Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

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...

You know the old Chinese curse -- may you live in interesting times? It has been an interesting year--some great things have happened and some setbacks, too. It has been a classic Yin-Yang Year.

Yesterday, I spent 6 hours knocked out while a cardiologist burned 80 spots inside my heart. It was the third procedure of the year--trying to fix a problem that cropped upYe a year ago when I began feeling my heart running like a rough carburetor.

I went through two of these surgeries in Tampa, and had no idea a top cardiologist was also here in the Quad Cities -- Dr. Michael Giudici.

He spent hours searching the inside of my heart for rogue electrical activity, and he found a lot that survived the first two procedures in Tampa. He burns the spots with high-frequency radio waves, severing the connection along the electrical pathways that cause the heart to beat so erratically. I've only been in a-fib 20% of the time since the 2nd surgery, and I could live with that and take aspirin or a...

Well you could have knocked me over with some iron wrapped in cotton back in April when I asked the doctor to listen to my heart. It had been running rough for months and I thought it was the stress of my job. He took one listen and immediately sent me across the hall to get an EKG. The result--atrial fibrillation and a weakened heart.

What the....???  Kung-fu guys who have kept in shape, done chi kung and worked out all their lives don't have heart problems. I sat there thinking of my dad, who had his first heart attack when he was 5 years younger than I am and died just 11 years later from congestive heart failure. He was 61 when he died. I'm 55. I want to be practicing and studying the internal arts when I'm 80 so this diagnosis was quite a shock.

Turns out the atrial fibrillation is common. The heart develops competing electrical signals that cause the heart to beat wildly--sometimes very rapidly--and it can not only cause a stroke, it can weaken the heart because it doesn't get ...

I'm reading an interesting book, Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals, by Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo. One chapter discusses a martial arts historian named Matsuda Ryuchi. He once described the "thousands of books written on the Chinese martial arts" and said that "ninety percent of them are not accurate."

According to this book, Ryuchi learned karate and other Japanese arts when he was young, then later studied Chen tai chi, Baji, Mantis, Bagua, and Yen Ching Boxing. He became a Buddhist monk, doing research and writing about both Buddhism and martial arts. His books include An Illustrated History of Chinese Martial Arts, which was published in 1979.

According to Ryuchi, authors of martial arts books want to make their teacher and their style look good. Stories are embellished and even completely made up. Some authors created founders for their styles and made up fantastic tales of the founder's abilities. It's a practice that continues to this day.

When I hear of a master who...

On September 20, 1973, I took my first martial arts class. It was 35 years ago today. Grandmaster Sin The was teaching Shaolin Karate-Do (kung fu) out of a converted garage in the back of a shopping strip mall. Because of Bruce Lee's impact that year, the first class was overflowing with students, and some of us stood outside.

Out of all the students who took up martial arts because of Bruce Lee in Lexington, Kentucky at that time, I wonder how many are still at it? A handful maybe. The photo at left is the proud green belt several months later in 1974. I still use the staff I'm holding (it's moved with me everywhere). It was the old fashioned kind--much heavier than modern staffs. I call it the "Staff of Death."

I was drawn to the martial arts for the self-defense and the philosophy. I had to study philosophy on my own, since few teachers included it in their art. But with that first class I was hooked, and over time, kung-fu became part of my life.

This anniversary comes at an int...

Pete Rose was my hero. I began watching him play for the Reds when I was a kid. By the time I got to college in the early Seventies, he was at his peak. My buddies and I would gather at the TV, or we'd drive 90 minutes to Cincinnati from Lexington and watch a game in person. Anytime Pete came up to bat and the Reds desperately needed a hit, he got a hit. And he dove head first into second or third or home. He was the best player I've ever seen.

That doesn't mean Pete was the most gifted in the beginning. As a young man, no one would have guessed he would become the leading hitter in baseball history (I was there the night he broke Ty Cobb's record by the way).

What made him eventually the best was one quality: persistence.

He practiced when others didn't. He worked at hitting when others had gone home. He practiced fielding when others were done for the day. He kept at it with a passion that lifted him above most players.

I've seen a lot of kung-fu students begin classes with a pas...