Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Last Saturday in Moline, Illinois, I conducted a four-hour workshop on the Chen Tai Chi Straight Sword Form. The form has 49 movements, so it was a challenge to teach each movement and include quality information about body mechanics and the applications for the movements. But with a hard-working group, we did it.

The sword form is a great Taiji form -- smooth and powerful, it can be done slowly or fast with fa-jing. Always, the internal body mechanics should be present:

• Establishing and maintaining the ground path
• Maintaining peng at all times
• Using whole-body movement
• Silk-Reeling energy
• Opening/closing the kua properly
• Dan T'ien rotation

I've heard instructors in the past talk about "extending your chi to the end of the sword." And for those who have their heads in fantasy, that confuses things.

The "intent" of each movement in a Tai Chi form is its fighting application and how you are using the body mechanics against an opponent. By utilizing the body mechanics l...

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian church, with a fundamentalist Christian mom. I was told from the day I was born that I believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and I didn't question it.

Until I saw the Kung Fu TV show around 1972. I started watching for the kung-fu fighting, but found myself drawn to the flashbacks -- the morality tales with the wonderful monks teaching Young Caine valuable lessons. The monks were Master Kan, played by the wonderful Philip Ahn, and the blind Master Po, played by Hollywood veteran Keye Luke (who played "Number One Son" in Charlie Chan movies in the 1930s).

The lessons were soothing and thought-provoking. When Caine questioned his own bravery, Master Kan said, "The deer runs from the lion. It is not cowardice. It is the love of life."

When Young Caine and another young monk-to-be were robbed by a con man on the way to town, Master Kan asked the other young man what he learned from the ordeal. "Never trust anyone," the young man said angrily. ...

I've been involved in martial arts since 1973. I've worked on a lot of techniques and have done a lot of tournament sparring. Most of it has been "no-contact" or "light contact," although most of us who have done this know that there is a lot of contact, and it takes self-control to avoid excessive contact.

The skills that it takes to beat a black belt who is trying to punch and kick you are some of the same skills it takes to win on the street. I was in enough fights growing up to know. But at that time, I wasn't as knowledgeable as I became later. Fighting was always hard, but I always sort-of enjoyed it. I stood up to a lot of bullies over the years. Once a fight started, you never really knew what to expect. There was something I loved about that type of pressure. It was real life. And sometimes the smartest guy won, not just the toughest.

Traditional martial arts taught me a lot. In the beginning, I had the false confidence of a beginner, thinking I knew more than I did. As I go...

 I received an interesting email from a member of the online internal arts school last week asking what does it mean to use intent in Taiji. Like a lot of members, he's using the online material to supplement training under another teacher. It became apparent that an instructor had made intent appear mystical.

He asked if, when establishing the ground path, if it's physical or if you are using Mind Intent?

After giving him my take on the subject, I then did some research to see what other instructors say. As I expected, the term Intent is shrouded in abstract terms and descriptions, in Taoism and Buddhism. One well-known "master" writes about it in such an abstract way that you'd need a Ph.D in Philosophy to understand it, then he asks for nearly a hundred bucks.

Let me put it simply -- the question is "what is intent when doing any internal movement?"

You can make it as flowery and abstract as you want, but the bottom line is this: the intent of the movement depends upon the marti...

 In the practice of the internal arts, you're supposed to relax the hips. Sometimes it is said that you should "tuck the tailbone."

I prefer to use a different description.

Relax the lower back.

Here are two photos. The first one shows a common posture that I see in beginning students -- the butt sticks out in postures such as Single Whip.The second photo shows a more "centered" tailbone. The lower back is relaxed.

When most of us stand up, our lower backs are tense. They are concave, bowing inward toward the navel. But when you work on the body mechanics that are essential for quality internal arts (Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua) you learn to relax the lower back.

When I teach this, I have students put a hand firmly on my lower back. I stand normally. They can feel it bow inward. Then I relax and the lower back "fills up." At the same time, the hips drop down and inward. By relaxing the lower back, you are "tucking the hips," and no tension is required.

Relaxing the lower back is ...

In 1975, I bought my first copy of The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, by Bruce Lee. It was a paperback copy. For Christmas in 1976, I was given a hardbound edition. I still have both copies.

