Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

I was very sorry to read in the New York Times about the death of Charles Neville, one of the Neville Brothers, one of the greatest bands to come out of New Orleans. Aaron Neville is one of his brothers.

Charles bought several of my DVDs and joined my website when it launched, 10 years ago this July. Each month, I would get a notice that he had paid his monthly fee, but I never really connected his name to Aaron Neville and the Neville Brothers. He remained a member until less than two years ago, and I wondered if he was in poor health. I knew he was in his 70s.

He called me on the phone a couple of times over the years, before I realized who he was. I talked to him like I do all of my website members.

The last time he called, he had forgotten his password to the website, so I created a new one for him. He said, "I haven't been on the website in a couple of months because I've been traveling, playing music."

He was 17 years old; taller, heavier and stronger.

And he wanted to beat me up.

I was 14, a skinny, friendly kid with glasses who was a magnet for bullies back in the days when boys settled arguments by fighting. Yeah, that's my picture at the top of the page. Doesn't that look like the face of a martial artist? At the time, none of us knew what martial arts were.

He was the son of the sheriff of Jessamine County, Kentucky, and he had a couple of young toadies who followed him around.

A couple of my cousins were with me, leaving the drugstore in downtown Wilmore where we had been drinking Cokes, looking at comics and lusting after Helen, the pretty girl who worked there.

Back in the 1950s and '60s, dogs and boys ran free through the streets and farms around Wilmore because, by God, that's how the good Lord made us. We walked on the train tracks, explored the graveyard, went swimming at local creeks, and even walked across High Bridge, a dangerous feat especially when trains were...

“How long does it take to get a black belt?” asked the prospective student.

“Five seconds,” said the teacher.

“Really?”

“Yes. All I have to do is hand it to you. But it takes much longer to earn one.”

"Maybe I can earn it faster than most people."

"Well, we don't do black belts. We do sashes, and a black sash doesn't mean very much, really. We only have those because in America, people seem to need it. A black sash doesn't really mean anything."

"It means you are deadly," the student said.

The teacher laughed. "No. It means you have just begun to learn. There are a lot of black belts who know very little and can do even less."

“Oh. Well, I want to be able to use Taiji to fight.”

“Why?”

The student asked, “If I am in a bar and get attacked, will I be able to use Taiji to fight?”

“You can use Taiji to stay away from a bar where fighting may occur,” said the teacher.

“Have you ever had to use Taiji in a fight?”

“No.”

“How about Bagua or Xingyi?”

“No. I have not been in a re...

My daughter Shara, a few days before her sudden death in 1980.

Do you have internal strength? 

It has been on my mind a lot during the past couple of weeks as I prepared my first Kindle ebook for publication on that very topic -- Internal Strength for Tai Chi, Hsing-I and Bagua. It provides instruction on two basic skills for the internal arts -- establishing the ground path and using peng jin.

That allows you to begin developing relaxed power -- internal strength.

So we are supposed to take what we learn in the martial arts and also apply the principles to our daily lives, aren't we? It's not just for combat, you know.

Let's look at the concept of internal strength.

Do you have a philosophy that gets you through the rough patches in your life? Perhaps it's not philosophy but theology -- religion, faith in a higher power -- Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, or one of countless others.

Perhaps you have a philosophy that provides a lens through which you look at the ups...

A young student was excited to meet a Kung-Fu master. Before his first class, he asked, "How long must I study before I become a master?"

The master replied, "You must study for ten years."

"But I will practice very hard!" said the young student.

The master replied, "Then it will take twenty years."

The young man said, "But I want to be your best student!"

"Ahh," said the master. "Then that will take a lifetime."

I love that old story.

If you've been teaching for any length of time, you'll be asked, "How long does it take to get a black belt?"

As if a black belt is something great. Once you earn a black belt, if you have any sense of reality, you understand that you have just begun. It's the same as getting a Bachelors degree in college. Advanced study is next.

It's always amazed me how many people talk about loving martial arts but how few have the drive or the commitment to reach even a black belt level.

I'm not sure when I realized that I would never become a master of tai...

