con
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.Â
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.Â
Mark Wasson - Important, Troubled Chen Taiji Trailblazer Passes Away
I tell my stories and explain my experiences so that other people might gain insight that helps them in their martial art journey. This is the kind of story you don't read very often. It is about one of my teachers, and it is not pleasant. But I think you know by now that I try to keep it real. So here goes.Â
I first heard of Mark Wasson when he wrote an article for Tai Chi Magazine on his experiences training in the Chen Village. He was about my age (I am now 60 and he may have been 61). In one ten-year span, he made 15 trips to the birthplace of Taijiquan to get down and dirty, sweat, work, train, have bones broken, and to get deep insights into the real art of Taiji. I met him after I had been training for a few years with my first Chen Taiji teachers, Jim and Angela Criscimagna.Â
Mark Wasson was a deeply troubled man, but a pioneer and trailblazer who introduced a lot of peo...
Author - Instructor
Ken Gullette
I have practiced martial arts since 1973 and began studying the internal arts in 1987. My goal is to cut years off your development time by coaching you in the real skills for high-quality Tai Chi, Xingyi, Bagua. To see more about my bio, click the "About Ken" link on the menu at the top of this page.
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