Ken Gullette's Internal Martial Arts

Online Internal Arts Training Can Be Effective

I received a video from a member of the online school last week. He's a captain in the army and has spent some time in the Middle East. He joined the online school a few weeks ago and has been studying the Internal Strength section (I recommend everyone start there no matter how long they've studied in the past).

He sent me a video last week so that I could coach him. His wife was on the camcorder and his daughter stood on a chair and pushed him in different ways so he could demonstrate the ground path.

I was impressed. His ground path was solid. He had never seen this concept before, although he has studied other martial arts and has army training. It was clear that he had learned it well.

In his next coaching session, he'll send me a video of silk-reeling so I can coach him on his whole-body movement, dan t'ien rotation, use of the kua, and spiraling movement.

Some people believe you can't learn the internal arts online. I'll be the first to admit that hands-on correction is the ideal situation, but let's face it -- most tai chi students around the world are being taught the wrong things. They aren't being taught the actual physical skills they need. So all the in-person teaching that they're getting is leading them down the wrong path anyway. Hsing-I and Bagua students aren't doing much better. They need someone to tell them the things their teachers aren't sharing.

One kung-fu black belt who owns a school joined the online school recently to supplement his own knowledge. He joined after signing up for the free 10-part course that I offer on body mechanics. He called me on the phone and told me that while looking at the videos in that free 10-part course, he wondered, "Why hasn't anyone ever shown me this before now?" His teacher is a well-known grandmaster and yet he hadn't been shown some basic body mechanics.

When I moved to Tampa, Chris Miller was a student here in the Quad Cities, and he posted occasional videos on YouTube for me to watch privately so I could coach him. I shot a video reply after seeing him do the Chen 38 on video, and I demonstrated some of the things he needed to work on. He worked on it, and before long, he sent me a video showing that his body mechanics had improved. It was a wonderful thing to see.

Across the world, students are earning college degrees through online learning. You can also learn the internal arts online. It requires some personal coaching, either in person or through video, but if you have a half-way decent body awareness you can do it. I encourage you to sign up for two free weeks in the online school and if you don't think it's going to work for you, just send me an email to cancel before the end of two weeks so you won't be billed the low monthly fee (to be honest, if someone forgets to cancel but lets me know, I refund the money anyway although this has only happened once in the past 13 months). You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

Key Internal Arts Skills -- the Dan T'ien and the Kua

Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang says tai chi is made up of "One principle and three techniques."

The first principle is "when one part moves all parts move, and dan t'ien guides all movement."

The first technique is the dan t'ien rotating over the top and backward in the same direction.

The second technique is the dan t'ien rotating sideways.

The third technique is the dan t'ien rotating in a combination of the two directions.

Learning to rotate the dan t'ien is one of the crucial skills of the internal arts. No movement can be done without dan t'ien rotation. Often, when you're told "turn the waist" the real meaning is to turn the dan t'ien.

In the first photo, I'm demonstrating the incorrect position most martial artists I've met (even internal artists who are unfamiliar with Chen style) do when they "turn their waist." As you can see, the hips are turning.

Rotating the dan t'ien also makes use of the kua -- the creases at the top of the legs at the groin. In the second photo, I've closed into the right kua. In the third photo I've placed my hand into the kua and I'm showing some students how to feel their dan t'ien closing into the hand -- thus, closing into the kua. This is something you don't want to overdo -- I closed into the kua once in front of Chen Xiaowang and he scolded me, "Too much." I was practicing the punch in Laojia Yilu, and moved into the kua before the punch. After he said, "too much," I eased off of it a little. "Too much," he said again. So I eased off a little more -- I still went into the kua but not as deeply. "Ahh," he said. "Just right."

In the free 10-part video series that I offer to visitors of my online school, I explore some of the key body mechanics needed for the internal arts -- Hsing-I, Tai Chi, and Bagua. I the lessons on the school, we go into a lot more detail, but if your teacher hasn't explored with you some of these concepts, it's about time you saw them in action. I encourage you to check out the 10-part course if you haven't already. You can sign up for it below.

