Cultivating Meaning and Fulfillment

One Year

2010-05-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

On May 31st, 2009, I ended my old life in San Francisco and started my new life here at the center. This week marks the passage of one year. This will be a particularly lengthy (even by my prolific standards!) dissertation processing my reflections on this time.

It's amazing to me that it's even been that long. Time has taken on a strange, paradoxical quality here. The year feels like it passed in the blink of an eye, yet it seems much more time than one year elapsed. I have reflected much on this dichotomy. Part of its cause is the fact that I'm doing such an insane number of things with my time. I'm fulfilling the responsibilities of a formerly full time job (though I do so in 100 hours a month give or take, including the 2 drives to San Francisco and back). The official training curriculum is 9.5 hours per day of mandatory training (or chores, or Saturday, and Sunday is free). I spend an additional 20 or 30 minutes most days practicing handstands, which I very much enjoy for its own sake, for the physical benefits, and out of aspiration to excel at it one day. I started learning Guitar since I've been here, and practice pretty consistently 30-45 minutes a day. Music is also something I find great enjoyment in and aspire to master in the distant future. I also love reading and intellectual stimulation. I listen to educational progressive news/political podcasts daily, and try to read 20 or 30 minutes a day if I can. I've been much better about that recently than in the past.

That already is a substantial amount of time invested in either working or skill development, before I even begin to address my social needs. I am intensely social; I love people and am extremely open and appreciative of all kinds of connections. The superficial friendships and acquaintances I had before I came here have all filtered themselves out, and I'm left with just a few close friends who are worth making time to chat with regularly. On top of that, a relationship has evolved between me and a girl I've known since we were 13, with whom I've been in love every time we've interacted over the years. We got back in touch for the first time since the beginning of high school last year. When I impulsively visited her in Buffalo last summer, expecting nothing, we reconnected intensely as adults. The timing was bad, however, and we didn't speak for a while after I came home. We started speaking again this year and have grown exceptionally close, contacting each other nearly every night. She will be visiting me here in California in 5 days, and plans to move to San Francisco over the summer, opening up a door to explore the amazing potential of our connection in a substantial, meaningful way.

I have no idea how I manage to fit so many things in my life, but after a year, it feels pretty natural. The fullness of my plate in that respect is what I think contributes to my sense that so much more time passes than actually does.

On the other hand, our training is intensely internally focused. Before here, I lived very much in my head. I read a lot of fiction, played a lot of video games, watched a lot of movies. My mind was always somewhere else. The training we go through forces one to be fully present - deeply aware of one's mind and body. It brings me into myself in a way I've never experienced before. Time loses its meaning in that state, and months melt off the calendar faster than I can comprehend.

Without a doubt, this was the most intense, shitty, and best year of my life. I've written at length about some of the hardships I've experienced here in previous posts. Despite random fluctuations, there has definitely been an upward trend my experience. The physical factors, which initially contributed to most of my misery, are steadily improving. Between the new technique schedule, which is less draining than body conditioning, and gradual physical adaptation, I haven't been plagued by the soul crushing, demoralizing fatigue I felt earlier in the year. I have days with more energy and tired days, but overall, it's been much better.

There are always new challenges to be met, however. The most difficult aspect now I think is the social aspect - the bizarre, unique social dynamic of the center itself, and the limitations on my external socialization imposed by such isolation and demanding training.

I touched on this a couple posts ago, when I wrote of my relationship with Shifu. It is quite difficult to be treated like an ignorant child after living independently for 5 years, being financially independent, completing my 4 year college degree by age 19, and working a professional career for 3 years. I can't seem to do much right here. At first, I'd get yelled at frequently for little absent minded mistakes - leaving a light on, leaving my belongings somewhere, not fully closing a door. As I said, my mind was always somewhere else before I came here, and I cared little for such things. I make those msitakes much less often now, but there are always new things to be criticized for. The vast majority of the things Shifu says to us are critical, judgmental, and humiliating in some way. No matter what you did or didn't do, he finds a way to look at it that belittles you. It's not malicious of course, it's to help us grow.

Still, I have no love for that. My parents did not have that style, and I think there are better ways to help a person grow, but its part of the life here and there's no escaping it. I've learned to accept it, do my best to change my habits, and laugh it off.

Before going on, I'd like to point out that during his visit, Master Gao (Shifu's Taiji teacher from 50 years ago) lectured Shifu at length about how wrong it is for him to treat his disciples as well as he does. It's all a matter of perspective, haha! Traditional Chinese culture is pretty authoritarian, especially so in martial arts society. Shifu related this conversation to us, and said that he would rather treat us like sons and earn respect from the heart than simply demand it with power. For all the shit he gives us, I have much love, respect, and appreciation for that!

As the leader, this attitude on his part sets the tone for the center. Shifu really stepped up his criticism towards the end of last semester. He would randomly launch into these comically absurd tirades about how lazy, ignorant, etc people were for the smallest things. We were taken aback by the sudden introduction of these attacks, and there wasn't much we could do but laugh. We started imitating him and making the same absurd criticisms of each other, for everything.

This compounded our natural tendencies to joke around and tease each other. I've come to realize what a civilizing influence women play on men, by watching the content of our interactions degenerate to the lowest common denominator. We have serious conversations at times, but for the most part, we just tease the hell out of each other and make really crude and vulgar jokes. We are all so different, and we are going through such an intense and difficult experience together. I guess the superficiality of that kind of joking is nice when everything else is so serious, and its a way of interacting without being emotionally open or vulnerable. Not everyone is comfortable with that, especially towards other men.

It's fun for what it is, but at times, I grow tired of that being the majority of my social interaction. I want to develop emotionally and socially in addition to everything else I am getting out of this training. I don't want to emerge from the mountains in 8 years an alienated hermit, incapable of being happy and thriving in society.

