Casper's training journal

[Casper]

Dear brothers and sisters,

I have been inspired by my brother Ray to make a training journal as well (I hope you wont mind ) and share my experiences as I progress on my way down the Shaolin path.

I began my training on the 1st of October this year.

November 16th:
First session consisted of 20 so repetitions of Lifting the Sky, Qiflow, Standing Meditation, Lohan Touches Earth, Three Levels to Ground, Seperating Water followed by a small qiflow and ending with short standing meditation and point massage.

Today in qiflow I was enjoying the flow very much and then my whole body started shaking from the upper body and moving down till my legs were shaking. Then the qi threw me down on my knees and then I was flat down on my face feeling the qi. I'm glad I was alone cause it must have been quite the sight!

I also had another funny experience while in qiflow it was like I could see my whole body even though my eyes were closed. I could see every movement that I made very clearly. Afterwards it felt like my arms were made of solid iron instead of flesh and blood.

I entered standing meditation and after a while I saw the image of a woman who seemed to have an Asian look. Then my head tilted backwards (so I looked up to the sky with my arms opening to the side) I was then filled with the utmost sense of joy and starting smiling and laughing. I also had a feeling of not having any hardships in this life and that I could accomplish anything.

After standing meditation I just stood there smiling, feeling so incredibly at peace with everything and I looked at the surroundings like a little child looking at the world. This wonderful experiences lasted for some minute before moving on with my practice.

In my second little qiflow I started slowly singing a quiet song! I dont know what language it was that I was singing, but it felt very peaceful. My hands also came together palm against palm and moved to my chest/heart.

This was such a wonderful session and all that from just doing Lifting the Sky 20-30 times! I am constantly amazed by the depth of this lovely art and the benefits I am getting and am reminded of how incredibly blessed I am for having found a genuine master to teach me it.

Thank you to you all!

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

November 16th,

Night session:
Session consisted of 10 repetitions of Lifting the Sky, Carrying the Moon and Pushing Mountains followed by qiflow, Standing Meditation, Lohan Touches Earth, Three Levels to Ground, Seperating Water followed by a small qiflow and ending with short standing meditation and point massage.

This qiflow was spent rolling around on the ground having my legs stretched in weird ways
Also had some very deep exhales with various sounds and then I had some serious big and heavy coughs - seems like the qi was doing a thorough cleaning.
I suddenly felt very aggresive and started punching around as if being in a fight.

In standing meditation I still find it a bit difficult at times to let completely go as thoughts will often arise and it takes a little while before I am reminded that I am thinking and thus letting go of the though.

In my last standing meditation I again spontaniously had my palms facing eachother and moving to my chest/heart. I also had my arms moving out to the side with the front of my palms facing outwards and my head leaning back facing the sky.

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

November 17th
Night session:
First session consisted of 30 repetitions of Lifting the Sky, Qiflow, Standing Meditation and point massage.

I still find it a bit difficult at times to just let go of my form and becoming more flowing letting qi guide me when during the patterns. This was definitely a lot easier under Sifu's guidance.

I had a very nice qiflow tonight and was hopping around making weird noises. At one point I started speaking what sounded like Japanese, like I was mumbling tomyself like your grandpa would do I then sat down on my legs like they do in Japan ect. (I'm afraid I dont know the English term for this position, but I hope you know my meaning) and mumbled in this "Japanese" whilst continously doing the Shaolin salute. Outside of qiflow I cant sit in this position for much longer than 30 seconds or so.
Qiflows are always so interesting, if anything else should fail one motivation for practicing would just to see where the qiflow will take me and the best thing is that I dont have to analyse it, think about it or worry about it, but just enjoy it and enjoy that its making me smile, how wonderful is that?

Still having the same problems with thoughts emerging in standing meditation.

My goals for this week is to practice walking around with my mouth open (usually its closed) and become better at living in the moment because my mind have a bad habbit of always thinking ahead instead of being in the moment. So those are two things I will work with this week.

With respect,

Casper

[Ray]

Hi brother,
I'm glad to see you started your own journal as well. It's a really great way to clarify and remind yourself of your aims and objectives.

^^b

Ray

[Casper]

Greetings all,

Last weekend I went back up north to Beijing to start my Shaolin Gongfu practice under Sifu.

