A Vision of the Final Moments of Life and the Two Questions on My Mind
I received some tough news from my pulmonologist last week. Dr. Wong showed me the CT scan taken in December, when I spent four nights in the hospital because of a large blood clot in my left lung. The blood thinners I had been taking since June, when the clots developed, had not worked in this one case, and the clot was so big, it was threatening the blood supply to the left lung. Just a trickle of blood was getting in.
After we looked at the scan, he said this is major. If the blood clot is not reduced through the use of the blood thinners during the next six weeks, he will refer me to the Mayo Clinic, where I will be evaluated and it is possible they will put my heart on a bypass machine, go into the lung and clean out the clot. The evaluation will tell Mayo whether my heart is likely to withstand the operation.
"This is major," the doctor said. "But you have been through major things before."
These are the times when the practice of centering is not just theory. This is when it ...
I am a Guest on the Talking Fists Podcast - Talking Chen Taijiquan
I was asked by Ryan Patrick St. George to appear on his "Talking Fists" podcast. I said, "Sure. When?" And he replied, "How about now?"
So we got on Zoom and talked for a while about training in two different "branches" of Chen style Taijiquan -- the Chen Village branch and the Chen Yu branch under Nabil Ranne.
Listen to the Talking Fists podcast episode via this link. It's also available through your favorite podcast distributor.
Top 10 Chen Style Taiji Movements to Practice in the Hospital
A few months ago, I developed several blood clots in my left lung. I spent five days in the hospital and was put on blood thinners.
I used to think that blood thinners dissolve blood clots, but they don't. Instead, they keep the clots from getting larger and then the body breaks down and absorbs the clot over time.
So I have been on warfarin for the past five months and I went in last Thursday for a follow-up CT scan to see if they had gone away.
Instead, a clot had grown larger and it was threatening the blood flow to the left lung. Because of past bleeding issues, my doctors and I had been too conservative on the level of warfarin in my system, so the warfarin did not stop this clot from growing. It's strange because I have been teaching all along and taught two classes on Wednesday with no unusual problems. But due to the CT scan results, I was told to go to the hospital...again. It's a serious health situation.
In the past few days, I have been stuck with needles every few ho...
Interactive Video - You Choose the Tai Chi Fighting Application
I am experimenting with interactive videos. Here is my first one. Please watch it and let me know what you think. It allows you to choose which application you will see for the opening movement in a Taiji form.
Connecting is a Skill and Philosophy from Martial Arts You Can Use in Daily Life
Silk-Reeling Exercises Can Help You Develop Internal Body Mechanics
Silk-Reeling exercises are forgotten by some Chen style Taiji students after they practice forms, but I believe these exercises should be included in everyone's training routine.
I first learned Silk-Reeling exercises from Chen Xiaowang and my first Chen Taiji teachers, Jim and Angie Criscimagna. Silk-reeling is known in China as chan ssu chin. As I understand it, the exercises were created in recent decades. They are not part of the traditional training in the Chen Village. I went through a silk-reeling workshop with Chen Xiaowang back in 2000 but was already working on them at that time.
When I began teaching, I tried to organize material in easy-to-understand pieces for my students (and for me). For the past 23 years, I have taught six key principles of body mechanics to beginning students:
1. The ground path
2. Establishing and maintaining peng jin
3. Opening and closing the kua
4. Dan T'ien rotation
5. Whole-body connected movement
6. Silk-Reeling energy
New student...
How Often Do You Meditate?
I was in a class yesterday when another student asked the teacher a question about how often you should meditate.
It was an interesting question but my answer might be different than some.
One of the martial arts books that I bought back in the 1970s was "Man of Contrasts," by Hee Il Cho. It was a book about Taekwondo, but at the beginning of the book was a remarkable poem that has stayed with me ever since. Here is the poem:
I can find peace
amidst the cities roar
before the dry, frayed face of confusion,
the exhausted hour.
My peace is cradled within.
This poem came back to me around 1999 when I found myself walking through the crowded sidewalks of Times Square in New York City. People were almost shoulder-to-shoulder, walking in all directions, and instead of being stressed, I found that I was calm, centered, with a feeling of being connected to each person who rushed by -- peace amidst the city's roar.
I began doing qigong in 1987. My goal was to recreate the feeling of in...
Firing Up the Inner Gyroscope Once Again - Finding My Center in the Hospital
I am writing a book on how the philosophies that I learned during the time I have studied martial arts have guided me through some of the storms of life.
Last week, I found that I was living a new chapter.
After a break of a few years, I suddenly began coughing up blood on Friday, June 4. We're not talking about the type of coughing up blood that you see in the movies -- a fleck or two in a handkerchief.
When I cough up blood, it looks like someone was shotgunned in my sink. I put a picture up on a blog post around 2015. It was gross.
This began in 2009, after three laser ablation procedures on my heart, attempting to stop atrial fibrillation. Instead, the final procedure shut down my left pulmonary veins, so no oxygenated blood goes from my left lung to the heart.
How my body has survived the past 12 years, I have no idea, but it hasn't been easy, and it has made martial arts quite a challenge -- only one lung, coughing up blood occasionally, and, to add insult to injury, I d...
Form is Emptiness - Easy to Ridicule if You Don't Understand
My daughter, Harmony had a yin/yang sticker on her notebook in 7th grade. She loved it. From the day she was brought home from the hospital and put into a crib in August, 1977, Bruce Lee posters had been on her bedroom wall and she was very familiar with martial arts.
But some of the girls in her 7th grade class accused her of worshipping Satan because of the yin/yang sticker.
They didn't understand and had been influenced by their parents, most of whom were Christians living in the Midwest.
Yesterday, I came across the "Heart Sutra," an important "rule" or aphorism in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
One of the key phrases that immediately made me think of Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Bruce Lee was this:
Form is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than form.
You can say it a bit more directly: "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form."
It is a widely quoted concept that is visualized in different ways.
Bruce Lee liked to say that we should "be water." He said, "If you put wat...
Empty Force - A Trap Door that Collapses Beneath an Opponent
Author - Instructor
Ken Gullette
I have practiced martial arts since 1973 and began studying the internal arts in 1987. My goal is to cut years off your development time by coaching you in the real skills for high-quality Tai Chi, Xingyi, Bagua. To see more about my bio, click the "About Ken" link on the menu at the top of this page.
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