Bad Kung Fu Series #4: The Principles of Effortless Power

Author and teacher Peter Ralston


I seem to have a "respect/bewilderment" relationship with author, fighter and teacher Peter Ralston.
Ralston has varied experience in several martial arts, but has narrowed his "Cheng Hsin" down to a blend of Tai Chi Chuan, Bagua, Aikido and Western Boxing. He flawlessly borrows from any given art in his playful movement. I have one of Ralston's best DVD's. It begins with clips from a sensational tournament fight he won in China in 1978, where he works a Chinese fighter over pretty good, finishing with a nasty body slam to the ground.
Tai Chi purists deride his unorthodox methods, but he has an uncanny ability to control opponents with his boxing-push hands-Aiki-Bagua throwing style.
Ralston, who teaches as a Guru (often wearing a monks robe) clearly has the ability to "feel an opponents intent".

With that said, I would like to present a review I did on his first book "Cheng Hsin: The Principles of Effortless Power" , from a post I did in December of 2007:

Peter Ralston winning the 1978 full-contact tournament in China


Several months back, Dave from “Formosa Neijia” wrote about Peter Ralston, founder of the “Cheng Hsin” martial art system. Cheng Hsin refers to “The true nature of being”. The description was very interesting and I checked out Ralston’s website. Along with Ralston’s description of his martial philosophy, there were several clips of him performing various internal martial arts techniques. Ralston is no slouch, he has a varied background and has successfully competed internationally.
With that in mind, I ordered two of his books: “The Principles Of Effortless Power” and “Cheng Hsin T’ui Shou; The Art Of Effortless Power”.
“The Principles Of Effortless Power” is Ralston’s first book, so I started there. It begins with his martial history, and his journeys in spiritual awakening. These were steeped in the self-realization and encounter-group sessions of the 1970’s. These sessions branded Ralston’s first book with the stigma of new-age thought and explanation.
Ralston seems to be attempting to explain Internal Art principles without using any of the Chinese or Japanese terms and thought patterns. In some cases, he re-labels them. I am no stranger to alternative views and esoteric thinking, but in my opinion, Ralston is trying to re-invent the wheel. While westerners sometimes have difficulty with vague terms such as “Peng” in Tai Chi Chuan for example, there is no real need to eliminate the term or replace it.
I see where he is going with his philosophy, and understand much of it, but I have to say I find him explaining things in a circular fashion at times. For example, I book-marked this paragraph on page 90:
Ralston writes:
“ Since we already give BEING to the perception of what IS (in other words, we acknowledge it’s “beingness”), and to interpretation itself, it is necessary to move our cognition-attention and life force into a position of Being in which this can be recognized as already and actually the case. We can then give being to what is not at present occurring”.

--Whew!… this passage is not an isolated case, and I have to admit that twenty pages later I simply set the book down and moved on to his next one, which I’ve just started. That book, “Cheng Hsin T’iu Shou” shows a greater degree of maturity in his writing. While his sometimes-frustrating philosophy is present in the first part of the book, the second half is all applications that demonstrate what he has been prattling on about philosophically. While I have been on the search for concept books, Ralston’s first attempt is pretzel logic to me. I feel I will get much more out of his application book, which demonstrates many internal art principles. I came away from these books feeling that Ralston may be better as a Guru demonstrating direct transmission of knowledge to students in a Dojo format. His knowledge is deep and he is a skilled martial artist. I’ll be interested if anyone else has read his material, and any comments they have.

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Well, that was in 2007.
I would skip "The Principles of Effortless Power". But if you're interested, his second book "Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou: The Art of Effortless Power" presents the same material, along with application techniques in a more sensible, readable way.

Cheng Hsin: Elusive Boxing Method

Last Post we looked at Peter Ralston in a really great push-hands session. The thing I clearly saw is that Ralston was elusive and mobile. The only time I saw him dig into his "Root" was when he was transfering power into his opponent, in some cases taking the opponent clear off his feet. Otherwise, he was extremely elusive and "cagey".
My Tai Chi Chuan instructor Michael Gilman (who is a push-hands champion) makes this comparison; Most Martial arts behave like a big dog- Dogs respond to touch by jumping on you and wanting to wrestle. Tai Chi Chuan push-hands should be more like a cat- you reach out to pet a cat and they are elusive, they back just out of reach and come to you on their own terms.
The video above is of Ralston's students demonstrating the slipping and dodging method rather than hard blocking against a Boxer. I'm sure there are some Boxers out there that will have some criticism, but let's face it; the objective is to not get hit.
Tim Cartmell told us that trying to block your opponent's punches is like throwing rocks at the rocks your opponent is throwing at you- at some point one of his rocks will get through and bean you. Tim's students are trained to slip and deflect from a covered position, a more modern approach compared to classical Kung Fu.

The thing I have taken away from these two Ralston videos is that his Cheng Hsin relies on evasive movement, whether in stand-up Grappling, or in Boxing.