The internal arts are complex but they aren't mystical. They're based on physical skills. Even though it can take a lifetime to master these skills, you aren't even doing the internal arts if you haven't at least been taught the basics. Once you learn the concepts, you take it one baby step at a time and try to get better. Even if you believe you know the score, I urge you to check out the free course.

Internal Body Mechanics - Whole-Body Movement in Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua

I met a guy who had been into tai chi -- Yang style -- for 20 years. We compared notes and he showed me some silk-reeling movements. It was obvious that he wasn't connected through the body, and he wasn't using whole-body movement.

I stepped over to him and asked him to step behind me and get up close, as if he was going to knock me over his leg. He put his right leg behind my left leg and his torso against mine.

"Now knock me over," I said. He stood there, uncertain what to do.

"Turn your waist," I said.

He turned his waist but not his arms or upper body. I didn't go anywhere.

"Turn the arms and upper body with the waist," I said. He thought about it for a second, then turned. I almost went down.

"Now, when you turn it all at the same time," I said, "move down and into your right kua as you turn." I pointed to the kua as I said this so he would know where it was.

He turned and I went down hard to the ground. "Ohh," he said, a light bulb coming on as he gained insight.

Now, how can someone practice Tai Chi for so many years but not understand whole-body movement? It happens all the time. I've had this same encounter with many people who have years of internal arts experience (I've never met a Chen Tai Chi person who had this problem, however). I'll bet their teacher has talked about whole-body movement. I'm sure they've been told to move the whole body, but either the teacher didn't know how to teach it or didn't understand it himself.

I saw the same thing when I did my Chen 38 fighting applications workshop a couple of months ago. From beginning students to high-ranking black belts in karate and even a tai chi teacher (Yang again), no one knew how to connect the whole body for self-defense so that they could remain relaxed and yet knock someone down. No one knew where the kua is and very few understood the difference between turning the hips and rotating the dan t'ien or waist.

Whole-body movement is one of the key internal arts body mechanics that you must

 

develop if you want to do high-quality Tai Chi, Hsing-I or Bagua. It's a physical skill that is developed through hard work and practice. It's one of the skills included in the free 10-part video course on my online internal arts school. You can sign up at the end of this post and receive this free course by email.

Here's an example, shown in the photos here. In the top photo, Tom Revie is delivering a roundhouse kick. I block and grab the leg and put my hand on his neck in the second photo. In the third photo, I connect from the ground through the hand and turn the waist. The entire body moves -- the arms move with the waist and I move into the right kua. Tom goes to the ground easily. This is from the Tai Chi movement called "Lazy About Tying the Coat."

If you're into the internal arts--or any martial art--I encourage you to take advantage of this free video course in key internal arts body mechanics. You might learn something that can make your own arts more powerful.

Tai Chi and Internal Body Mechanics - Peng Jin, the Most Important "Energy"

"Jin" means "energy," although that has been misinterpreted by some literal-minded folks who believe it is an actual scientifically real "energy" in the body. It has also been called "power" by some.

I tend to think of jin as "skill." The term "energy" is an abstract way of describing the skill that you develop with practice. Liu jin, for example, is "roll back" energy. It's a physical skill that combines reflexes and sensitivity when someone pushes or punches or attacks in another way. The skilled fighter who uses liu can deflect the attack, rolling it away and often causing the attacker to go off-balance. Naturally, this takes a lot of practice. It's impossible to develop this skill just by doing a form.

The most important of all the so-called "energies" of tai chi and the internal arts is peng jin. It MUST be present in all of your movements, even when you walk. If it isn't, you're not doing tai chi (or hsing-i or bagua). Peng jin is present in all the other energies of the internal arts -- without it, you couldn't perform roll-back, press, push, split, etc.

Peng jin permeates the entire body. Often, you'll see a beginning student moving one arm with peng, but losing it in the other arm, if they think that the other arm isn't in an "attacking" position. Then again, you can walk up to a lot of tai chi students as they're performing, and push on their arms as they are moving, and their arms will collapse because there is no expansive force of peng behind their movements.

The tai chi folks who call this a "soft art" are often guilty of teaching tai chi so soft and wimpy that their students crumble and collapse under any incoming force.

