Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

I'm almost finished editing the final DVD in the series on fighting applications of Laojia Yilu. There should be about 400 applications in the 3-DVD set -- a pretty amazing number for one form. There are supposed to be more than 600 but I didn't repeat any movements.

Taking the time to study the movements for this DVD series was a great learning experience for me. I've always felt that you learn a lot in class but you learn the most by quiet, thoughtful practice and study on your own. That's certainly true in this instance.

I've included three photos in this post showing an application from the final movement in the form -- Closing the Form -- movement number 75.  You are being choked. You snake your arm under the opponent's armpit, turn the body and "close." The energy in your hands is downward energy, the same as in the very first movement of the form.

In an actual self-defense situation, you would naturally put fajin into the movement and do some damage. If you look at the thir...

Well you could have knocked me over with some iron wrapped in cotton back in April when I asked the doctor to listen to my heart. It had been running rough for months and I thought it was the stress of my job. He took one listen and immediately sent me across the hall to get an EKG. The result--atrial fibrillation and a weakened heart.

What the....???  Kung-fu guys who have kept in shape, done chi kung and worked out all their lives don't have heart problems. I sat there thinking of my dad, who had his first heart attack when he was 5 years younger than I am and died just 11 years later from congestive heart failure. He was 61 when he died. I'm 55. I want to be practicing and studying the internal arts when I'm 80 so this diagnosis was quite a shock.

Turns out the atrial fibrillation is common. The heart develops competing electrical signals that cause the heart to beat wildly--sometimes very rapidly--and it can not only cause a stroke, it can weaken the heart because it doesn't get ...

Well, color me disappointed. Perhaps a shade of disillusionment, too. I've always enjoyed reading about the famous tai chi master Ma Yu Liang. He passed away back in the 1990s at more than 90 years of age. He still practiced push hands even past the age of 90.

So I always had the impression of someone with great skill. I'm sure he had great skill. It's unfortunate and sad that some video clips on YouTube show him doing push hands with partners who either have no skill whatsoever or who are playing along to pretend the master is using great power.

I'm actually sorry that I saw this. Why does this type of demo have to happen?

I'm editing the third DVD in the series on Laojia Yilu fighting applications. This important Chen tai chi form has 75 movements--many of them repeated more than once--and the DVD series takes a look at each movement (without repeating them) and uncovers around 400 fighting applications.

As I edit this third DVD--the final one in the series on Laojia Yilu--I'm putting each movement and its applications on the online school for members to see first.

The DVD starts with movement 33 in Laojia Yilu -- Punch the Ground. Within the first three movements--Punch the Ground, Turn Body Round and Double Kick, and Protect the Heart Fist--there are 30 fighting applications demonstrated.

The photo here shows my favorite application of Punch the Ground--a throw. When is a punch not a punch? When you snake your arm under your opponent's armpit, turn, and punch the ground.

I'm having a lot of fun with this series. I shot the video before moving from Tampa (I really miss that weather since we have ...

I'm preparing a series of video lessons for the online school on baguazhang fighting. Bagua is a difficult art. It requires the same body mechanics as good tai chi, and like tai chi, bagua takes many years of practice to become proficient.

A Bagua fighter has three main goals -- uproot, unbalance, and control the opponent's center. It is really not much different than Chen Taiji, but it employs a few different methods. 

For example, it is said that a Bagua fighter disappears in front of his opponent and suddenly he is behind the opponent. Of course, this makes some people think of magic, but physically, it's a matter of turning your opponent or change his positioning in some way so you are behind him.

Bagua fighting involves fast footwork, quick changes in direction, developing a "moving root," and most important--the key to bagua fighting--to capture and control your opponent's center.

This isn't necessarily as difficult as it sounds. You just need to be shown so you can begin ...

I'm editing the xingyi staff video that we shot on Saturday and breaking it down into video lessons for the online internal arts school.