Peter Ralston: Great Push Hands Session

I have written in the past about my frustration with the writing of Peter Ralston compared to the physical talent the man displays. As I have stated in previous reviews, Ralston's first book "The Principles Of Effortless Power" was a "tough patch to weed". Not so with his second book, "Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou: The Art Of Effortless Power", which has become one of my favorites.
Peter Ralston's Cheng Hsin (defined by Ralston as "the true nature of being") combines many elements of Tai Chi Chuan, Aikido, Bagua, and Western Boxing. Ralston has produced a very detailed "Fight/Play" video, which begins with him slamming the crap out of a Chinese competitor to become the first non-Asian to win the Chinese Full-Contact Martial Arts Tournament in China in 1978.
Ralston went on to develop "Cheng Hsin", and in the video above you see a playful demonstration of his skills.
Tai Chi players; take note of Ralston's mobility, including retreating spiral motions he refers to as "leading roll-backs", which can be seen in Aikido movement also. Many times in push hands, Taiji players get "stuck in their root". This free-style play should be instructive as to a more natural method of play, clearly approaching movement necessary in actual self-defense.
The young guy challenging Ralston in the video begins by testing the master. He then moves on to try and match Ralston's "cat and mouse" movement. Finally, getting a little tired and frustrated, he presses harder and ends up on his ass.
Peter Ralston is indeed an American Master, and likely a genius to boot. To find more information including his highly recommended "Fight/Play" video, go to Ralston's Cheng Hsin website, found here.

Re-thinking Cheng Hsin, Part Two

Peter Ralston In Push/Uproot

Back in June I wrote my first post on "Re-thinking Cheng Hsin", the ecclectic martial art of Peter Ralston. Cheng Hsin, which is defined by Ralston as "The true nature of being" is a study of internal arts drawn from Ralston's highly-qualified martial background (Tai Chi Chuan, Bagua, Aikido and Boxing). More than that alone, it is precieved to be a deeply introspective art, with elements of self-discovery Ralston and others explored in encounter groups that guided Ralstons early spiritual development. After my previous post, one of Ralston's students wrote me to describe the powerfully emotional release he experianced in the discussion portion of Ralston's seminar.
While this experiantial element of Cheng Hsin may be a desireable goal to achieve, it is one of the aspects of Cheng Hsin that can simply not be learned from a book.
I have previously described Ralston's first book, "The Principles Of Effortless Power" as a tough patch to weed, with Ralston seemingly trying to re-invent the wheel at times. Not so with his second book, "Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou: The Art Of Effortless Power". In this book, Ralstons writing is much clearer and there are many, many techniques that demonstrate the physical art of Ralston's concepts.
However, much like the way introspective spiritual enlightenment is difficult to achieve without being guided by someone like Ralston, his second book needs to be studied along side his Fight/Play video (described in detail at the link to my first post). Ralston's Fight/Play video has re-ignited many, many concepts that had taken a back shelf in my mind, and are now coming to the forefront. Most importantly, is re-introducing spiral movements into freeplay, as many of Ralston's "Leading Rollback" movements use.
While Ralston's Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou book is the blueprint of his techniques, mere pictures and descriptions are simply not enough to grasp the type of dynamic movement Ralston and his students display. This is why it is so important to view Ralston's techniques on video, where you can see footwork and dynamic changes.
Ralston's Cheng Hsin, which draws from Tai Chi Chuan, Bagua, Aikido and western boxing is a logical landing zone for those of us who have studied a variety of martial arts. His Fight-Play video can be purchased at The Cheng Hsin Website, and I highly reccomend it for those of us who study internal martial arts.
--Now back to the issue of photographs in instructional books; I am convinced that in some cases, drawings are much more effective at displaying directional movement. No book has done this better than "Aikido And The Dynamic Sphere", by Adele Westbrook and Oscar Ratti.

This is the Best book on Aikido I have ever seen, and the beautiful and clear illustrations by Oscar Ratti also make it clearly understandable. While there is a great deal of time and labor involved in these drawings, it is possible to see the flow of movement much better than in photographs.
For this reason, Ralstons Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou book, the roadmap to better internal body work, must be accompanied by his Fight/Play video, which can be purchased at his website link above.