So now I am busy practicing all the things Sifu taught and am practicing my stance training (can now hold each stance for 20-30 breaths), doing the Art of Flexible Legs and the Art of Agility as well and practicing my gongfu set 5-10 times for each session.

I feel that my training is going well and coming out of a stance session I had to stop for a minute and go "Wow, I feel absolutely great!" also after training I feel really grounded and connected to the world. Its a great feeling.

Lately though some doubt has begun to arise; Is my posture in the stances correct? Is my qiflow strong enough? Am I really letting go completely?

Also after last night's session I felt great, but I also noticed that I was very iritable, could get annoyed easily and I had no idea why?

Through this wonderful forum and my Wahnam brothers and sisters I realise that this is one of the pitfalls when training and that it is normal for this kind of doubt to arise (especially when training on your own) so I remind myself to let go. I apologize to the people I might have snapped at and I keep my focus and mind during my practice to correct my stances and making sure I am doing it ok.

It is an interesting journey.

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

4th of December

Greetings brothers and sisters,

I just came home from my night qigong session and what a session!
After 20 so repetitions of Lifting the Sky I went into a great qiflow where I was jumping around, rolling on the ground and staggering around like a drunkard I even did some odd deep base voice chanting and then had a very strong cough at one point I was wondering what might come up from down there some good deep cleansing going on it would seem.

In standing meditation it keeps getting easier for me to completely empy my mind of thought and just focus on the sound of my breath.

When I finished my meditation with a nice point massage it afterwards felt like I had just had 10 red bulls, I was so jagged and happy! I even felt like running a bit on the way back just to use some of that energy

With respect and a huge smile,

Casper

[Casper]

December 7th

Winter has arrived here in Hangzhou, but I have no options for indoor practice so I still go to my usual spot at the campus of Zhejiang University. I don't mind at all cause its a very nice spot and I love practicing out doors. When I leave my dorm room to go there I am wearing long underwear, pants, 2 shirts, gloves, a scarf and a cap. But when today when I went back home I was wearing only long underwear, 1 shirt and my cap

When I practice Golden Bridge I reach a point some time where my body suddenly begins to feel very warm, almost electric and I feel rock solid. Its almost overwhelming at times, but I feel this is a good sign.

I am also enjoying practicing my gongfu set every day and every time I find a new thing to correct and am glad I am making progress, but sometimes I have to remind myself (and sometimes Sifu has to as well ) that I have only been practicing for two weeks and thus shouldnt demand that much of myself at this point, but just relax, smile, flow and enjoy my practice. But I do feel like I am slowly getting to a point where this could be used for fighting.

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

December 8th

Had a nice experience during the qiflow of my night qigong session: I was making a qi ball and turning it around in my hands expanding and contracting the ball, it felt very nice.

I also realised to day that when ever my friends tell me of problems I always give them advice even when they don't ask for it. I feel this this is some times inappropriate and have thus decided that I will only give advice when asked for it and just listen to their problems.

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

December 9th

Had another good qiflow before my gongfu session today and it was all about animals. I was doing tiger claws roaring like a tiger and did a huge "Yaaaa" at one point. Next I was a crane bashing my wings almost like I was flying which really helped loosining up my shoulders

After my stance training I was about to begin practicing Lohan Asks Way, but suddenly doubt and dispair arised. A part of me was thinking that my form was bad, so I was going to cut corners and only do the set 3 times (the minimum amount of times that Sifu adviced me to practice), but then I remembered Sifu's advice. I relaxed, smiled from the heart and went on with my pratice.

Result? I ended up fully enjoying my practice and did it the 10 times that Sifu adviced me to and felt great. At one point I did an Immortal Emerges From Cave and it just came out so fast and with much force that seemed to come out of nowhere that my first reaction was: "Holy sh**, did I just do that?

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

January 5th

Dear Wahnam family,

Happy New Year to all of you! Lots of things to tell!