Increased interactions with outsiders in the last month (between my normal working trips to SF and now the community Taiji/Shaolin classes sunday mornings) have assured me that won't happen, though. I also realized an unexpected benefit from such a one dimensional social environment. Deprivation of something you love is miserable, but when you get it, you gain an appreciation for it on a much deeper level than before. Being around outside people is amazing to me now. Exchanging warm words with people who are emotionally open, discuss serious and personal topics, openly show respect and admiration for me, and freely give me love is intensely more enjoyable to me after living without it for a year. I hope I never lose this new enhanced sense of appreciation for normal, healthy connection. It was well worth the suffering of deprivation!

Beyond that, the training itself has changed me in ways that make it much easier to connect. When Shifu talks about iron shirt conditioning (conditioning the torso by striking the skin progressively harder so you can be hit and not feel pain or suffer damage), he says there are external approaches and internal approaches. You can directly condition the skin by external striking, or slowly condition it internally by practicing qigong that builds up internal energy. Internal training takes longer, but can be stronger and less risky healthy wise, he says. Both methods accomplish the same end result, though.

I think the same thing applies to one's character. You can develop yourself socially and emotionally by living in society, having experiences, and learning from them (the external method). You can also endure an intense inner journey like the path I am on. This experience increases self awareness and presence, develops patience, will, and endurance, and facilitates extensive reflection on self and life. I don't notice that much on a daily basis, but on the occasion I do interact with outsiders, I realize how much this internal cultivation has enhanced my social and emotional development. I feel much more present, confident, empowered, and able to give and receive love and connection than at any previous time in my life.

I am able to engage and accept a much larger range of experiences. My experience here taught me that sometimes, the most valuable things in life are also the most painful and challenging, and that I am strong enough to endure steep costs to reap great benefits. I feel much more patient with people, and much less inclined to allow little things (or big things, for that matter) to bother me. Also, the meditative aspects of the training make my experience of emotion and energy in myself and others much more intense. I feel people in a way I can't verbalize.

The reflection of self and life mentioned above has been more absorbing, lately. Doing something this hard, entailing this much sacrifice, really forces me to examine my beliefs about what imbues life with meaning.

Shifu mentioned in a lecture recently that in his opinion, 5% of the population are pioneers who do something original that has a revolutionary impact on society. 15% are followers, who wait for the pioneers to act and then jump on the bandwagon. The remaining 80% wallow in apathy. He said the goal of this training is to take us to a level of proficiency in martial arts that puts us in a position to be pioneers, and that is what makes life meaningful.

I don't agree much. How could only 5% of the population have a meaningful life? Defining your meaning by the impact you have on society as a whole is pretty self defeating; it would be impossible for every human on this earth to revolutionize life on this planet. Is there no meaning to be found in love, in relationships, in friendships, in community, in family? Granted, modern society undermines all of those social institutions, so they are not as fulfilling as they could be, but still.

In the moments when I feel closest to the girl I mentioned at the beginning of this post, life without that level of love and connection seems pretty meaningless. The time I've spent with the adults and kids at our community class has also been so immensely enjoyable and fulfilling; those relationships surely make my life more meaningful and enjoyable.

I realized recently that I considered 'meaning' and 'enjoyment' in life to be synonymous, but this is untrue. While anything enjoyable can be meaningful and enriching, many things that are meaningful and enriching are not enjoyable. Not only was this year so challenging, but what did I have to show for it? The skills I'm trying to learn are incredibly deep and complicated, and having only begin all of these journeys within the last year, I suck. At everything. Taiji/shaolin, meditation, hand balancing, music - these skills take years to develop, and the beginning stages are frustratingly difficult. Progress yields to my relentless efforts at a glacial pace.

I know these activities will be much more enjoyable in a few years when I'm better at them, but that doesn't make them any less meaningful now. Having the experience of learning, of forcing myself to overcome my frustration, resistance, and internal barriers to doing this has been the most enriching, developmentally productive, and insightful experience of my life.

With that said, I couldn't consider my life meaningful with only that, without genuine, warm, supportive social connection. And certainly not without love in its many forms. However, the kind of self cultivation and mastery of art and skill I'm pursuing here is also very important, and I couldn't imagine life without that. So much so to the point that I'm willing to make such a huge social sacrifice for so many years to pursue cultivation on a level not possible otherwise.

It's easy to get caught up in the daily grind of training, in the enormity and intensity of life here - losing sight of the big picture of what this all means and why I'm doing such a crazy thing. At the community class this morning, I led a Taijiquan class of about 15 adults for the first time since I started training, without anyone else helping to teach. It felt fantastic, and made me realize how one day in the future, the two greatest sources of meaning for me will be one. Once mastery of art is achieved, the act of passing the knowledge on to others facilitates a unique and enjoyable social connection, and groups of people coming together to learn form community and friendship.

I came here because I wanted life's work that was meaningful, that constantly spurs my personal development, and that contributes something truly valuable to society. I saw in our Taiji students an appreciation and desire for what they were learning, and a genuine enjoyment of the practice. That, combined with the potential for personal transformation that I've experienced as a result of my learning, helps to assure me that if I follow through with all this, that vision will one day be fulfilled.

To what I imagine must be a scant few readers who actually read this entire post, thanks. Your readership and comments mean a lot to me and make me feel less alone here =)

Another rambling news update

2010-05-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

Now that Craig and Rii, our documentary film makers and video shooting/editing instructors have departed, life at the center returns to its normal, albeit frenetic and busy, routine.

