Ken Gullette's Internal Fighting Arts

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 ...

Ten days ago I underwent heart surgery. The following day, I came down with pneumonia. The day after that , I was admitted to the hospital for 3 days.

Enough of that. It's time to get back in shape for 2009.

Fortunately, the heart surgery seems to have worked. The old ticker has been rock steady most of the time this past week. A little wackiness is expected after having 80 spots burned in it, due to the healing and inflammation that results. But most of the time it's been ticking like a metronome.

I'm still breathing a little rough from the pneumonia -- especially coughing spells -- but you can't sit on the couch forever. My first tournament of the season is in 2 months. I turn 56 years old in late January. It won't be easy to get back in fighting shape but you have to start somewhere.

My baseline was on Christmas Day, when we opened our new Nintendo Wii and I challenged Nancy to a boxing match. After 15 punches I collapsed on the couch, unable to breathe. My conditioning ca...

Here's a video that shows what happens when "chi" is put to the reality test. Apparently, the Yellow Bamboo folks -- the guys in the yellow shirts -- believe that when an attacker comes near, they can use their chi to stop them.

It's hard to believe that anyone still buys this fraud, but people being people, they still do. Check it out, and at one point you can hear someone connected to Yellow Bamboo (I assume) sounding amazed that the attacker could touch the chi guy.

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...

I'm almost finished editing the final DVD in the series on fighting applications of Laojia Yilu. There should be about 400 applications in the 3-DVD set -- a pretty amazing number for one form. There are supposed to be more than 600 but I didn't repeat any movements.

Taking the time to study the movements for this DVD series was a great learning experience for me. I've always felt that you learn a lot in class but you learn the most by quiet, thoughtful practice and study on your own. That's certainly true in this instance.

I've included three photos in this post showing an application from the final movement in the form -- Closing the Form -- movement number 75.  You are being choked. You snake your arm under the opponent's armpit, turn the body and "close." The energy in your hands is downward energy, the same as in the very first movement of the form.

In an actual self-defense situation, you would naturally put fajin into the movement and do some damage. If you look at the thir...

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 ...

Well, color me disappointed. Perhaps a shade of disillusionment, too. I've always enjoyed reading about the famous tai chi master Ma Yu Liang. He passed away back in the 1990s at more than 90 years of age. He still practiced push hands even past the age of 90.

So I always had the impression of someone with great skill. I'm sure he had great skill. It's unfortunate and sad that some video clips on YouTube show him doing push hands with partners who either have no skill whatsoever or who are playing along to pretend the master is using great power.

I'm actually sorry that I saw this. Why does this type of demo have to happen?

I'm editing the third DVD in the series on Laojia Yilu fighting applications. This important Chen tai chi form has 75 movements--many of them repeated more than once--and the DVD series takes a look at each movement (without repeating them) and uncovers around 400 fighting applications.

As I edit this third DVD--the final one in the series on Laojia Yilu--I'm putting each movement and its applications on the online school for members to see first.

The DVD starts with movement 33 in Laojia Yilu -- Punch the Ground. Within the first three movements--Punch the Ground, Turn Body Round and Double Kick, and Protect the Heart Fist--there are 30 fighting applications demonstrated.

The photo here shows my favorite application of Punch the Ground--a throw. When is a punch not a punch? When you snake your arm under your opponent's armpit, turn, and punch the ground.

I'm having a lot of fun with this series. I shot the video before moving from Tampa (I really miss that weather since we have ...

I'm preparing a series of video lessons for the online school on baguazhang fighting. Bagua is a difficult art. It requires the same body mechanics as good tai chi, and like tai chi, bagua takes many years of practice to become proficient.

A Bagua fighter has three main goals -- uproot, unbalance, and control the opponent's center. It is really not much different than Chen Taiji, but it employs a few different methods. 

For example, it is said that a Bagua fighter disappears in front of his opponent and suddenly he is behind the opponent. Of course, this makes some people think of magic, but physically, it's a matter of turning your opponent or change his positioning in some way so you are behind him.

Bagua fighting involves fast footwork, quick changes in direction, developing a "moving root," and most important--the key to bagua fighting--to capture and control your opponent's center.

This isn't necessarily as difficult as it sounds. You just need to be shown so you can begin ...