I turned 60 years old yesterday. What a shock! People say "you're still young" and other things to make you feel better, but there is a profound realization that the number of years in front of you are a lot fewer than the years behind you. 

As a little test on my 60th birthday, I tried to recreate a flying sidekick that I did in 1997 (the photo above). I set my Bob punching bag to 6 feet 1 and tested myself to see if I could reach his head while Nancy took the photos. I guess I did it to prove something to myself. Three years ago, I lost a lung and about 25 pounds of muscle mass. I have recovered in some ways but it has been difficult, and I have continued practicing and, I believe, progressing, although at a much slower pace than before.

Neither my father or my grandfather got out of their 60s alive. I'm hoping to do better than that, even though I was dealt a bad hand three years ago and a couple of doctors at Mayo Clinic gave me 3 to 5 years before my heart wears out. 

Another r...

I receive messages occasionally from anonymous Internet trolls who see my YouTube videos and make comments such as, "How will that work against an MMA fighter," or most recently, "What good is a sword going to do you in a street fight?" 

Insert deep sigh here.

When I was young, I thought you studied martial arts to learn how to kick major bootay. I wanted to feel safe everywhere.

It was shallow thinking. There is a lot more to martial arts than fighting. But you can't expect young people to think at a higher level. That takes time, experience, and study.

I am not a religious man and I do not believe in invisible beings. I don't believe invisible beings are watching us, guiding us, controlling what happens (saving us from accidents, etc.) or planning to judge us when we die.

But I am a spiritual person. I believe in being kind to people, helping those less fortunate, and treating everyone I meet with friendship, humor, and cooperation. I believe in treating my wife with love and r...

My daughter, Harmony in 1988.

There have been very few bright spots in the darkness following the Sandy Hook school massacre. Many of us have shed tears at the faces in the photos -- the innocence lost and young lives stolen. 

There were several acts of bravery. Some of them -- especially stories of teachers being killed while saving their students -- brought tears to my eyes. But one act of bravery made me cheer.

Imagine the self-confidence of the 8-year old boy who -- hearing the gunshots in the school and seeing his classmates crying and afraid -- spoke up and said confidently, "I know karate," then offered to lead them out.

I would like to know more about where he studied and how far he had advanced. When we are children, we tend to overestimate our ability to be super heroes, and for this young boy to imagine that he could take on a gun-toting killer was a lot more fantasy than reality.

But he was confident in the face of chaos and tragedy. He was ready to control the sit...

I hear it a lot. Maybe you do, too if you study martial arts. It's a sarcastic comment, in my experience it usually goes something like this:

"You know kung-fu but I can shoot you before you can kick me."

or...

"I have a Glock that says your martial arts are useless."

The mass shooting at the Connecticut school two days ago is an example of the world we live in. The killer was rushed by the principal and school psychologist and he killed them both.

What good is it to study kung-fu if we would have ended up dead by trying to get close to this guy in an effort to defend the children and adults in that school?

It's easy to ask the question, and I've reflected on this during the past 48 hours. I lost a daughter in 1980, and my heart aches knowing a little of the pain the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles are feeling about the death of those children and the adults.

Indeed, what good is a martial art in the 21st Century?

In an episode of the wonderful Kun...

I was 20 years old on October 30, 1973, when I took my first promotion test in martial arts. I was tested by my teacher, Grandmaster Sin The in Lexington, Kentucky. I'm resisting the urge to put quotes around "Grandmaster." At the time, I really thought he was a Grandmaster.

I had enrolled in classes a little over a month earlier, on September 20th and I had trained my hiney off, punching and kicking up and down the hallways in Commonwealth Hall at Eastern Kentucky University. I practiced at least an hour a day. I was never very good at baseball or football. I high-jumped in high school but wasn't the fastest runner.

Martial arts clicked with me like nothing had before.

When the day of testing came, I was very nervous. But I got up with the other students and performed the following:

** 5 Short Kata

** 5 Sparring Techniques

** 10 Self-Defense Techniques

** 1 Long Kata: "Si Mu Tai Lai"

** One on One Sparring with another student

The short kata were pretty simple. Looking back, ...