It's been unseasonably cold and rainy for the past week. Shifu said May is usually hot and dry, but we've rarely had days above 60 degrees, and its been raining more often than not.

That's actually been great, training wise. Since so much of our routine revolves around outdoor activities, we took advantage of the weather to stay inside and focus intensively on technique. Last wednesday was the first time we have spent the entire 4 hour afternoon training block on technique, and I loved it. In the first year, going through so much shit, doing so much conditioning, it's easy to lose sight of what our purpose here is. Four hours of intense technique training was a much needed reminder how much I enjoy learning martial arts.

We started learning Lian Bu Quan, the first Northern Long Fist sequence. Now, a week later, we have finished, and it will soon be time to start refining and practicing with more speed and power. We have to keep track of how many times we practice each sequence, and we must practice each one thousand times. We went on to practice some white crane fighting forms, which are patterns of one or two movements to build muscle memory and reaction speed for basic fighting movements of the white crane style.

While fun, it's definitely been humbling. I gained a healthy appreciation for how much I suck, how foreign these complicated, coordinated movements are to my body, and how long a path stretches ahead of me. Still, I'm excited to get to work at it and start to make real progress. Our general training routine still includes 2 hours of daily conditioning (includes a short run, jumping, leg speed training, dan tian staff pushing, upper body on bars and ropes, trampoline training, hitting bags and logs, dropping and catching a 30lb cinderblock, and staff swinging for the wrist). After that we have an hour a day for sequences/technique. Over time, that will increase.

Saturday, we spend the latter half of the day cleaning and working around the property. We are building a chicken coop, and we needed dirt to flatten out the ground on the intended location. This required 4 of us to stand out on a steep, muddy, hillside loosening dirt from the ground with pick axes and shoveling it into wheelbarrows. We did this for about 7 hours straight, while the weather alternated randomly between sun, rain, and hail. It was a pretty miserable day. At one point, my foot slipped in the mud, and before I could catch myself, my face landed on a stick protruding from a nearby bush. It went directly into my eye, so hard that it tore my contact lens in half. Somehow, my eye was not injured. I count myself lucky!

Sunday morning, I attended the community Taiji/Shaolin class that Jon set up at the local school up in the mountains. It's really fantastic. About 15-20 adults and 4 or 5 kids showed up. The adults were there for Taiji, and the kids for Shaolin. Since I have so little Shaolin experience, I helped out with the Taiji. The community out here is great; everyone is incredibly warm and friendly. Some of my favorite kids from the hiking trip last week were there, and I spent a while chatting and playing with them on the playground before and after class. I continue to be impressed by their intellect, vocabulary, creativity, and knowledge of world affairs. I'm looking forward to going to these classes regularly. This connection to the local community is really wonderful for the center, and helps to alleviate the sense of isolation and loneliness out here in the woods.

Other than that, after a long period where Shifu did not spend much time correcting us during Taiji, we had a good critique session the other day. It feels strange to be learning anything but merely practicing for months on end without any extensive instruction. Shifu always says that traditionally, 1 day of learning requires 10 days of practice. For our critique, Shifu observed us all performing the Taiji form, marked down movements that needed attention, and had each person perform selections in front of the group for analysis. It was very helpful, and I'm excited about working on the feedback.

I have been trying to push myself harder in meditation as well. I have attained a level of comfort and calmness that has definitely improved from the beginning, but my mind still has a tendency to wander. For most of the year, when I was really exhausted and burned out, I actually fell asleep during meditation probably 80% of the time. Now I rarely ever do, which is great. I love meditation, and being too tired to do it properly frustrated me. For the past month or so, I allowed my mind to wander, but just relaxed with it and didn't pay much attention. Now I'm focusing on actively emptying my mind and intensely feeling the subtlest sensation of my breath and qi. It's hard to maintain that focus, as sometimes the mind starts to wander without me even realizing it, but when I can maintain it for a few minutes, it's a pretty incredible feeling. There is a whole universe of subtle sensory information and energetic flow bombarding us at any given moment, but we are too absorbed in our conscious thoughts to notice. Emptying the conscious mind allows you focus all of your attention on feeling everything there is to feel.

During meditation last week, while doing that, I randomly thought of my old roommate from San Francisco, with whom I was very close. I felt a strong need to call her and see how she was, before refocusing on being empty. When I got back inside, I had a text from her boyfriend saying that her father had just died. It was pretty trippy.

I shall conclude there for now!

Thanks for reading

A busy month so far

2010-05-18T15:53:00.000-07:00

This has been an incredibly eventful month. There are a number of different things I wish to share, so I'm just going to mind dump, at length. Enjoy!

The month started off with a visit from Master Gao, Dr. Yang's first Taiji master. He was not what I was expecting. About 80 years old, he had the vitality of someone 60 years younger. He was very animated, outgoing, funny, and unusual. He kept asking people to feel his lower legs, which somehow were about as solid as a tree trunk. He would also occasionally head butt random things and led singalongs of old American folk songs, among other antics. We had a demonstration here on May 8th in his honor, which was well attended by the neighbors and people from Salmon Creek Elementary School. It was a great time, and I had the opportunity to speak about life, the universe, and everything in depth with some very kind and engaging neighbors.

Normally, my two weekend a month work schedule would have fallen on that weekend and on the weekend of the 15th. I had to be here for the demonstration, obviously, and we were doing dvd filming on the 15th, so I had to go back to San Francisco during the week for 5 days to get the month's work done. It's weird being away, it always feels like I miss so many crazy things happening, and it makes me feel a bit alienated from the group. I do enjoy brief visits to the city, catching up with family, and having a taste of the personal freedom and independence that doesn't exist at the center. I spent a few hours each day training at an awesome gymnastics place in the city, which was also fun. I worked on tumbling, jumping, staff basics, and Qi Xing.

