Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

The image above is from my journal on September 4, 1973, the day I took my first martial arts class -- 50 years ago this week. It was the start of the Bruce Lee Kung-Fu Boom. "Enter the Dragon" hit movie theaters a couple of weeks earlier and that was the spark I needed to enroll in a school.

I was a 20-year-old student at Eastern Kentucky University, but I drove to my hometown for the class (about a 40-minute drive) because Sin The (pronounced Sin Tay) was a legend in Lexington. At that time he held classes in a converted garage at Eastland Shopping Center. There were so many people at the first introductory class, we spilled out into the driveway and they had to open the garage door.

It was an exciting time. Kung-Fu was so mysterious and amazing! I was always a good fighter, but the "Kung Fu" TV show and Bruce Lee convinced me to study something that would boost my fighting skills. Nothing was cooler than martial arts.

We were all very naive. The internet didn't exist so we coul...

Life is fragile. We live day-to-day and take a lot of things for granted -- our health, our futures, and the people in our lives.

Sometimes, we are slapped with the cold hand of reality.

One of my website members, Michael Todd, passed away last night in Port Richey, Florida.

Michael was about 50 years old, with a loud voice. He has been a member of my website for almost two years and began calling on the phone almost immediately.

"I'm working on the Xingyi, Mr. Ken," he would say. 

"You don't have to call me Mister," I said during the first call.

"Oh, that's just the way I talk," he said. "I love you, brother."

Now, it's unusual for a guy you don't know to tell you he loves you right off the bat, so I was a bit leery of him at first. I just wasn't sure. But he kept calling every week, letting me know how he was progressing, and finally, we set up a live one-on-one coaching session via Skype.

When we did the live session, I was surprised at how well he had learned the Xingyi fis...

Are you a former martial artist, in your thirties, forties or fifties, still athletic and looking to stay in shape, develop more mental and physical balance and continue learning self-defense skills in a way that will challenge you but won't leave you injured the next morning?

Do you live in the Quad Cities area (Iowa/Illinois)?

It is time to resume your martial arts journey by trying a free practice with our small group of adults.

I don't seek "local" students very often, and what we offer is more complex than some younger guys want to study. Young guys want to learn to "fight." But we have a few more years under our belts, and we are not preparing to enter an MMA cage with an opponent who has cauliflower ears. 

We are learning self-defense arts that have tremendous depth in body mechanics and in the mental aspects of maintaining balance. There is a reason these are called "martial arts." 

Anyone can pound on another human being. The internal arts focus on something different -- ...

Would your Bagua applications work against an opponent who was 35 years younger, stronger and 120 pounds heavier?

If he decided to shoot in and grab your legs, how would you deal with it?

We had a great practice yesterday, recording self-defense applications using some of the principles and energies from the Bagua 8 Basic Palms form.

The last time I recorded applications for this form was in 2008, with Sean Ledig, who is a member of the website. I didn't go into a lot of depth in the video, so after 10 years, I am shooting it again and adding more information and applications.

Downward energy is an important internal concept, and the first section of the form, "Fierce Tiger Emerges from Mountain," depends on downward energy.

Theoretically, it should work on a shooter, so we put it into action. Two of my students, Justin Snow and Chris Andrews, are big, strong guys who outweigh me by 120 pounds each. They put the pressure on me.

All martial arts require practice. Even boxers will ...

I stopped at a Border's bookstore the other day and looked for the latest issues of my favorite martial arts magazines.

There in the Sports section, I found Black Belt and Kung Fu Tai Chi among the MMA and wrestling and karate and TKD magazines. I thumbed through the magazines to find the latest issue of T'ai Chi magazine but it was nowhere to be found. 

And then I had an idea. I went to a different part of the magazine section where all the psychic, spiritual, religious and strange publications are. Sure enough, mixed in with all of this stuff was T'ai Chi magazine.

And there you have it -- the biggest problem facing the art of Tai Chi Chuan. Even a bookstore chain doesn't recognize it as a martial art, and places it with in its mystical and supernatural section.

I'm going to begin a little campaign to get Border's to put the magazine where it belongs -- in the martial art section. You can help by talking with the manager at each store you visit and request that it be moved.

Tai ...

In 1991, I entered the Toughman Contest when I was living in Sioux City. Back then, it was all boxing, and at age 38, I was nearing the end of eligibility, so it was now or never. I entered the contest.

I was matched up against a guy who was 15 years younger, 3 or 4 inches taller, and 35 pounds heavier. In the third round, he hit me on the side of the head just right. My brain began vibrating like a tuning fork and I was numb. I covered up with my gloves and he pummeled me for a few shots. I was thinking, "This is what it's like to get knocked out in the ring. Here it comes." The first photo at left shows the punch that rang my bell (my body is hidden by the corner post but his glove is colliding with the side of my head.

Suddenly, he got tired and backed away. My head cleared instantly. I uncovered, walked a few feet across the ring and snapped his head back with a punch (the photo below shows his head snapping back). I ended up winning by unanimous decision. Physically, I had n...

News articles have been springing up about phantom vibrations that cell phone users feel. It seems that our brains are so accustomed to anticipating a vibrating cell phone when it's being worn on our belts or in our pockets, that even when the phone isn't there, we can suddenly feel it vibrate.

Our brains learn to anticipate the vibration, and something will trigger the impulses in the brain that make you feel as if your phone is vibrating even when it's back home on the table.

When I saw this story on NBC News this weekend, I saw a parallel to the sensations that so many people say is "proof" that chi is real. They'll do chi kung exercises and they'll swear that they feel tingling or heat or all types of sensations.

I've felt the sensations, too. In fact, there's one chi kung exercise I do and I can feel a ball of energy going from my dan t'ien through my right arm, jumping across from my right hand to my left hand, then coursing through my left arm and back to my dan t'ien.

Your ...

One month ago today, I spent 6 hours in surgery while a gifted cardiologist, Dr. Michael Giudici, burned 80 spots inside my heart to stop rogue electrical activity that caused the heart to flutter and race. Atrial fibrillation is the leading cause of stroke. It was my third heart surgery in 2008 but I wanted the problem fixed.

Yesterday, I visited Dr. Giudici. My heart has been beating strong and steady, and I got the good news that I could stop taking blood thinners. I had the option of going completely off the two other heart medications, but I opted to cut the dose in half and see if the steady heartbeat continues. My hope is to eliminate all medications within the next week or so.

The worse part of all this was the pneumonia I developed one day after surgery. It has robbed me of most of my endurance, but I've been doing some weight training and I can feel my endurance growing based on the number of reps and sets I'm able to complete without gasping for air. I had a practice with ...

I really am keeping a good sense of humor about all this. I have the people at the hospital laughing all the time. I'm looking forward to a return to more normal health after another minor bump on the road to recovery.

On Friday, I had the heart surgery -- laser ablation. I went home and thought everything was fine. But on Saturday as I was lying in my recliner watching TV, breathing became more and more difficult. I called the cardiologist who did the procedure, talked with the on call doctor and he told me to see what happened overnight. What happened was a night of difficult breathing and coughing.

Nancy took me to the ER on Sunday morning. The diagnosis -- pneumonia. I was admitted and I've been there ever since. Tomorrow, on Christmas Eve and Nancy's birthday, I'll be released. I'm responding well to treatment. It'll be a few days before I can attempt a practice session, but by the end of the year I should be back in action.

The doctors believe that during Friday's 6-hour opera...