Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts Blog

Firing Up the Inner Gyroscope Once Again - Finding My Center in the Hospital

health and recovery remain centered Jun 16, 2021

I am writing a book on how the philosophies that I learned during the time I have studied martial arts have guided me through some of the storms of life.

Last week, I found that I was living a new chapter.

After a break of a few years, I suddenly began coughing up blood on Friday, June 4. We're not talking about the type of coughing up blood that you see in the movies -- a fleck or two in a handkerchief.

When I cough up blood, it looks like someone was shotgunned in my sink. I put a picture up on a blog post around 2015. It was gross.

This began in 2009, after three laser ablation procedures on my heart, attempting to stop atrial fibrillation. Instead, the final procedure shut down my left pulmonary veins, so no oxygenated blood goes from my left lung to the heart.

How my body has survived the past 12 years, I have no idea, but it hasn't been easy, and it has made martial arts quite a challenge -- only one lung, coughing up blood occasionally, and, to add insult to injury, I d...

Form is Emptiness - Easy to Ridicule if You Don't Understand

chen tai chi chen taiji tai chi principles May 18, 2021

My daughter, Harmony had a yin/yang sticker on her notebook in 7th grade. She loved it. From the day she was brought home from the hospital and put into a crib in August, 1977, Bruce Lee posters had been on her bedroom wall and she was very familiar with martial arts.

But some of the girls in her 7th grade class accused her of worshipping Satan because of the yin/yang sticker.

They didn't understand and had been influenced by their parents, most of whom were Christians living in the Midwest.

Yesterday, I came across the "Heart Sutra," an important "rule" or aphorism in Mahāyāna Buddhism.

One of the key phrases that immediately made me think of Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Bruce Lee was this:

Form is nothing more than emptiness,

emptiness is nothing more than form.

You can say it a bit more directly: "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form."

It is a widely quoted concept that is visualized in different ways.

Bruce Lee liked to say that we should "be water." He said, "If you put wat...

Empty Force - A Trap Door that Collapses Beneath an Opponent

empty force internal body mechanics internal self-defense kong jin Mar 19, 2021

Fifty years ago this summer, in 1971, I was working for my dad as a laborer in his ornamental iron business. I was 18 years old, had just graduated from high school and was soon to start college. My dad was very mechanical and was an artist with ornamental iron, doing everything from columns and railings to stairways in apartment complexes. I did not inherit his mechanical gene, so I was relegated to painting and helping carry materials.

One day, we were working on the third story of a new apartment building in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. The third floor balcony had some kind of temporary sheet metal flooring, but on this day, I didn't realize the flooring did not have support under it.

I was daydreaming and not being mindful about what I was doing when I went up to the third floor and stepped out on the balcony.

As soon as I stepped on it, the flooring gave way beneath my feet -- three stories up. It was as if I had stepped onto a trap door that suddenly, without warning, ope...

A Wise Taiji Master Once Said We Should Practice the Method Not the Form

body method chen style taijiquan studying tai chi studying taiji Jan 25, 2021

I have forgotten who said this, but it might have been one of Chen Fake's students, Feng Zhiqiang. He said we should practice "method, not form."

In the beginning, when we learn a form, we are trying to memorize the movements. Then, we are trying to memorize the movements so we can do the form from beginning to end. It takes a lot of work to remember a complete form.

But after we get the movements down and we can do a form from beginning to end, we must immediately force ourselves to go to the next level.

What you should be practicing is not the form but the method.

Every style of martial arts has its own "shen fa," or "body method." The Taiji form is not the only way to practice the method. You can do it by breaking out one movement from the form and working it. You can do it by practicing silk-reeling exercises.

In the style of Xingyi that I teach, body methods include taking ground, alternating relaxation and power, maintaining intent, ground path, peng jin, dan...

I Want to Throw Roundhouse Kicks on Muhammad Ali's Birthday

philosophy remain centered self-defense Jan 17, 2021

I want to throw roundhouse kicks. I have been very angry during the past week-and-a-half. I am working very hard to center myself. Let me tell you why.

Muhammad Ali would have celebrated his 79th birthday today if he had lived, but unfortunately, he died of complications of Parkinson's Disease in 2016.

The night he defeated George Foreman (picture at left) to regain the heavyweight title was the night I realized I needed to stop being a racist. It was October 30, 1974. Muhammad Ali was fighting George Foreman in a fight that was held in Zaire and called the "Rumble in the Jungle."

Foreman was so strong it was scary. He was knocking other heavyweights out cold. Most people expected Ali to be killed that night.

I grew up in the American South in the 1950s and Sixties. I saw "White Only" signs on drinking fountains and bathrooms. I remember when blacks were not allowed to sit with us in the movie theaters. They had to sit in the balcony.

...

What Sean Connery and James Bond Taught Me About Fighting

self-defense Oct 31, 2020

Sean Connery passed away at age 90. The news swept across the world today, and if you are a man in my generation, it's a sad day.

My mother would not let me see a James Bond movie until the fourth Bond film "Thunderball" came out in late 1965. We were very conservative Christians, and she thought the movies were sinful because they showed drinking and (gasp!) sex between men and women who were NOT MARRIED!