When we jump at the center, we jump over these wooden railings outdoors on concrete and. The mental aspect of it is by far the most challenging. It's hard not to be afraid of hurting yourself, and the more afraid you are, the less you commit to a jump. The less you commit, the more likely you are to fail and hurt yourself. It's definitely taken me a lot of time to build up confidence. I knew even then I still wasn't jumping as well as I could, but training at the gymnastics place showed me how true that was. They had hard foam blocks that could be secured together, stacked up, and jumped on/over. With the knowledge that I wouldn't hurt myself no matter what happened, I found I was able to jump about 8 inches higher than I normally do here. I jumped on to blocks stacked about 2-3 inches below my neck. That felt pretty awesome.

When I returned to the center, we had a couple 10-12 hour filming days. Over the past couple months, we have prepared a script for a DVD that the YMAA publication center will produce detailing the first year's conditioning training methods. It will be available for sale to people who wish to learn the traditional ways of conditioning. It was a lot of work preparation, and an exhausting and long shoot, but it seemed to go very well. It will be interesting to see the finished product. Our documentary film maker, Craig, and our filming instructor, Rii, both came up to film the DVD, and it's always great having them around. David Silver from the publishing company came out too, and it was great to meet him. He's an awesome guy with an inspiring life story and was fun to work and banter with.

My experience at the center has been much more enjoyable as my body has adapted and I don't feel so shitty all the time. The new training schedule has less conditioning and more technique, which is awesome. It's great to start learning what we came here for. It's pretty rigorous though, and Shifu follows us around with a stopwatch enforcing a 4 hour schedule planned out to the minute. That's not so enjoyable, to be honest, but it gets stuff done. I feel like there is too much time for some things and not enough time for others, but overall its pretty good. I'm still adjusting to it, it's only been a couple weeks.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Shifu-disciple relationship, and how beyond my experience it is. Shifu translates to "teacher father", and at the YMAA center, it really means that. It is a deep and meaningful bond, but it can be very challenging and frustrating. Growing up, my parents had a relatively hands off parenting style. I always did exceptionally well in school and never got into trouble, and didn't party, drink, or do drugs. From a pretty early age I had few restrictions on my freedom, and I never abused their trust. They weren't super involved in my life, and generally just allowed me to create myself and develop as I saw fit. I got in very few fights with them, and they rarely ever imposed their will on me. Shifu has a much different parenting style. He is constantly critical, judgmental, and has a very clear idea of what is best for us. Any time we do anything he thinks is lazy, stupid, irresponsible, or otherwise, he calls us out, insults us (as far as telling someone they are lazy, stupid, or whatever is an insult), and teases us, trying to make us feel badly about it and change our ways. He is constantly pushing us to be more aware and responsible. He points out every flaw and mistake, usually blowing it way out of proportion to humiliate us, portraying us in as negative a light as possible. For example, sometimes I run out of time for breakfast and don't finish everything in my bowl, so I'll compost the last little bit I didn't have time to eat. He gives me shit every time I do that, saying things like "That food took so long to grow and you just waste it? You don't appreciate anything. You take everything for granted, you don't appreciate people or anything in your life! You are so lazy!"

Over the course of time, taking constant shit like that can really get old, haha. As an adult in my 20s, I'm not accustomed to someone telling me I'm a worthless terrible person every time I do the slightest little thing that isn't up to their personal standards. Obviously he just wants us to be better people, and to learn humility, and patience. It definitely accomplishes all of those things, but there must be other ways to teach that! I'm sure I'll appreciate it later, and usually don't mind now. It's definitely a subject of mirth and teasing at the center. We all follow Shifu's example and make fun of each other for just about everything. Sometimes though, you just don't want to hear people giving you shit for everything all the time, but so it goes.

In addition to that, it can be hard to talk to him about some things. There is obviously a language barrier, and he's a very busy man. He has some ideas about how to train certain things or certain cultural attitudes that are very difficult to disagree with him about. He can be very dismissive of other people's opinions at times. I realized though that I am used to the western mindset of treating other people as peers, feeling entitled to have a discussion as equals with anyone where each party can speak their mind, have their side heard, consider alternative positions. Shifu spoke the other night about the traditional master student relationship, and how it doesn't work that way. The master student relationship is grounded in respect and obedience, and its highly inappropriate to publicly disagree with your master. Even in private, its inappropriate to disagree with them outright. You have to be subtle about bringing up alternative points of view, and never try to make your master bend to your will. For the most part, over the last year, I just didn't talk to him about things I didn't agree with. I did not want to show him disrespect or argue with him. I have been thinking about what he said, and will definitely put time and energy to speak with him more in private and become closer with him.

Despite all of the frustrations I touched on above, it is still a very special relationship. He loves us as sons, and whatever his methods are, he wants us to be the best human beings we can be. There are times when the authoritarian master mask falls away, and he shows sincere, open concern for our well being and happiness, and it is very touching.

