Bonnie Malmstrom

Bonnie Mitchell was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She married Bud in the late 1970's and brought with her two children by her first marriage. Bud and Bonnie have two granddaughters. Bonnie sang professionally, traveled around the United States with the USO, and wrote music. The Variety club in Atlanta asked Bonnie to write a song in tribute for Burt Reynolds in appreciation for his contributions in bringing the movie industry to Georgia. She wrote it and sang it to Burt. Bonnie has been a member, since she was 12 years old, of the National Academy of Recording Artists (NARAS) and votes yearly for the Grammy award winners. Bonnie sold electronic form software for midrange computers for over 19 years where she found her professional niche.

After marrying Bud, and seeing Bud's love evolve for Ninjutsu, Bonnie began training. In 1989, Bonnie Malmstrom was the highest ranked American female in the art of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. She was the first American female to pass the Godan test (5th Degree Black Belt) given by Grandmaster Hatsumi. There were two other women in the world with that rank. She was in charge of the women's training for many years at the Bujinkan Atlanta Dojo. Mrs. Malmstrom coordinated five 3-day martial training conventions (TAIKAI) and training sessions with Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi between 1990 and 2000 attended by martial artists from approximately 20 countries. Bonnie and Mariko (Hatsumi Sensei's wife) are best friends and always enjoyed "shopping" during their visit. Bonnie arranged training venues at 5-star hotels in Atlanta; accommodations for the VIP guests as well as training participants; reception meals and entertainment; sit-down banquet dinners for 400-600 people; flight and ground transportation; gifts for all participants; filming of the training and subsequent sale of videos; setup vendors area as well as other duties. She enlisted the help of some of the higher ranked black belts in the dojo to help carry out some of these functions.

Noted lecturer and author of articles published in Black Belt and other publications, Mrs. Malmstrom has traveled to many countries doing seminars on Interpersonal Relations and the "Magic within Ourselves." She has demonstrated how we can touch our unknown reaches. She has directed participants into an exploration of their "inner selves" where we can learn how to draw from our higher power. This power is the sense that indicates danger to us, facilitates healing, allows us to accomplish feats that we would heretofore consider impossible, i.e., connecting with another's mind and communicating without words and walking on fire. (Bonnie walked on fire and said that, "My entire belief system went through changes after doing a fire walk because I realized we truly set our own limits. We are very powerful as human beings if we just know how to use that power.")

Mrs. Malmstrom believes firmly that if the heart is happy, all other things fall into place. If the heart is not, all other things are affected.