Now, to set the record straight, peng jin isn't intended to be a resisting force. It's an expansive force, but it doesn't resist. When you press into someone who is using peng, they're often using silk-reeling energy, too (or they should be) and they will roll you off, neutralizing the incoming force. When you apply force into peng, you don't necessarily feel the peng until the hammer comes down.

Some even compare peng jin with the force at the top of a puddle of water. If a leaf falls onto the puddle, it's held at the top by a force. I prefer to think of peng as the same energy you feel when you push a beach ball into the ocean or a swimming pool. But if you punch that beach ball while it's in the water, the ball doesn't resist, it spins, leading your punch into emptiness.

In the internal arts, at least the way I teach them, the first skills you learn are to establish the ground path and to use peng jin along with the ground. The two MUST work together at all times. If your teacher hasn't talked about these concepts, you need to find another teacher. That may sound rude to some, but it's true. Let me repeat -- you are NOT doing internal arts if you aren't putting the ground strength and peng jin into every movement.

I've told this story before, but I studied for a long time before hearing about these concepts. When I began studying with Jim and Angela Criscimagna, I was practicing Laojia Yilu with a group of students in a park. I began the movement "Six Sealings Four Closings" when both hands go out to the right before sweeping down and to the left. From fifty feet away, Jim shouted, "Ken, you just lost it." I asked what he meant. "You just lost your peng." I wondered at the time how he could see that from so far away, but now, as I teach, it's so easy to see when the ground, peng, and the intent are not in a student's movement.

This stuff isn't magic and it isn't mystical. Peng jin has nothing to do with some mysterious energy called "chi." It's a physical skill that requires a lot of practice, study, and work. After all, that's why they call it kung-fu.

In the free 10-part video course that I've put on the online internal arts school, I outline some of the basic skills you need for proper tai chi, hsing-i and bagua. You're invited to sign up here for this free course. You'll receive ten emails with links to videos, each of them up to 8 minutes long. You can also sign up below. It's absolutely free, and I would say that if your teacher isn't teaching you these skills,join the online school to supplement what you're studying or find another teacher.

 

 

What it Takes to Succeed in the Martial Arts

On Saturday, Alex drove three hours from Milwaukee for a private lesson. We worked in my basement for three hours and then he drove home. A 9-hour day for Alex, and these private lessons are not cheap. In the photo at left, I'm working with him on establishing and maintaining the ground connection--step one in learning the internal arts. We went through several of these exercises, plus peng jin, silk-reeling and whole-body movement. It was a lot of fun and I could tell he learned a lot.

I admire someone who does this. Alex has been a member of the online school, and he had the Internal Strength DVD, but he wanted to understand it better so he spent a day traveling to my home for some hands-on training and correction.

This is what it takes to succeed, and I admire someone who goes to that kind of time and effort.

It isn't easy finding good teachers to study Tai Chi with, and that's why--in 1998--I began making a 4-hour round trip to study on a regular basis (sometimes twice a week) with Jim and Angela Criscimagna. They lived in Rockford, Illinois at the time (now they livenear San Diego and are disciples of Chen Xiaowang). They sponsored workshops with Chen Xiaowang and Ren Guangyi, and I was there at every opportunity.

I later had another teacher, and traveled to California to study. I also hosted seminars with my teacher, flying him here and losing a thousand dollars a pop just to experience the training. I once flew to California to study privately for a day with Grandmaster Chen Xiaoxing (photo at right), and later I sponsored his visa so he could come to the U.S. the following year for a seminar tour. That's when he visited my home for a week.

I sat on the plane after the day in California with Chen Xiaoxing, flying back to the Quad Cities, writing furiously in my notebook -- notes on every movement of Laojia Yilu I had been through and the advice I had received. I still have those notes, and I work on them and practice the concepts with my students, both locally and online.

I did the same after flying to Washington, D.C. for a weekend workshop with Chen Xiaowang, hosted by C.P. Ong. Or driving to Chicago for a day of push hands with Chen Bing.