This morning, we were invited to go hiking on Bear Butte (indigenous name translated to 'really steep rock.' awesome!), the largest mountain in the area, with the local elementary school where we teach. The school has about 12 students from ages 4-12, plus two teachers and an assortment of parents. It is a beautiful community; everyone is incredibly kind, interesting, and enjoyable company. According to the teacher, Bear Butte was a sacred place for indigenous people here, and I could see why. It was one of the most intensely beautiful places I have ever been. The peak is about 2,600 feet, and a narrow mountain road overlooking fields, forests, and valleys leads to hiking trails. The elevation offers a spectacular vista of the surrounding mountain range, and it truly seemed to nourish the soul. I spent most of the ride staring in awe out the window, drinking it all in. The hike itself was equally beautiful, through dense forests. As deeply as I feel and enjoy the natural world here, the best part of that hike was definitely the kids. These kids, who have only known their mountain homes, are so much different from kids who grow up in the cities and suburbs. A lot of them don't have tv or internet. They were so full of life, love, playfulness, and happy unselfconscious energy. It was very joyful for me to be around them and play with them. I spent most of my time with a group of 4 or 5 of the kids. We ran around the woods, pushed and poked each other, rolled down wet hill sides, climbed rocks, and chased each other around. I had fun trying to run up a steep hillside carrying them on my back, ranging from about 40 to 90 pounds. One of them rubbed sparkly lip stick all over my face, which made me look quite ridiculous. Today was definitely one of the most enjoyable days I've had all year.

I think I'll end the post there, that's enough for now. Be well and thanks for reading.

Phase one of training is over

2010-05-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

At the YMAA center, the training curriculum is centered on physical conditioning for the better part of the first year. We come here to learn kung fu, but we have to be patient for at least 8 months before we even get to start studying the art we came here for. We practice taijiquan, qigong, tumbling, and meditation in the mornings, but in the afternoons, it's the same physical conditioning routine for 3 and a half hours day after day, month after month. Mountain running working up to carrying 50 pounds, jumping over railings with and without weight, upper body conditioning (pull ups, dips, etc) on bars and rings, holding stances balanced on stacked upright bricks, dropping and catching a 30lb cinder block, climbing vertical and horizontal ropes, pushing staffs against the wall with the dantian, staff conditioning for the wrist, and some static holds for core and back strength. 5 days a week. For almost a year.

Having such external structure and consistency leads one to be much more aware of your inner experience, and how much of it is purely in your head. For the most part, that conditioning phase was absolutely brutal for me. I was definitely what Shifu would call a "greenhouse" kid. I wasn't super athletic growing up, though I did do 6 years of watered down western sport tae kwon do. I stopped doing that when I moved away from home to finish university at 18, and from 18-22, I didn't do a whole lot with myself physically. Just weight training a few times a week on and off a few times a week, and not super consistently. I wasn't in the greatest shape when I came here. I was about 135lbs, at 5'7. And I had been vegetarian for a couple years. While I'm sure that diet can work with some people, practiced in the correct way, it didn't work for me and my body. My recovery abilities were pretty terrible. Within the first month, I reached an intensely overtrained state and got very sick for a week or so. After that, it was a constant struggle.

For the majority of the phase 1 training, I was constantly exhausted, intensely fatigued, and generally felt like shit. I'm sure it didn't help that I was working the entire time. On top of the 40 or 50 hour a week training schedule, I worked an average of 20-25 hours a week. I pretty much never rested. Any time not training was spent cooking/eating, working, driving, or trying to practice guitar/chinese other extra curricular activities. Living here is never easy, but that level of constant exhaustion made it so much more difficult than it needed to be. Some days I was so tired even soft qigong felt like a titanic effort. Other days I was so exhausted I actually cried. And no matter how bad that gets, you still have to follow the schedule and train every day.

That led to a lot of mental difficulties as well. It's hard to will yourself forward when you feel that badly. I also experienced a lot of anger and frustration. It doesn't seem productive to force yourself to train through that, especially when overtraining injuries develop. I struggled with on and off elbow tendinitis and shin splints almost the whole year, which was not only painful but was an incredibly frustrating impediment to making progress. I often felt frustration with Shifu for structuring training in a way that doesn't take each individual body's response to it into account. He just imposes the same routine on everyone, all the time. More and harder is always better, without much attention paid to the need for rest. It seemed contrary to all of the high level training philosophies I've read about, and felt I could be making more progress, experiencing fewer injuries, and feeling a lot better going about training differently. But I had to accept it. The perspective that most helped me do so was to view that period as a test of will, endurance, discipline, and mental strength as much as a physical training routine.

Whatever it was, it's now over. This past week, we completed testing for that phase, and it's now time to move on to what we came here to learn. It feels amazing to have such a difficult time behind me. I'm already feeling much more rested and recovered. However the rest of the program goes, I don't think it will ever feel that difficult. I don't think there will ever be as big of a gap between my level of physical preparation and capacity and the demand imposed on my body from training. The technique training from here on out is never easy, but it's much less demanding and draining than the conditioning routine. Perhaps my life will never feel so difficult and miserable as it often did for the last 8 months. I feel deeply grateful that it's over, and empowered for having found the will to endure it. The sacrifices still weigh heavily on me. I love people, and it's hard to live in isolation. Of the fairly rich social network I had before I came here, there are two people left in my life (outside the center) with whom I have in depth conversations with at least once a week. Being so limited in my ability to explore romantic connections (if people even allow themselves to get close to me, given the circumstances) for 8 more years seems daunting and insane, and I know it will be a struggle. However, I am strong in my conviction that it's all worth it in the long run. I still feel this is the most meaningful and worthwhile thing I could do with my life. The experience and growth I gain from living on this mountain is worth the normal life experiences I have to give up for a little less than a decade. There will be plenty of time for that later. Despite the difficulties of this past year, I did make a lot of progress, physically and mentally. I am much stronger than I was a year ago. I have gained at least 20 pounds of muscle and my body looks completely different. I have greatly increased body awareness, awareness in general of the space around me, and mental self awareness. I feel much more integrated physically, more full energetically, and feel much more in touch and connected with myself.

I'm very excited to start the new routine tomorrow. We still have a good amount of time for conditioning with upper body, jumping, and some other stuff, but I really enjoy it when it's not too much. Much of the time in the next phase is devoted to learning Long Fist and White Crane sequences, hitting bags, and practicing the basic techniques of our first weapon, the staff.

