Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

I love to teach, and I like to use this blog as a teaching tool. I want visitors to walk away with information they can use in their practice. Here is a fighting tip that can work on the street, but since I don't get in many fights (I think my last real fight was 1970 in high school), I have to do tournaments.

Tournament sparring isn't real combat, but even point sparring teaches you strategies and timing that you would need on the street. I love tournament sparring. And believe me, it gets rough in there. In black belt divisions, you often have to make contact to get the point.

In the internal arts, particularly Chen tai chi, a kicker would be at a disadvantage. Trap the kick and take the kicker to the ground. But in most tournament sparring, you can't do that.

No problem.

Here's a strategy that will help you defeat martial artists who like to use kicks. I've found that a fighter who uses mainly kicks are not often well-rounded fighters. I've never understood styles that won't ...

Yeah, that's me nailing this poor guy in the face with a hook kick. I was 27 years old competing at a tournament in 1980 sponsored by my first teacher, Grandmaster Sin The. I still use the hook kick in tournaments, even at my advanced age, because as one judge laughed a couple of years ago after I nailed a guy with it -- "that's sneaky."

As anyone who has purchased my sparring DVD knows, I believe in being a well-rounded fighter, using both hands and feet. I can score with either, and I use both to misdirect my opponent.

Whether in tournaments or in a self-defense situation, you should try to put your opponent at a disadvantage by making him think you're going somewhere you aren't. In the photo above, I had only been kicking at waist level. I'd thrown several side kicks at this guy and he had blocked them. He was very good at the reverse punch and had already scored.

But he was holding his hands down and leaving his head open. It happens all the time. So, as he expected another si...

In December 2000, a kung fu teacher from China named Master Wang held a seminar at my friend John Morrow's school in Moline. Several students showed up to study a variety of kung fu and tai chi techniques. I enjoyed meeting him, and it was obvious he had studied a while. Being a skeptic, I doubted that he was a real master. Anyone can come over from China with a little experience and fool us Americans. Many do.

But I still enjoyed the seminar. Master Wang had us practice different techniques with a partner, and he kept watching me. He said something to his interpreter, and the interpreter came over to me and said, "Master Wang says that you have kung fu."

Well, I was flattered. At the end of class, the interpreter told me that Master Wang was in town helping to build a Chinese restaurant for a friend, and he would like to train with me while he was there. He and the interpreter came over to my school twice a week for a few weeks. It was an interesting experience, and I learned as muc...

The guys at the Onion are geniuses. Here's a funny headline and photo for a fake Tai Chi feature.

Chen Bing is the nephew of Chen Xiaowang and Chen Xiaoxing. He has a college degree, and it doesn't take long to realize that he has a different style than his uncles--more involved, more accessible.

I met him in Chicago at a push hands seminar. He put one hand on my left shoulder, and I put my hand on his left shoulder. The object was to push the other person off-balance. Each time I pushed, he relaxed, and before I knew it I was falling off-balance.

It's the same thing that I felt when pushing hands with Chen Xiaoxing. When force comes in, it's met with relaxation and neutralization, not force. It's one of the things that really marks the difference between "external" and internal arts. I've rarely met a karate or TKD person, or even another kung fu person for that matter, who understands the concept of relaxed strength. Force comes in and you relax and deal with it.

This is a skill that I grapple with, trying to ingrain it into my reflexes. One of the most difficult things to do ...

The North American moving guys didn't do their job right and didn't have any extra help to unload our furniture and household goods at our new home in Florida. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, and I quickly realized that if Nancy and I were going to get our stuff into our new home, I'd have to pitch in and help unload.

It didn't take long to learn that when you load heavy boxes onto a dolly and take it down a ramp, it can quickly get away from you.

So I applied tai chi principles and maintained the ground path and a sense of "peng" throughout the process. By maintaining the ground and peng while stepping backwards, I kept the dolly from coming down too fast and was able to control it easily, with much less physical effort.

Tai Chi principles can be used in many day-to-day activities, from opening heavy doors to lifting and carrying heavy items. I was once told to imagine moving as if your dan t'ien was being pulled along a level plane. I tried that while running and it made ...

I've been writing about people who have been important to our school during this emotional time when we close it down and move South. There are people I haven't saluted due to time limitations--people like Vicky Arratia, Deb Thompson, Gary Whitcanack, Eric Schlichte, Xixuan and Conan Collins, Colin Frye, and of course Kim and Chris Miller. There are many more, too.

Since 2002, however, the most important person of all has been my wife and best friend Nancy. I've never known a woman like her. We started dating in August of 2002. By January, she started into the tai chi class and loved it. As time went on, she encouraged me to buy the building for our school. She got in there and painted and worked so hard.

She also encourages my tournaments and enjoys the road trips. The picture above was taken at a Chicago tournament after I won the gold medal in Advanced Hsing-I forms.

Having Nancy in the classes gave me someone to flirt with, and I enjoyed using her as a "dummy" to demonstrate fig...

There's an amazing story in the New York Times on Sunday, May 27, 2007, titled Learning to Dance, One Chunk At a Time. Reporter Diane Solway writes about Angel Corella, a dancer from Spain who has a gift. He can watch a dance performance onstage and after seeing it only once, he can recreate all the dance steps--not only the lead dancer, but the steps of every supporting dancer.

There is a lot of tai chi in this article. It discusses the path that dancers take to learn a routine. The article says:

...most dancers share a relatively similar path, first learning the choreography and then adding layers of detail and color. Finally, they absorb the work so completely that its elements literally become automatic, leaving the dancer's brain free to focus on the moment-by-moment nuances of the performance.

The story also says that learning the choreography is just the first step in perfecting it:

They must also convey the intention and feeling of the works they perform.

In practicing ta...

Jay and Penny Stratton were kind enough to host a Going Away Party tonight for Nancy and me. I think I'd be very disappointed if my teacher left town. This Friday, Nancy and I will leave for Florida.

This isn't easy. My students have become our friends. The weather was perfect for tonight's barbeque at the Stratton's. And you should see the woodwork this guy does. What an artist!

Jay is also an artist on the grill. Also at the party were Skip Hackett, Vicky and Boris Arratia, Greg and Carol Surrierer and their daughter Rhiannon, Chris and Kim Miller, Kim Kruse (now married but I'll be darned if I can remember her married name), Chris and Kat Lierly, Doug and Jane Outterson, Jon Stratton and his friend Taylor, and Colin Frye. John Morrow also stopped by.

Over the years, a lot of students have left me, but I've always been there. Vicky said tonight that she always knew the school was there, even if she wasn't, and it gave her comfort. I understand that.

Working full-time and ...

The past 10 years have brought changes that I didn't imagine when I began teaching in 1997. I worked for a long time in TV news and moved a lot. In the 90's I settled in the Quad Cities and in 1997 decided to start teaching. Little did I realize what would happen when I did. Basically, I realized that something was missing from my Hsing-I, Yang Tai Chi, and Bagua. I began reading a listserve--the Neijia List--on the Internet, and I read discussions by people like Mike Sigman, using terms I hadn't heard before such as peng jin and ground path. I asked if there was someone in my area that could show me what it meant. I was guided to Jim and Angela Criscimagna, in Rockford, Illinois.

After meeting Jim, I realized within an hour that I had to start over. Chen tai chi was so different, and the body mechanics were so much better than what I had been doing, my martial arts changed direction instantly. I explained to my students that our arts weren't complete, and they followed me as I grew,...