When you hear people complain that a class fee is too much, or the school is way across town, or they don't want to commit to $19.99 a month online, it sort of separates the people who like to "think" about being a martial artist and those who are serious. When you're serious, you'll practically crawl through glass to get the training you need to take just one more step forward.

It wasn't always easy going to Rockford. I worked in Iowa City at the time, so if I went up on a weeknight, I'd leave work around 4:00 and drive 3 hours to get to class. But after class, I would be bouncing around in the car all the way home, my mind buzzing with the movements and the concepts Jim and Angela were teaching. And the drive home always went pretty fast.  

Each time I made these trips, I knew that what I was learning was going to take more time to develop -- years. When you first learn internal arts concepts, you might understand them intellectually, but it takes a LONG time to reflect them physically. But I was willing--like Alex--to invest the time and the money to take just one more baby step--to understand just one more concept a little more--even though it might be a few years before I could do it right.

The name of the internal arts game--whether it's tai chi, hsing-i or bagua--is time and practice and hard work. That's why they call it kung-fu. The next photo on the left is the group that participated when Jim and Angela (front row standing 2nd and 3rd from left) held a workshop at my school back in 2001. Again, I lost money, but that wasn't the point, was it? When you receive good training, what's it worth in the long run? As they say in the TV commercials -- priceless.

Just like Jim and Angela did for me, I allowed Alex to videotape the entire private lesson on Saturday. That way, he won't have to worry about retaining everything in his memory. You can only retain 10 or 15% anyway, if that, unless you have a LOT of notes. Most lessons are so full of advice and tips that there's no way you can reconstruct it all from memory, so the video will help as he works on it in Milwaukee.

He says he'll be back in 2 or 3 weeks. I think this young man has a future in the internal arts. :) 

What are you willing to do to learn--to improve your skill--to find out where you need to work harder? The answer you provide yourself is the key to your long-range future as someone who likes the idea of being a martial artist and one who becomes a martial artist--one difficult step at a time. 

A Sneaky Technique for Imbalancing an Attacker

On Saturday, we practiced various techniques for unbalancing an attacker. Some were very subtle and will be covered in future posts and videos.

Here's the concept -- you take your opponent in the direction he wants to go. You can help the process along by making slight adjustments and adapting to the way he moves so that you can take advantage of they way he is moving.

Sometimes it only takes a push on his calf with your shin to make his rear shoulder turn every so slightly -- but enough for you to grab and help the shoulder continue moving in that direction, causing your attacker to lose balance even more and hit the ground.

In the photos here, Leander Mohs is attacking Chris Miller. You see him step in with a punch. Chris deflects the punch and puts his right foot behind Leander's left foot and slides it back toward him. This unexpected move causes Leander to lose balance and he turns, trying not to fall on his back. The result puts him in a vulnerable position and Chris could follow with a choke-hold, a neck break, or striking techniques.

This technique can be found in all three of the internal arts. I like it for bagua especially, because the goal of a bagua fighter is to suddenly appear behind an opponent.

I also like this technique because Chris is helping Leander's foot to continue traveling in the direction it is going -- toward Chris. If he pulled enough, Leander could easily do the splits and pull a muscle as he fell. Leander was able to balance himself but couldn't avoid ending in a vulnerable position.

The practice of push hands is one of the best ways to learn how to take advantage of an opponent's "energy" and put him in a vulnerable situation, but this is also a concept that can be used in many different situations, from dealing with a grappler to a puncher and kicker.

There will be a lot of video on these techniques on the online school soon. From this type of "one-step" practice, you internalize these techniques through push hands and sparring practice. That's when you really learn how to use your opponent's energy against them.

Fun with Straight Swords

I've always believed that if you're going to learn a form, you should learn to fight with the movements and techniques from the form. Why, for example, should you learn a sword form if you don't learn sword-fighting?

I have Sifu Phillip Starr to thank for this philosophy. The years I spent training with him in Omaha were valuable, because we trained as hard in the sword-fighting techniques, or staff-fighting techniques, or spear or broadsword -- as we did with the form itself. I try to do that with my own students.