Perception

2010-04-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

I arrived in San Francisco last night to complete a long weekend of work, and a weird thing happened. Since joining the program, I kind of lost touch with one of my closest friends from when I lived here. I hadn't seen him since November. He got himself a sweet new apartment, upgrading from a closet sized studio, and invited me to crash with him while I was in town to work. His windows overlook a pretty busy intersection in one of the nicer residential areas of the city, near where I used to live. Shortly after I arrived, we heard a strange noise out on the street. Almost instantly, before it even fully registered, the words "that sounded like a biker being hit by a car" popped out of my mouth. I've never heard that sound before; there was no scream of pain or anything. I don't know why I said that. My friend and his girlfriend were pretty sure it was just a car trying to parallel park that had hit a neighboring car.

However, when we looked out the window a few seconds later, a biker lay unconscious on the road. He appeared to have run a red light and gotten nailed by a car on the cross street. No helmet. I always bike to the office with no helmet, so that was a harsh reminder of the risk I take. The driver had gotten out of his car and a crowd from the sidewalk quickly surrounded him. In less than 3 minutes, there were 6 police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck on the scene. We watched it all play out through the window for a while. After so much time spent at the retreat center, isolated in the woods, its incredibly fascinating to just watch people. Especially so after a sudden, intense, and traumatic event.

I still don't know how I knew it was a biker being hit. It reminds me of a few months ago when I drove Shifu to the SF airport. Heading south on the 101, I drove past a CA highway patrol officer who had set up shop in a hidden alcove on a turn, hoping to catch people speeding. I was driving a reasonable speed, luckily. Shifu was in the passenger seat, eyes closed, head turned away from the window. Without looking up or opening his eyes, he said "Be careful, don't get a ticket." I was shocked. I had thought he was asleep, and could clearly see in my peripheral vision that his eyes had not opened or looked out the window in the stretch of road leading up to the cop. I asked how he knew, and he said he just sensed it, could feel the danger. He said that so many years of martial arts training heightened his sensitivity to that level.

That blew my mind pretty hard, and as I go through the same training, I wonder how my perception and feeling will change.

Intermission

2010-04-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

The last post was pretty intense, and I have another intense post I wanted to share. I thought I'd break it up with some of the more mundane happenings lately.

I've decided to make it a priority to post regularly. The act of expressing myself with words has always been cathartic, and has helped me to process my life experiences. It is of course also nice to have a written account of my experience in this program to look back on later, and I'm sure outsiders who are interested in the program enjoy the insight offered by our blog posts.

We've had a few visitors over the last month.

Manu came to us from Germany, though he lives in Canada most of the time. I really enjoyed having him around. His sense of humor, lively energy, engaging conversation, and warm presence were a welcome addition to our family. He cooked us a dish he called "reisflinzen." We had a lot of fun with that word. It sounds so harsh and angry, so stereotypically German. We enjoyed clenching our fists and yelling "REISFLINZEN!" with the best accent we could manage. While counting repetitions during staff training, he normally counted in German. One day I asked him to count in Canadian. Without missing a beat, he began "1, eh? 2, eh?" all the way to 45. I couldn't stop laughing. Despite being 33, he had the energy and spirit of someone 10 years younger. After all the people I've met in offices who seem to be aging and losing their youthful spark before even that age, it was an insight into how much your lifestyle affects you. Sit on your ass in a chair all day, and you start dying earlier. He's lived an interesting life - full of physical activity, travels, active work, and interesting projects, and you can see it in his eyes. I'm glad I got out of the office before it was too late.

Manu had a lot of experience with chainsaws, and Dr. Yang coerced him into taking down some trees for us. I did not enjoy that experience. Not only does using a chainsaw freak me out, but it just doesn't feel good to kill a tree. It looks so sad once it falls. After it's been chopped up, the ground littered with branch fragments, leaves/needles, and sawdust, it looks like a helpless creature has been butchered. After an afternoon spent chopping up 4 50+ foot trees, I had some disturbing dreams that trees were conscious and not at all happy about us cutting them down.

Manu left yesterday, and he will be missed.

As much as I enjoy the company of the full time residents of the retreat center, it really is nice to have guests. If you're reading this and thinking about visiting, you should!

We also have Dr. Wittman visiting, our surrogate mother from Germany. Trained in conventional medicine, she's spent the last couple decades focusing on acupuncture, TCM, and energy medicine, and her skills are pretty impressive. She diagnoses by feeling your pulse and waving her hand around your body to feel your energy field. I had been prescribed some herbs by a Chinese doctor in San Francisco, and I showed them to her without letting her see the bottle or telling her what they were for. After waving them around my body for a second, she told me what they were doing and what organs they were helping, quoting exactly what the other doctor had said. In addition to being warm, loving, and full of laughter, she tends to our medical ailments with treatment that must be considered torture by any civilized definition. I thought acupuncture was supposed to be painless, but with Dr. Wittman, its an exercise in masochism. She's been very helpful to me in my physical and energetic development, despite the painful treatments. She'll be with us for a few weeks (her first visit was in October) and it is great to have her back!

In other news, we had about 12 young children from a local elementary school visit the center for a demonstration. They were interested in having us teach a class up at their school, but the looks on the kids faces as they watched us perform didn't bode well for that plan. We demonstrated Qin Na (joint locks) and Shuai Jiao (take downs), both of which are pretty intense. I don't think those kids have ever seen grown men visiting violence on each other in person. One of the kids started crying by the 2nd or 3rd technique. It probably didn't help that all but one of them were girls.

