Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

On Wednesday, Oct. 24, a new show will debut on NBC involving Uri Geller, who claims to be able to bend things (like spoons) with his mind. He's teaming up with magician Criss Angel for a new show called Phenomenon.

Geller became famous in the Sixties and Seventies with his famous bending trick, and everyone assumed he could actually bend spoons with his mind, because Americans can be easily fooled (ummm, like when they believe in chi masters and chi "healing"). Johnny Carson was a magician and with the help of James Randi, he exposed Geller to be a fraud on national TV.

Geller has survived because there are a lot of people who believe this type of garbage no matter what the facts show (ummm, see the above comment about chi masters), and in this new show, he and Angel will be searching for people who possess miraculous and supernatural powers.

This will be very interesting.

James Randi is still around. He exposes frauds all the time (like chi masters who claim to knock people down ...

I remember the first week I started teaching, ten years ago this month. My class was held in a fitness center in Muscatine, Iowa. Some young guys came in who wanted to learn kung fu. There were four or five of them, ranging in age from 16 to 24.

They lined up and we began warming up, stretching, doing pushups and crunches, and then I demonstrated a form and some techniques that they would be learning, in an effort to excite them about things to come.

And then it hit me. I had to be perfect.

The pressure was immediate. Every move I made in class had to be teacher quality. I couldn't make a mistake. If I did, I would lose credibility with my students. It was a feeling I hadn't expected. These guys were looking at me as if I was the expert, and I needed to prove it every class.

My reaction to this? I trained every day--hard. On weekends, I would train four or five hours a day, refining my technique, working on forms, studying applications and chin-na deeper. In one way I was fortunate...

We practice techniques in class--chin-na for example--and we do it in a way that won't hurt our training partner. If we go too far, we can snap something and our partner won't be able to train for a while.

Unfortunately, a lot of beginners who haven't developed the right self-control tend to apply too much force too quickly and can hurt the people they're training with.

The result is a watering down of techniques. Too often, an arm bar is practiced as a technique that causes pain and puts your opponent in a bent-over or on-the-ground position of vulnerability. The same happens when practicing a wrist lock such as the one we call "half-moon" against a grab. Enough pressure is applied to cause pain and that's it.

In reality, if you get into an actual fight, it's a very serious matter. Someone is likely to need a trip to the ER at the end of the fight. At this point, you certainly don't want to worry about hurting your attacker. In fact, you want to hurt him quickly before he hurts yo...

Dr. Tom Morris received his Ph.D. in both Philosophy and Religious Studies from Yale University. For more than 15 years, he was a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame.

In one of his books, he writes about the power of belief and tells the story of when he bought a gas grill. The delivery men from Sears wouldn't hook up the propane tank because of the dangers. So Tom hooked it up, holding his breath while he worked so he wouldn't breathe any fumes. After a minute he would walk away and breathe clean air, then go back to the grill. He accidentally took a few breaths while at the grill and could smell the propane. The fumes began making him light-headed and he began feeling sick, and even when he hooked the tank up, he could still smell the gas.

He called Sears to report the problem. They asked, "Where did you fill up the tank?" He hadn't filled up the tank, and didn't realize that Sears delivers a new grill with an empty propane tank.

Tom's family got a big kick out if this, and as ...

Good balance is crucial in any martial art, but especially the internal arts. Here is a balance exercise you can do at the gym. It works core muscles and forces every muscle in the legs to work at balancing and stabilizing yourself.

Stand on one leg on a Bosu ball and do the switching move from bagua. Turn the waist and change hand positions while balancing on one leg. If you begin to lose your balance, try to save it and don't fall off the Bosu ball. If your core muscles are strong, you'll be able to avoid falling. Switch legs after a minute or so.

My personal trainer introduced me to the Bosu ball and I've seen an improvement in balance as my leg and core muscles have grown stronger. 

I was reading a bagua book the other day, and there were photographs of a sequence showing one application against a jab. The person throwing the jab put his fist out there and held it while the defender went through a couple of techniques including a strike.