So in my newest DVD, which I just finished today, I not only teach a powerful Hsing-I straight sword form, I teach the fighting techniques you need to know to use a straight sword for self-defense. The video clip below contains a glimpse of some of the form instruction, and then some of the applications from the movements shown. The DVD also includes stances, blocking and cutting techniques, sword & scabbard techniques (how to use a scabbard for combat), one-steps to practice with a partner, and more. I also show you why you shouldn't study with anyone who claims that the empty hand in a sword form is used for "channeling chi" (you know, the two finger position of the empty hand). Enjoy the video. Sean and I are sweatin' to the oldies on a 90-degree day in my back patio studio. :)

Hsing-I Straight Sword DVD

Next week, I'm releasing a Hsing-I Straight Sword form on DVD. One of the qualities that has distinguished my students from others is their understanding of fighting applications--both for empty-hand forms and techniques and weapons forms.

This DVD will include a strong Hsing-I straight sword form, plus nearly an hour of coaching on the fighting techniques from the form, various blocking and striking techniques with the straight sword, one-steps, and other instruction.

Just as in empty-hand forms, every movement in this straight sword form is either a block or a strike. Every movement, no matter how small, has a fighting application, even when it appears to be just a "transition." There really are no transitions in these arts, you know. Even transitions have fighting applications.

In the two photos here, taken from the Hsing-I form, the first one is from a movement where you step forward, raising the tip of the sword up before striking (in the 2nd photo). The raising of the sword tip represents a deflecting block of an incoming thrust. It isn't just a windup for the strike.

My students and I are known for our sword work. We've all won many tournament competitions using the straight sword and broadsword. I'm excited to finally have the time to put this great form and the instruction on DVD.

All the video is also available on the new website for members. I'll be making a public announcement of this site around July 1.

Comment About New Hsing-I DVD and a Good Point about Self-Defense

My good friend and loyal visitor Evan wrote this in an email:

I'm thoroughly enjoying your latest DVD release.  I'm halfway through the Beng Chuan section.  The applications you've presented are straightforward and applicable to real life situations and some tournament sparring as well.  I suppose the magic of Hsing-I is that the base moves are simple (relatively speaking, of course), but are remarkably versatile.  John Painter, in his book on Combat Baguazhang, says that in a true fighting situation the complex moves rarely work... when the adrenaline is pumping, tunnel vision is occuring, and tactile sensitivity is going to hell, it's the simple moves that have been drilled that rely on larger muscle groups that take over.  I think Hsing-I fits that bill.

I agree with Painter -- in a real-life self-defense situation, you won't have time for a lot of the complex movements. I've thrown out some chin-na movements because they were so impractical in a fighting situation that it was silly to practice them.

Let's face it -- if someone is coming at you on the street, the best thing you can do is drive through them and take their head off. If someone is swinging, you might have time to grab a wrist and break an elbow. I've told the story many times of a 15-year old student who used a "lapel drop" to shatter the elbow of a drunk adult who grabbed him and tried to punch him. Not the simplest technique but it can be done quickly if you have good presence of mind.

I believe Bruce Lee became frustrated with classical martial arts because of the disconnect between what's practiced in the class versus what he encountered in his many street fights. I also believe that many complex techniques and chin-na moves are important to practice for the concepts behind them, even if you wouldn't necessarily use them. After all, that's another reason they call these martial "arts." The art is in the beauty of the movement and the concepts behind them. Evan and Dr. Painter are correct, though, and I made this point with a visual example on the sparring DVD -- sometimes the most effective techniques are the simple ones.

An Important Skill that Many Hsing-I and Tai Chi Students Need

In shooting and editing the latest DVD, "Hsing-I Class Vol. 2 -- Fighting Applications of the Five Fist Postures," I saw students struggling to develop one of the most difficult skills for beginners--the ability to relax enough to use whole-body movement in the unique way required by the internal martial arts. It can literally take several years to develop.

Here's a short clip from the new DVD (the entire DVD is 2 1/2 hours long) taken from one of the Pao Chuan applications. Watch this and spend some time not particularly on any one movement, but watch and work on relaxing the body as you transmit power from the ground.