This year -- 2011 -- Nancy gave me the Expanded Edition of Tao of Jeet Kune Do for Christmas. As I started reading it again, it really brought back memories of just how influential these writings were when I was 22 years old.

Growing up in the Bible Belt (Kentucky, Georgia, Florida) in the Fifties and Sixties did not provide opportunities for a young guy to think outside the fundamentalist church. Anything that wasn't understood was Satanic, including the Beatles, according to ministers in my church. Actually, it was a Sunday School lecture against the Beatles that first made me realize that the religion might be full of crap. If they would lie about the Beatles just to prove a point, what else would they lie about? It started me on the journey that led me to reject that sort of narrow-minded thinking. T...

I'm making the switch.

When I began teaching the internal arts, I considered whether to write "Tai Chi" or "Taiji."

On mainland China, Taiji (or Taijiquan) is the accepted translation style, known as pinyin.

Tai Chi (or T'ai Chi Ch'uan) is the Wade-Giles method of translation, developed by two men (Wade and Giles).

In 1997, I chose to use Tai Chi because that is the spelling most commonly known. That's the spelling you saw in newspapers and magazines such as T'ai Chi magazine. When I advertised my classes, I wanted the general public to see the ad and understand what "Tai Chi" meant. I didn't think they would understand that "Taiji" was the same thing.

It was purely a marketing decision, even though I knew that "serious" practitioners of the art used the term Taiji.

In recent months, I've started using both terms in my writing, and you might still see a Tai Chi pop up for search engine reasons, but for the most part, I'm changing the way I spell the art to Taijiquan, or Taiji.

Today, Colin Frye came over to the Kung Fu Room and for one hour, we drilled three techniques over and over and over.

The techniques can be found in the Bagua Fighting Skills section of the website -- Bagua Keywords.

We practiced Threading, Hooking, and Turning.

First we practiced proper form, then one would throw multiple attacks in a realistic way and the other would use threading to deflect the attacks. After a while, we worked hooking in a similar way. Then we worked on turning, which is very effective up close.

This was a satisfying practice because we slowed down, selected three techniques and practiced them repeatedly. There are a lot of techniques on my website, and a lot of principles. But just seeing a video or learning a technique in class and practicing it a few times will not make you good at it. Practicing all the keyword techniques in an hour won't help you to improve.

The key to mastery is practicing each technique thousands of times, solitary and with a partner.

I'm a fir...

We were videotaping a lesson for the instructional website a few days ago -- basic principles of stepping in Hsing-I Chuan.

You begin in San Ti, and whatever you do next, your ultimate goal is to establish balance and return to San Ti.

You can attack, defend, take your opponent's ground (one of the primary objectives in Hsing-I), but as soon as possible, your mission is to return to San Ti.

The same is true in Tai Chi. An opponent attacks -- force comes in. You relax, adapt, neutralize the force, counter, all the while seeking to return to wuji - absolute balance, centered both physically and mentally.

Bagua is the same. As you change and adapt to multiple attackers, you try to maintain your center, capture and control the center of your attackers, but with each movement, your ultimate goal is to return to the centered dragon stance.

Wuji is a state of absolute balance -- of nothingness. From a martial perspective, it's a state of supreme awareness within relaxation. Once you ...

I've been interested in the concept of being "one" with nature (or the Universe) since the early Seventies. I was first inspired by the Kung-Fu TV show -- fascinated by the "flashbacks" and the morality and philosophy of the Shaolin monks. 

"Standing," as it is often called, is the most important exercise in Taijiquan. It's also known as Zhan Zhuang. Translated from Mandarin, that means "standing like a post." 

When Nancy and I moved into our new home a month ago, I found an ideal spot for Standing Stake. It's in a corner of my deck, surrounded by trees with a deep yard below. Yesterday morning, a young buck was at the edge of the yard below, eating leaves from low-hanging trees. His antlers were pretty short. He stopped to stare at me for a moment, wondering if I was friend or foe, then lost interest and began munching again. On the tree a few feet away, a chipmunk ran up and down.

It's not difficult to feel "one" with nature here.

Standing Stake is useful for a lot of reasons. ...