If you've ever fought someone who uses a jab, you know that they don't just hold it there for you. It flicks out quickly and then returns out of your range. It's very difficult to do very much in that short amount of time.

Too often in class, we do "one steps" in which the attacker does a punch or kick and lets us have our way with him (or her). And that's okay to learn concepts, but it isn't going to work in a real fight.

I was watching a video clip of a real "Bagua" fighting match in a Chinese tournament. There was very little Bagua happening. It was mostly using muscle to throw someone or using fists to hit their chests and stomachs.

There's a reason for that. Bagua is extremely difficult to use against a moving opponent wh...

Yeah, that's me standing over this young hotshot karate guy at a tournament in 2002. He was about 20 years younger than me, maybe more. I knocked him down. At the end of the match, he threw up.

One of the reasons I've continued fighting in tournaments is because most internal artists don't. I've attended several huge Chicago tournaments. At the beginning of the forms competition, the internal artists--Hsing-I, Tai Chi, and Bagua--went down to one end of the gymnasium and did their forms. Then most of them went home.

I never understood why I was the only one who competed in the internal forms competition who stayed and fought along with the "external" guys.

And we wonder why they call us the "soft" arts.

You can argue all you want that tournament sparring, even semi-contact sparring, isn't "real" fighting. And it's true that you can't break your opponent in these tournaments, which is the goal of Tai Chi. But a lot of people come to watch, and when they see you doing something reall...

During the past week, I've been dusting off a bagua form - the Cheng style "8 Palm Changes" form.

I work in a university, and late this afternoon I was waiting for the president to arrive for a meeting. Everyone else had gone home, so I waited in the secretary's office, practicing one bagua movement from the form. The movement is "Yin Yang Fish."

It involves very tight circle-walking -- so tight that it just looks as if you're spinning. I practiced the movement slowly, then fast, then slowed it down and analyzed it. I looked for blocks, strikes, and joint locks hidden in the movement and the changing positions of the hands.

I worked for one hour on this one movement, and I felt liberated. I felt as if I was truly studying the art.

Too often, we believe that quantity of techniques is the goal. The more techniques we learn, the better.

That isn't necessarily true. Sometimes, you must take one technique--one movement--and unlock its secrets. Study the body mechanics, the shifting ...

During the past three weeks, I've had the toughest workout sessions since I was on the track team in high school.

I began working out with a personal trainer at a fitness center in the Tampa Palms neighborhood.

James Adams has been a personal trainer for about three years. He's friendly and he knows his stuff. During the first few sessions, he's focused on core strength. It's clear that I need it.

When I was running the school in the Quad Cities, I spent so much time on teaching and marketing that my training fell off a cliff. I was also putting in 55 hours a week on my job, including the commute. Between job, the school, and my cute young wife, I didn't have time to train privately. I didn't feel good. I looked like I was in good shape, but I knew I wasn't from the way the old body felt. These photos were taken tonight, and show James coaching me through a core exercise where you grip the balance wheel and roll your hips on the fitness ball. Using the core muscles, you maintain c...

I've studied several arts since 1973 -- Shaolin, wushu, taekwondo, boxing -- and attained ranks in Shaolin (brown belt) and TKD (green belt) before finding the internal arts.

The internal arts that I practice -- Hsing-I, Chen Tai Chi, and Bagua -- are the most difficult arts I've encountered. For a beginner, it's impossible to learn them properly from books, photos, or videos.

It Has To Be Shown (IHTBS).

My first encounter with top-level internal arts instructors (those with training in actual internal body mechanics) was Jim and Angela Criscimagna in Rockford, Illinois. They also introduced me to the Chen way of training and masters such as Chen Xiaowang and Ren Guangyi.

I met Jim and Angela after reading internal arts posts on the Internet that I didn't understand, using terms I'd never been taught. One hour after training with Jim for the first time, I drove away from Rockford realizing that I had to start over.

Not everyone can make that decision. We invest a lot of time, mo...