Also, our little Meowgi caught and ate his first mole! He savored the entire thing, skin, bones, and all. Except the intestines, he somehow managed to eat everything around that. Good kitty =)

A raw and intense look at my experience here

2010-03-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

I have not posted in a very long time. I wanted to blog about my experience here from beginning, but I just have not made it a priority. I have my hands full enough managing the intensity of the training schedule, the responsibilities of a full time, intricate nonprofit accounting job (though I only spent 80-100 hours a month working remotely including a couple weekends in SF), the extra projects we have here (DVDs, articles, accounting for Dr. Yang, etc), music, juggling, and so on. I read Jon's new posts recently and thought about what he said about people wanting to know what life here was like. I'm glad he chose to stop censoring himself and post more honestly about what he experiences here.

I choose to post now for the same reasons, and for one other. I find that in the moments of intense inner struggle presented by life here, its easy to feel so isolated and alone. We're out here in the woods, so far from the world we grew up in. I'm so busy and engaged that I've lost touch with most of my former social network. I invest the time to maintain a handful of relationships with my closest and deepest friends, but that's all. Even those are different, limited to electronic communications only. The past 9 months here have been an amazing, transformative experience. I have no regrets. I love it here; this is the life for me. With that said, there are moments here that are exceptionally difficult. It can be mental: being overwhelmed with the amount of work I need to keep up with. It can be physical: being exhausted, injured, and overtrained - in need of rest but forced to follow the training schedule. Often, it is emotional, as this particular post deals with. In any case, I was reflecting today that when life really weighs down on you, it seems even more difficult when you feel like you are alone in the mountains where few people keep in touch with you or know what's going on in your life. I thought it might make me feel a bit better to openly share a difficult moment on my blog. As mentioned above, that might also be of interest to people who follow the project and wonder what it's like here.

The following is an email I wrote today to a girl I've known on and off for 10 years, and have been in love with each time we've interacted. For whatever reason, we share a deep connection which seems to transcend time and distance, remaining present as we've grown up and become adults. I won't go into more detail about the situation than that, it should be clear enough from what I wrote and knowing that I'm here.

Also, just a disclaimer. I can be crude, superficial, and silly, but I am very emotionally open with myself and others. This email in particular takes all the masks off. Thanks for reading.

--

"I don't really have many words right now, so maybe this will actually be a short email. My experience right now is mainly a flood of overwhelming feelings, most of them exceptionally sad and painful. My wisdom mind has certainly disengaged itself for a period of time, so I don't know where I'll be when things settle down.

I just spent about half an hour sitting on the ground, crying, and staring at the mountains and trees. It was cold, and raining, but I needed to be away from the house and the other people. Every time I take the time to truly look outside here, it seems like the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The endless green sea of trees, the earth asserting itself thousands of feet in the air all around me, and the clouds and mist that float in the air and amongst the trees here when it rains inspire deep awe and many feelings I don't know how to even describe. The quiet is so deep you can almost drown in it. It seems ironic that a place that is a source of more pain and suffering than anything in my life is so soul piercingly beautiful.

Meowgi was sleeping outside the door when I went out, so I picked him him up and took him with me. He curled up in my lap, buried his face against me, and purred the whole time I sat there. It seems that little brown cat is my only real source of love here, haha.

You described us as two people who really wish we could be together but know we can't. I wouldn't describe myself like that at all. I don't care what we are now, what we can or can't be in the future (and who knows anyway), or what goes on between you and anyone else in your life. All that matters to me is this profound connection we share, and how fulfilling and happy it makes me to have you in my life even in these extremely limited circumstances. I certainly appreciate it more than any actual "relationship" I've been in. I never would have thought that reading words in a box on my computer or hearing a voice on my phone could feel so good, but it does. Any time we interact (and subconsciously when we dont) I feel great love for you. That is all that's important to me. I am quite content to go with that flow, and as I've said, let that be what it is.

Also, you used the words "relationship" and "workability" implying that we wish we could have a "relationship", but it wouldn't "work", thus we can only be "friends". Those are abstract, invented concepts. I take what I feel to be a much more honest perspective on life. There are only two things that matter: what you want, and what you are willing to do to get it. We can be much more honest with each other (and ourselves) if we speak in those terms rather than make excuses like "workability". If your feelings for me were strong enough, you would be willing to do what ever we need to do to enjoy them. If they are not, which is completely understandable, then it makes sense to do whatever is right for you. I suppose its not only a matter of how strong feelings are. I am, after all, the source of the "workability" deficiency. I'm the one choosing to be here, though part of me thought about leaving here to be with you both last year and now. At this time, and probably for the next 8 years if I don't break under the weight of life here, there is no amount of love I could have for anyone that is worth not being here. This place is the rest of my life. It is my body, my mind, my spirit. Those are the things I gain here, in a way that isn't possible anywhere else in the world or at any other time in my life. It's a vicious, cruel joke of the universe that such a place can't also be my heart, that I am forced to make such choices, but so it goes. As I said, if you can find it in you to be totally honest about your feelings (not just towards me, but in general) with me, that would mean a lot.

I wish the people you choose to pursue other connections with were able to share you in the relatively limited, immaterial way that you and I interact, but I understand if they don't, and if you choose what they offer over what I offer. Intentionally scaling back interactions, not expressing feelings, and trying to enforce distance are not things that come easily to me. They feel incredibly wrong and even more painful. I dont know how things will be between us, but I'll continue to let it be what it is. Remember though that, as you said, your boyfriends come and go, but my feelings for you don't change, and the door to whatever I have to give you is always open.

hah, i guess i found some words.

love"

Meditations on food

2009-11-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

So, it seems I am beset by unforeseen consequences of an action I took for personal, moral, and spiritual reasons. I will admit, from the outside, it looks bad. I intentionally shot, killed, and ate two birds. I did not expect for this issue to become a matter of public discourse. My brothers, my Shifu, and others who are close to me understand my history and why I would do this.

