Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Caution - this story contains an image that might be disturbing.

On November 2nd, I was lying in a hospital bed with tubes down my throat -- on a respirator -- and watching TV through a haze of sedation that relaxed me so that I wouldn't gag and choke on the tubes. I had entered the hospital on October 19th, thinking I was having a 2-hour procedure that would fix a bleeding airway. I had been coughing up blood since February and the residual blood in the lungs made breathing a real challenge.

My kung-fu practice had been seriously affected throughout 2009, but I had no idea -- and neither did my doctors -- that I was losing the function of my left lung because the pulmonary veins going to the heart were closing down. They discovered this at the Cleveland Clinic, but when they tried to open the veins, they accidentally pierced my heart. They led Nancy to believe a couple of times that there was a good possibility I wouldn't make it out alive.

On November 2, I discovered that I was un...

Like a lot of people, I used to think that if you had a black belt in a martial art, you were capable of killing people with your bare hands, a walking lethal weapon. It was a world shrouded in secrecy and mystery.

When I earned a black sash in 1997 and started teaching, I realized the holes that I still needed to fill in my knowledge and experience -- holes the size of the Grand Canyon. So I continued to study, learn, and through the miracle of videotape, I could watch my tournament performances and cringe at the improvements I needed to make in my own body mechanics and form.

I was only beginning to study.

Now, I've been teaching for 12 1/2 years and only two students have achieved a black sash. Yesterday, Chris Miller went through the test -- drilled through the basics of Hsing-I Chuan, Chen Tai Chi, Baguazhang, plus sparring in all three arts, sparring with straight sword, staff, broadsword and elk horn knives, plus chin-na, push hands, fighting applications -- all the material...

I spent the morning yesterday studying the energies and directions of Tai Chi. I have had some good teachers who have touched on these topics in class, but they've never really been organized in a way that brings it all together in a systematic approach to learning.

After a few hours of study and reflection, and getting up to practice some movements for even more insight into the physical mechanics, I had crystallized my thoughts -- and some outstanding information -- into five pages of a document that I'll put on the online school tomorrow, along with a video that I plan to shoot this evening with my students, demonstrating each of the 13 energies and the five moving directions of Tai Chi.

There are six main physical skills you need for good Tai Chi (and Hsing-I and Bagua). Along with the 13 energies and five moving directions, this makes up the core of an amazing martial art.

The Six Main Physical Skills:

1. Establish and maintain the ground path

2. Maintain peng jin at all tim...

In Taoism and Chinese culture, the term wuji (pronounced "woo-zhee") means a state of harm ony and balance -- emptiness, stillness and peace. It is limitless, infinite.

It is when everything begins moving and you lose balance that you also lose wuji.

In the Taoist view of the universe, if we were to look at it from a modern scientific view, the universe was in a state of wuji just before the Big Bang. There was a state of perfect peace and then all hell broke loose. Things separated into yin and yang. Dogs and cats living together -- MASS HYSTERIA! (Sorry, I watched Ghostbusters a lot when my daughters were little)

In Tai Chi, the goal is to maintain a sort of wuji -- balance and harmony; to remain centered. When someone attacks, and you must adapt and change to accept this person's force, your goal is to return to wuji -- the state of balance you were in before the attack. 

I enjoy working with people who have never studied the internal arts. Almost every time when a newbie is wo...

Jieh Jin is translated from Chinese as "borrowing energy." It's one of the many concepts that are abstractly described as "energies" in the internal arts.

As with each of these "energies," borrowing energy doesn't mean you're sucking the energy out of your opponent literally -- it isn't mystical, it's physical just like all the other skills of Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua.

 These three photos show an exercise you can do to practice and demonstrate borrowing energy.

In photo 1, my partner is rushing at me to push me off my ground. He will push hard into my folded arms, using his momentum and weight. I'm establishing the ground path, maintaining peng, and setting up the body structure that I need for good internal mechanics.

In photo 2, he makes contact with his force, or energy. I ground it and give it no place to go but back at him. It actually feels as if it bounces back at him.

In photo 3, you can see him bouncing back slightly. All of the internal mechanics are coming into ...

Besides capturing and controlling your opponent's center, one of the key goals of Baguazhang is to get close to the opponent and use your body to uproot them -- unbalance them -- and put them down.

As in each of the internal arts (and kung-fu in general), there are many ways of doing this that are hidden inside techniques.

The circular and flowing forms that you see provide you with a way of practicing the body mechanics you need to practice these techniques with a partner and later, use them in a self-defense situation.

Photo 1 shows the end of the opening movement to the Cheng-style "Eight Main Palms" form. It's similar in energy to the opening of a Tai Chi or Hsing-I form -- downward energy. One obvious application is a downward block/deflection of an incoming punch.

Photo 2 shows the next move, a step-out with the left foot as both hands shoot out along the centerline with palms up. Some people may see this as simply a way to begin walking the circle in the dragon posture...

22 years ago I stood in a kung-fu school in Omaha as a black sash student (black belt) -- Bob -- was asked what a particular movement meant for self-defense. I was not a black sash at the time. Bob was a friendly person and was very helpful to lower-ranking students. When asked what a movement meant, he would demonstrate three or four powerful techniques that were hidden in the movement -- it wasn't just a block, for example, it was also an arm lock and a takedown.

I was amazed at the depth of his knowledge. How did he become so good that he could see so deeply into these flowery kung-fu movements?

The years passed and I continued to study. Sometimes, I would begin learning a long series of movements known as a "form" (often called "kata"). These forms could include up to 100 movements and take 12 or 13 minutes to perform. Each time I would begin on the first movement, it seemed that I would never get to the end.

But one step at a time -- one movement at a time -- suddenly the en...

The body mechanics of the internal arts -- tai chi, hsing-i and bagua -- involve opening and closing in all movements. This week, as I work with students on fighting applications from the Hsing-I intermediate form Ba Shih, we're working on body mechanics that apply across all three arts. One of the movements incorporates a powerful closing action, and it shows how devastating this can be in a self-defense situation.

In tai chi, this movement is done in the commencement when you lower your hands. The application isn't always apparent to the naked eye. In the Hsing-I form, internal strength flows up from the ground through the body as you roll the hands forward (Top Photo).

The second photo shows the closing. You close the body as you pull the hands down to dan t'ien level. This is done very powerfully but without a lot of muscular tightness -- with relaxed strength and speed. Notice I'm not bending over when I pull down -- that's a mistake a lot of beginners make. Keep the hips un...

Here is a high-quality video, apparently shot perhaps in the 1980s, showing Chen Xiaowang doing Taijiquan. 

Master Ren Guangyi, one of Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang's senior disciples, is an amazing martial artist -- very strong and athletic. I was fortunate to be introduced to him by my teachers Jim and Angela Criscimagna years ago when they hosted Master Ren for workshops in Rockford, Illinois. I learned the Chen 38 and the Broadsword form from him and refined them with Jim and Angela.

Apparently, Master Ren created his own compact Cannon Fist form for Hugh Jackman, as Jackman was preparing for a movie.

This is a beautiful and powerful example of real tai chi, and so much more difficult than it looks. His stomp at the end of "Buddha's Warrior" almost knocked my computer off the desk. :)