She thought I would burn in Hell if I ever saw a James Bond movie.

But by the time "Thunderball" came out and I was nearly 13, she relented. My buddy Ed McCaw and I went to see it at a theater in downtown Lexington. We walked in during the long scene when the atomic bomb was stolen from the downed plane. We stayed all the way through the movie the second time through. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I thought Connery was the coolest man who ever lived. The way he walked, the way he talked, and the slightly sarcastic, confident sense of humor had a big impact on me.

But the...

How I Teach the Internal Arts with a Focus on Internal Body Mechanics

internal body mechanics studying internal arts teaching the internal arts Oct 27, 2020

Everything about martial arts changed for me the day I met my first Chen Taiji instructors, Jim and Angela Criscimagna.

On a Saturday morning in early 1998 I drove to their home in Rockford, Illinois, about two hours from my home, to find out what some of these "body mechanics" were that I had recently read about in an internet chat room -- terms like "ground path" and "peng jin."

Jim worked with me for an hour, explaining the difference between the Yang style Taiji I had studied up to that point and the Chen style that he was studying and teaching.

In one hour, I knew I had to start over. What I had been studying was empty. It was based on "chi cultivation" and not on body mechanics.

After 25 years in martial arts and more than a decade in the internal arts, I couldn't find my kua with both hands. This was a problem, considering I had a "black sash" and was already teaching. My students and I were already making a splash at area martial arts tournaments. Now, my style of Taiji had...

We Lost an Important Critical Thinker: James Randi Dies at Age 92

$5000 chi challenge chi challenge critical thinking in martial arts Oct 22, 2020

James Randi has passed away. He was a magician and a critical thinker who inspired many of us as he debunked supernatural BS, including chi powers. He had one million dollars in escrow that he offered to anyone who could prove, in a double-blind setting, that they could perform any supernatural acts that they claimed to do.

Richard Mooney was one of the martial artists who claimed to knock people down without touching them. He was featured in a martial arts magazine many years ago now, with photos showing his students falling to the ground without being touched.

Mooney tried to claim Randi's million dollars, but it was a double-blind test. Around 18 people were chosen, and none of them knew what Richard was going to do. One by one, they stood behind a screen as Mooney tried to knock them down without touching them. None of them even flinched.

In a double-blind trial, video of the event was given to judges who also did not know what Mooney was attempting to do....

How to Embarrass a Teacher When You Violate Martial Etiquette

internal arts training martial arts training martial etiquette tai chi training Sep 18, 2020

I have found that manners in martial arts can be a bit tricky. And depending on who you study with, you need to think from a different cultural perspective.

In a recent podcast interview, Chen Taiji instructor Nabil Ranne of Germany explained how he violated martial arts etiquette during an early conversation he had with his teacher, Chen Yu.

He asked Chen Yu how many times each day should he practice the form that some of us call Laojia Yilu but is also known as "Old Frame First Form," or "First Road."

Chen Yu replied, "Five times a day."

Nabil says he responded to Chen Yu by saying something like, "But your grandfather said you should do thirty routines per day."

Later, when Nabil understood more about martial etiquette, he realized and regretted his mistake.

By responding to Chen Yu as he did, in Chinese culture he was telling Chen Yu that either Chen Yu was wrong, or that his grandfather was wrong.

Listen to the interview with Nabil by following this link. Or play and downl...

Talking Chen Style Taijiquan with Berlin Instructor Nabil Ranne

chen style taiji berlin chen yu ctnd nabil ranne tai chi berlin taijiquan berlin Aug 19, 2020

Nabil Ranne is a disciple of the great Taijiquan master Chen Yu of Beijing. Nabil teaches from his home base in Berlin. He is the co-founder of the Chen Style Taijiquan Network Germany (Chen Style Taijiquan Network Deutschland). His website is www.ctnd.de.

In this edition of the Internal Fighting Arts podcast, Nabil talks about how he began studying Taiji, what it was like to study with Chen Yu, and we talk about the differences between Chen Yu's version of Chen style, which Nabil studies and teaches, and the style taught by the Chen family in the Chen Village, which I study and teach.

Nabil is a good man and he has some great insights into the art. You can listen online or download the file to listen anytime. Also, on the buttons below you can subscribe to the podcast feed, embed the podcast into a website or share with your friends (and I hope you will).

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Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

Firing Up the Inner Gyroscope Once Again - Finding My Center in the Hospital

Form is Emptiness - Easy to Ridicule if You Don't Understand

Empty Force - A Trap Door that Collapses Beneath an Opponent

A Wise Taiji Master Once Said We Should Practice the Method Not the Form

I Want to Throw Roundhouse Kicks on Muhammad Ali's Birthday

What Sean Connery and James Bond Taught Me About Fighting

How I Teach the Internal Arts with a Focus on Internal Body Mechanics

We Lost an Important Critical Thinker: James Randi Dies at Age 92

How to Embarrass a Teacher When You Violate Martial Etiquette

Talking Chen Style Taijiquan with Berlin Instructor Nabil Ranne

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