First I want to tell how I experienced a rut in my training: Around Christmas I got a very weird feeling that I cant explain. It wasnt really sadness or anything... it just felt weird. This also affected my training where I started having a lot of doubts, I started having trouble relaxing completely and being still in meditation. Of course this affected my results, which in return took a swing at my motivation and I found it harder to motivate myself to go train. Might be due to the coming of winter and the darkness and rather wanting to spend time inside (it should be noted that here in Hangzhou I have no real means of training inside).
Despite all this I still went out and did the training for at least the minimum that Sifu (Adam Kryder) had instructed me and still trying to smile from the heart.
It felt frustrating, but thank to the excellent instruction from Sifu and also our forum I was able to take responsibility for my own training. I made a choice that I was going to have a good session and that I wouldn't let anything distract me - and it worked (of course ) and thus I overcame my first "rut" in training.

My mother also came to visist me for Christmas and New Years, her very first visit to the China I hold so very dear. This meant that I wasn't able to practice as consistenly as I used to due to showing my mother around and making sure she was having a good time. We also went to Shanghai where I didn't have any area nearby conveniant for training.

Now I'm back again and it feels so great to be training again. I am flowing, I am smiling and I am enjoying!

In my stance training I notice that I feel a lot more confident in my Horse Stance than before. My most difficult stance right now is the Unicorn stance, where I am a bit uncertain if my positioning is correct.

I feel Lohan Asks the Way is getting better for each day as well. I am able to relax more and keep my focus at the dantian without getting carried away. Lately it is also beginning to feel powerful, but I dont know if this is really the case

Soon I will head back up north to Beijing again to continue my training under the guidance of Sifu and continue my development - something I look greatly forward to.

Along side my training I have also found my spiritual side developing quite a lot. I have found myself returning to Buddhism again (having only touched upon it briefly when I was much younger) this also helped by having gotten a copy of Sitaigong's "Sukhavati". Lots of things descriped in the book I had already learned from other books, but reading it again was like a second awakening for me

To sum up:
Right now I am just smile and smiles

With respect,

Casper

[Casper]

20th of January

(This is copied from my email to Sifu (Adam Kryder)
Tonight as I was practicing I had an interesting experience that I would like to share with you.
As I was practicing my set a middled aged Chinese man came to observe me. Instead of just ignoring this and relaxing and carrying on with my training I made the mistake of getting a little bit anxious and I felt qi rising and my kiai's also got a bit louder. After finishing the set the man approached me and we started chatting about Chinese gongfu, of which he told me 50 % was "拉圾拳" as he fittingly coined it. It turned out that he had been practicing Xingyiquan for a bit, but wasn't happy with his Sifu or the martial art and was practicing Baguaquan now and claimed it to be the best martial art of all. I told him that I didn't agree and we discussed a little bit back and forth. Then he felt my dantian and informed me that I had no internal strength and even when telling him that I was a mere beginner of Shaolinquan he also scoffed at it. Then he told me that our kiai's were wrong and told me the correct way of doing it (his way) and also wanted to show me his strenght by having me and him pressing our fists against each other and then having me push me back without me being able to push him. I respectfully thanked him for the conversation and told him that I would follow the teachings of my Sifu. In the end we saluted each other and I wished him happy new year and we parted in a friendly manner and he told me that we would probably meet again some day.
This was an interesting encounter and I kept calm during the duration and was respectful, but for a moment it did fill me with a bit of doubt. Not doubt of our school and system - I have no doubt of the quality of that what so ever- but doubt if I am practicing correctly and if I am getting the benefits that our art can give when practiced correctly. I have never been in a real fight before and haven't done any real sparring of any sort, so I currently have no way to show anyone my level, which granted is very low at the moment.
In the end it just made me more determined to continue my training in the Shaolin arts and I look very much forward to being corrected, to making progress and to develop further.

Sitting here afterwards I realise that doubt in oneself will arise from time to time. What is the best way to deal with this? Letting go and smiling from the heart
I think sometimes I tend to have very high expectations of myself and where my level ought to be, but I am still a beginner who doesn't have any fighting experience at all (not even friendly fights with friends).
I am looking forward with great expectations to enter into this aspect of my training

With respect,

Casper

[Ray]

Hi brother,
Ahh, the dantien test. I've had this experience several times actually. In my case, I'm grateful for their kind intentions, but I just keep practicing. I know my lineages are authentic so there is nothing that needs to be proved, not to myself, or my quan

Shaolin Salute,

Ray