Monday, July 03, 2006
Level Up! Part 1
We left Shanghai earlier today for the city of Zheng Zhou. The only worthwhile statement about this morning was really our lunch. They took us to a real Mongolian BBQ place...it was EXACTLY the same as YC's in Tempe/Scottsdale. There's something somewhat unsettling about the fact that I went across the globe to a country that was once completely controlled by the Mongols and I got the exact same thing as I can get literally three blocks from my house.
The only reason our travels have taken us through Zheng Zhou are so we can get to the rural city of Deng Feng. Deng Feng, as well as Zheng Zhou, reside in Henan (pronounced "huh-nan", maybe you've heard of Hunan style Chinese food??) in the middle of China. This little rural town is the home of the last remaining Shaolin Temple. Tomorrow morning we set out fairly early for the temple.
I don't know if you, the reader, believe in Chi or not....but, this place is literally *alive* with energy. This town is home to a 2,000 year old Taoist temple as well as 74 kung-fu schools. The kung fu students, not counting the Shaolin, make up 40,000 of the region's 100,000 residents. The Chi-qong exercises of a few thousand years as well as the burial sites of the monks, abbots, and Taoists around here have formed a well. If I walk outside and practice my breathing just a for a few seconds I can feel my entire body tingle. It feels like a wave starting at the perinium and simultaneously traveling down the legs, up through the back, and welling up inside the chest and ultimately like a pins-and-needles sensation at the top of the skull. It's a feeling I can produce with some work in the US at home, but here it's like I can produce the feeling on command. It's goddamned amazing.
Tomorrow we can conclude our test in the Pagoda Forest behind the Shaolin temple. It's the final resting place of the Shaolin Monks, as well as the burial site of all the abbots of the Shaolin order. From the stories I've heard, once you walk into the area your hair almost stands up from the energy.
Tomorrow will also be the rank promotion ceremony after all the testing. Hopefully when I write tomorrow it will be as an official Shodan. Wish me luck!
The only reason our travels have taken us through Zheng Zhou are so we can get to the rural city of Deng Feng. Deng Feng, as well as Zheng Zhou, reside in Henan (pronounced "huh-nan", maybe you've heard of Hunan style Chinese food??) in the middle of China. This little rural town is the home of the last remaining Shaolin Temple. Tomorrow morning we set out fairly early for the temple.
I don't know if you, the reader, believe in Chi or not....but, this place is literally *alive* with energy. This town is home to a 2,000 year old Taoist temple as well as 74 kung-fu schools. The kung fu students, not counting the Shaolin, make up 40,000 of the region's 100,000 residents. The Chi-qong exercises of a few thousand years as well as the burial sites of the monks, abbots, and Taoists around here have formed a well. If I walk outside and practice my breathing just a for a few seconds I can feel my entire body tingle. It feels like a wave starting at the perinium and simultaneously traveling down the legs, up through the back, and welling up inside the chest and ultimately like a pins-and-needles sensation at the top of the skull. It's a feeling I can produce with some work in the US at home, but here it's like I can produce the feeling on command. It's goddamned amazing.
Tomorrow we can conclude our test in the Pagoda Forest behind the Shaolin temple. It's the final resting place of the Shaolin Monks, as well as the burial site of all the abbots of the Shaolin order. From the stories I've heard, once you walk into the area your hair almost stands up from the energy.
Tomorrow will also be the rank promotion ceremony after all the testing. Hopefully when I write tomorrow it will be as an official Shodan. Wish me luck!
# posted by Chris/Stewy @ Monday, July 03, 2006 
