Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts Blog

The Ground Path is Step One in Building a Strong Internal Structure

ground path internal body mechanics studying internal gongfu studying tai chi studying taiji Jun 04, 2019

The first concept I introduce new students to is the ground path.

We do exercises with a partner to learn how to establish and maintain the ground path and combine it with peng jin.

But some people who see a photo like the one here make the mistake of thinking, "That's useless. You can't use that in a fight."

In this photo, my training partner Tom is pushing into my right elbow and I am grounding the push into the ground through my left foot.

Tom is not supposed to push with too much force, although as you can see in the picture, this particular drill is used to show that you can, in fact, set up a pretty strong structure using the ground.

The ground path is generally practiced without too much force because the idea is not to make you Superman, to meet force with force. Tai Chi doesn't fight force against force.

The idea is to provide internal strength to your body structure, but as you hold that strength in, for example, a self-defense situation, your goal will not be to meet f...

How to Develop Internal Arts Skill - the Ground Path

ground path internal strength peng jin Jul 07, 2009

I can't tell you how many internal artists I've met during the last decade or so who look at me with blank stares when I ask if they have been taught about the ground path.

I know how they feel. I first heard about it around 1997, when I started reading a network listserve, where Mike Sigman and others talked about it. I had studied martial arts for many years at that point, and had practiced the internal arts for a decade, and this concept was new to me.

I began studying Sigman's material and attended a workshop he held in Minneapolis. I began studying Chen tai chi with Jim and Angela Criscimagna, and learned body mechanics that were foreign to me. As I've seen during the past decade, these physical skills are still foreign to a lot of internal artists. Simply put, there is a LOT of bad instruction happening in the internal arts, particularly tai chi.

When Sigman began telling tai chi teachers and students about the ground path, he was flamed by many of them because they had devel...

Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

The Ground Path is Step One in Building a Strong Internal Structure

How to Develop Internal Arts Skill - the Ground Path

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