One of the points I drove home during the teaching of the Hsing-I Staff form was the use of internal body mechanics. If you use the staff properly, with the right body mechanics, the form is very similar to the internal pole exercises that are included as a bonus on my Silk-Reeling DVD and in other video lessons on the website.

In the pole exercises (discussed in other posts on this blog) you take the arm and shoulder muscles out of the strike and use spiraling, ground path, whole-body movement and strong closing into the kua. When you do it right, the end of the pole shakes and whips with the energy that travels out through the staff.

Using a lighter staff--in the video I use a rattan staff--can give you a good idea if your body mechanics are correct.

--by Ken Gullette  

A group of students and I got together yesterday to work on the Hsing-I staff form. It's a form that is part of our Hsing-I curriculum.

I like the explosive nature of Hsing-I Chuan (also spelled xingyiquan) and this form embodies the qualities of the five fist postures--powerful techniques that drive through an opponent.

We worked on the movements of the form, including the body mechanics and dan t'ien rotation that is a vital part of any internal form. The dan t'ien moves with the staff just as it moves in an empty-hand form. The staff is an extension of your limbs. One of the challenges of Hsing-I students is to achieve relaxation in the movements, along with the explosive power during striking techniques.

After working on the form, we broke down each of the form's movements and practiced the fighting applications--blocks, deflecting techniques, sticking techniques, and strikes. I've known many martial artists who do brilliant staff forms but don't have experience with the fig...

Back in the late Nineties and the first couple of years of this century, I competed in several Gen-Ki tournaments in Chicago. They were big affairs, with hundreds of competitors. It was fun to go up against mainly karate people and win first place. My students and I brought home quite a few 6-foot trophies.

At that time, there were several really great tournaments in Chicago. One was a huge open tournament with internal arts divisions that attracted Hsing-I, Tai Chi, and Bagua competitors.

Gen-Ki was mostly devoted to karate but at the time, I was building a winning track record was felt that I needed to compete and win. One of the great things about Chicago tournaments is the contact that is required in sparring. In brown and black belt competition, you can't score a point unless you hit or kick your opponent. It isn't a game of "tag," like critics call tournament sparring. It gets rough and it's fun.

For the second time this year, I had a completely different reaction when I wen...

Four students and I attended a tournament in Moline, Illinois, yesterday, hosted by my friend John Morrow. I hadn't competed in over a year-and-a-half, and after two heart surgeries this summer, decided to just enter for forms and weapons and wait a little longer, maybe next spring, to enter sparring competition. Photo at left shows me, Chris Miller (standing), his daughter Roewyn, and Colin Frye. Kneeling are Kim Schaber and Kim Miller.

We had a good day. Chris Miller won first place in the brown belt empty-hand forms competition, second in sparring (he was a much better fighter but didn't get the calls), and third place in weapons. He ran a bagua form in empty-hand forms and ran the Chen straight sword in weapons.

Kim Miller won 1st place in women's sparring (under black belt) and 2nd place in brown belt forms. Kim ran the Chen 38 form.

Kim Schaber won 1st place in empty-hand forms and 1st place in weapons. She performed Hsing-I in both competitions.

Colin Frye won 1st place i...

I was reading an article in an ancient Tai Chi magazine about Zhu Tiancai, one of the "Four Buddha's Warriors" of the Chen Village. He was asked how masters at his level continue to learn.

He said that, since all his teachers are now dead, his progress is slow, but he continues to make progress by carefully analyzing his own movements and delving deeper into the possibilities of the movements, and the principles of tai chi.

My belief is that your best progress will come during solo practice. A lot of people go to class and get corrections, but they become too dependent on that. Some of them never go home and really analyze the movements slowly. They think too much about choreography.

Sometimes, your best practice would be to spend an hour on just a couple of movements, such as Buddha's Warrior Attendant Pounds Mortar and Lazy About Tying the Coat, watching and slowly going through each subtlety in the body mechanics until that light bulb turns on above your head as you try to sit back ...