Re-thinking Cheng Hsin

Ralston demonstrates uprooting power

For the last week, I've been giving a lot of thought to the internal art of Cheng Hsin, created by Peter Ralston.
I have to admit that I struggled with Ralston's first book, "The Principles of Effortless Power", and reviewed it HERE. However, Ralston's second book, "Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou - The Art Of Effortless Power" is going to become my new roadmap to becoming a better martial artist. How did this come to be?
Not long ago, Dave over at Formosa Neijia wrote a great review of Ralston's DVD titled "Fight-Play video", and provided some good insight regarding the concepts of Cheng Hsin, which combines many skills from Aikido, Tai Chi Chuan, Pa Kua and Western Boxing. I consider Formosa Dave a "go-to guy" on questions of internal martial arts. Dave lives and trains in Taiwan, and has seen many Asian masters at work. But in an e-mail to me, Dave said he's never seen anyone so skilled at circling behind an opponent and using what I would call positional superiority. After I had written my review of Ralston's first book, he encouraged me to stick with it. I took his advice and bought a copy of the "Fight-Play video, and boy, was it worth it.
The video begins with 1978 footage of Ralston slamming the crap out of a Chinese competitor to win one of the first Chinese full-contact fighting championships. From there it moves into a demonstration at a martial arts school in Hawaii. Ralston is involved in some "Freeplay" with one of the instructors, and displays his incredible ability to control the movement of his opponent, primarily by using superior positioning, yielding skills and impeccable timing. This is what sold me, and opened up new avenues of thought about blending with an opponent.
I've been feeling for a while that my push-hands is too linear, and in freeplay with a stronger opponent, I am ocassionally driven backward. The solution of course, is to re-introduce the circular stepping patterns I learned in Aikido, and those that I am learning from Bagua now. Ralston and his students have evasive, circular yeilding skills, yet always remain rooted and able to discharge power. Their movement is similar to Aikido, but there is more to it. It employes the cat-like yielding movement of Tai Chi Chuan and Pa Kua as well.
Ralston's students provide a lengthy demonstration of various techniques repeatedly, allowing a knowledgable practitioner to follow their movement and explore the concepts being demonstrated. Much of the technique opens with the defender using a "leading rollback", a sort of extended "Peng" arm position, a whole new way to use "Peng" with evasive stepping.
As far as hitting skills, Cheng Hsin focus is on Western Boxing, perhaps the most effective hitting art available. But rather than stand there hitting toe-to-toe, Cheng Hsin players employ the same kind of evasive stepping that is shown in their grappling skills.
I still stand by my review of Ralston's first book "The Principles Of Effortless Power", which I considered a tough patch to weed. But as of now, I am going to use the second book, "Cheng Hsin T'ui Shou - The Art Of Effortless Power" as a way to build new movement skills. I would suggest getting the "Fight-Play" video with the book, so you can see how this work is performed, and refer to the book for details.
The combination has kick-started new ideas about moving with an opponent for me, and I highly reccomend it to other internal artists. I think that the video may be especially valuable to our Aikido friends out there, showing a somewhat less-formal approach to movement not generally found in conventional Aikido.
As people familiar with Ralston's work know, Cheng Hsin is not necessarily about fighting skills, it is more about introspection and interaction.
Check out The Cheng Hsin website at THIS LINK, and if you are ready to experiance a whole new way to move and improve your martial art, pick up the "Fight-Play" video.

Review: Cheng Hsin- The Principles Of Effortless Power

Peter Ralston of Cheng Hsin

Several months back, Dave from “Formosa Neijia” wrote about Peter Ralston, founder of the “Cheng Hsin” martial art system. Cheng Hsin refers to “The true nature of being”. The description was very interesting and I checked out Ralston’s website. Along with Ralston’s description of his martial philosophy, there were several clips of him performing various internal martial arts techniques. Ralston is no slouch, he has a varied background and has successfully competed internationally.
With that in mind, I ordered two of his books: “The Principles Of Effortless Power” and “Cheng Hsin T’ui Shou; The Art Of Effortless Power”.
“The Principles Of Effortless Power” is Ralston’s first book, so I started there. It begins with his martial history, and his journeys in spiritual awakening. These were steeped in the self-realization and encounter-group sessions of the 1970’s. These sessions branded Ralston’s first book with the stigma of new-age thought and explanation.
Ralston seems to be attempting to explain Internal Art principles without using any of the Chinese or Japanese terms and thought patterns. In some cases, he re-labels them. I am no stranger to alternative views and esoteric thinking, but in my opinion, Ralston is trying to re-invent the wheel. While westerners sometimes have difficulty with vague terms such as “Peng” in Tai Chi Chuan for example, there is no real need to eliminate the term or replace it.
I see where he is going with his philosophy, and understand much of it, but I have to say I find him explaining things in a circular fashion at times. For example, I book-marked this paragraph on page 90:
Ralston writes:
“ Since we already give BEING to the perception of what IS (in other words, we acknowledge it’s “beingness”), and to interpretation itself, it is necessary to move our cognition-attention and life force into a position of Being in which this can be recognized as already and actually the case. We can then give being to what is not at present occurring”.
--Whew!… this passage is not an isolated case, and I have to admit that twenty pages later I simply set the book down and moved on to his next one, which I’ve just started. That book, “Cheng Hsin T’iu Shou” shows a greater degree of maturity in his writing. While his sometimes-frustrating philosophy is present in the first part of the book, the second half is all applications that demonstrate what he has been prattling on about philosophically. While I have been on the search for concept books, Ralston’s first attempt is pretzel logic to me. I feel I will get much more out of his application book, which demonstrates many internal art principles. I came away from these books feeling that Ralston may be better as a Guru demonstrating direct transmission of knowledge to students in a Dojo format. His knowledge is deep and he is a skilled martial artist. I’ll be interested if anyone else has read his material, and any comments they have