For those who don't, I can easily understand your initial shock, disappointment, confusion, and even outrage. I respectfully request that you step back from your feelings for a moment and consider what this situation actually meant to me.

I have been a vegan for over two years. Growing up, I never gave much thought to nutrition or eating. I somehow grew up on a diet of mostly processed junk food and never thought twice about the ethics of eating animals. I think I met my first vegetarian when I was about 16, and in the closed minded self righteousness typical of that age, I dismissed the notion with contempt.

When I was 19, I became interested in health and nutrition. I read a variety of articles endorsing a multitude of positions on the issue, including raw foodism, vegetarian/veganism, neolithic style diet, and general condemnations of industrial food. It changed the way I thought about eating and food profoundly.

I found many of the arguments and evidence I read quite persuasive, and felt it would be ignorant if I neglected to experience eating in those ways and observing how my body felt. I started with raw foods, which I followed for 2-3 months, and then settled into a mostly cooked food, vegan diet. Over the past couple years, that's how I lived. That was working well enough for me in my previous life, and it worked well enough for me since I've been living and training at the YMAA center.

I got to thinking however whether well enough is in fact well enough. I recalled how part of my motivation for changing my eating habits in the first place was so that I could deviate from my norm and get a new perspective on how my body feels. If you grow accustomed to a particular state, after a period of time, you forget what other states are like, and any deficiencies or disadvantages might seem normal.

After two months of hard physical training, I started to wonder if I should conduct another experiment. Shifu talks about how while many monks in ancient times refrained from eating meat, some in the Shaolin temple did eat meat to complement their intensive physical training. I felt again that I should be open to experiencing that to see if its true for me.

However, two years of eating habits and countless hours of reading material made that much more difficult for me than it would be for most people. After reading and seeing pictures of industrial scale farming and meat production, I have no desire to participate in that system. It exploits animals and visits unnecessary pain and suffering on them, it harms the biosphere, it harms prospects for local food production, it creates a socially unjust allocation of food resources, and it produces meat that is chemically and nutritionally unnatural and unhealthy for the human body. As much as it would make things easier, I can't make myself unconscious to those realities.

If I'm to eat meat, it needs to be from a source that raises animals in a way that is as compassionate as possible, that empowers local/regional agriculture and business, and that respects all ecological and biological systems. In rural northern California, I found such a source. It would require me to drive an hour from my retreat center home periodically and its not inexpensive, but it satisfied my requirements.

However, I had one other problem with store bought meat of any kind. It externalizes the moral cost of the death required to produce that food. It's easy to drive to the store, by a nice, clean, sterile package of meat that bears no resemblance to any animal, and to eat it without consciousness of what happened to produce that meal. I do not wish to eat that way. I wish to cultivate mindfulness of where my meals come from and gratitude and appreciation for the work, resources, and potentially life force that I'm consuming.

In order to fully realize those two states of mind, I feel it is necessary to personally play out the entire food cycle and experience the moral, emotional, and psychological effects of every step. Yes, that means killing an animal, cleaning it, removing its organs, cooking it, and eating it.

Without a whole lot of free time for hunting, I settled for whatever wild birds I could find on our property. I was able to shoot two birds that turned out to be Robins, and forced myself to go through the rather disgusting process that starts with a dead body and ends with a meal. I took no pleasure in this. If you saw the picture on Javier's blog and observed that I looked unhappy, that's because I was. It's not an activity I wish to spend much time repeating in the future, and I'm satisfied that I learned my lesson and can never again eat animal products without a very conscious understanding of what it means to eat like that.

I'm not writing to defend my actions. I feel no need to defend myself. I did what was right according to my ethics, and anyone who has a very different ethical code probably won't change their entire mentality from reading a blog post. I hope that people who were initially upset will read this with understanding and forgiveness, but if your worldview compels you to judge me, so it goes. Please do not, however, attribute my choices to my Shifu, my Retreat Center, or to the YMAA organization. However, in the wake of many upset and angry emails and phone calls to the YMAA organization, I thought it prudent that detailed information of the situation be available, so that people aren't reacting without knowing what's really going on here.

I would also note that in this rural, mountainous part of America, many people here owns guns. Wild animals abound, and it's extremely common for people to hunt for food.

Feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions and comments.

Peace,

Zach

Finally!

2009-11-04T10:15:00.001-08:00

Greetings supporters and followers of the YMAA program! I can't believe two months have passed since I accepted the commitment of becoming Dr. Yang's disciple. I intended to be more diligent about documenting my experience with my blog here, but life over the past two months has been very demanding, and I had other priorities.

Before I came here, I lived in San Francisco and worked full time as an accountant for a large social services nonprofit. When I made the decision to enter the 10 year program, I was able to work out an arrangement where I continue fulfilling all of my previous job responsibilities by working remotely from the YMAA Retreat Center and by spending two weekends a month in the office in San Francisco. Needless to say, on top of the incredibly rigorous training schedule, this has been a challenge. We train perhaps around 50 hours a week. On top of that, I work between 15 and 30 hours a week, sometimes more. It hasn't been easy, but it's worth it. It's important to me to contribute financially to the center if I am able. I have deep appreciation for vast personal, emotional, time, and financial resources Dr. Yang has gathered and invested to make this project a reality, and I'm not about to be a free rider here if I'm a position to pull my weight, no matter how challenging it is.

So, I apologize for the lack of blog posts for the last two months. I was focused on training as hard as I could and on managing my workload, but every month I'm getting better at finding balance and working efficiently, so I will commit time to this blog now!

Peace,

Zach