Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Afternoon Session - Part 10

by Alisa Joaquin

"Okay, Actually that's eight. The Ninth one that I'll do is the NINTH IMPLOSION. And the ninth implosion, it correlated with the eight directions of movement. Actually the ninth direction would be a center or the axle, right, of a wheel. Regardless of what's going on out there, that center piece is going to stay balanced, right, and centered. It doesn't have to overreact. So you want to try to create a housing and make a tangible shape very similar to when we did with, the teardrop thing is an elliptical shape, right? And then there was the gyro and we got the flat shape. And with empty, we had the spherical shape. So this applies to all of these. The thing is, you create a shape or a feeling of something tangible with your imagination and your spirit. And that becomes qi. So as you create this, no set way, then you can send it away or you can gather and eliminate it. I'll use implosion because explosion is just blowing things up. If you're vacuuming, like slamming a car door on a Volkswagen, or eliminating something, like a backwards pull. Like hitting with a suction cup, if you will. That implosion takes a lot more thought. And you can do them both. So let's try that. And that again, use your own feet and there's no set way. This is a harder one to teach. Because whatever you can create, whatever housing of living qi, the fact is you just take it away. Sometimes that's a violent, humph, you jus really pull it in. Like you see in tai chi where they, you know, with the liver and they shake off. They'll muster up all of this, gather everything, and then right out of nowhere, they'll get it out of there. They all start up again and, boom, they get it out of there. That's what I was thinking when I came up with the NINTH IMPLOSION. But it doesn't have to be hostile. It can be very simple as just wiping it out of the way and starting over again. They way you choose to express it, it's art. Do it by mood. So let's try that. Use your own feet. Let's not congregate by the back. Let's walk on out here and start it up. Start it out before you walk. Sorry. But make a shape. Whatever shape you decide to create there. Sometimes you can make little squares, although circles are stronger than squares. That doesn't mean you couldn't create them with your hands and get them out of the way. That shedding action of cleansing yourself. So you can start in trouble and walking away from it. Throwing your problems out. It can be any sort of thing. Create that little saturated entity and either create it through a vacuum force or else a projection force. Explosion or implosion. Feel free to turn around, and you need to move comfortably on this. Don't think you have to go all the way to the end of the room in order to come back. Make sure you, booom, scoop it out of the way. Scooping it out of the way, throwing it out of the way. How do you know it's a space station, lets blow it up. Good, very good. Once again, you just gather and swirl. Now keep maintaining the qi within your hands. Phfff, you clear it out. These hand motions, they translate all the way to your inner being. Inner being not only means your spirit, but also inside of your stomach. When you're doing kung fu exercises, first you learn how to block and then you punch. The better you get at them, you'll do so much more. And suddenly you don't need to use your arms. You can change your whole stomach and turn and do all internal exercises with that. It starts way out with the hand and it looks real loud. Eventually you get to a point where you incorporate every element of your body while you're moving. So try to progress with that in mind any time that you're doing these. That doesn't mean you want to stay away from subtle, you always need to reduce. Playing something large will translate smaller. Starting an airplane, is the same move as turning up the volume or opening a door. When you put depth on it, your going to move your body a way to be sensitive to that. How the weight distribution applies, forward and backward momentum, is with these spirals. So much of the study of what we're trying to do and also incorporating your feet. Always use your own feet. What I mean by, don't hesitate to move. Because if your upper body mass is traveling, it's easier for your limbs to come into play, to take it where it's going and to feel where it's been. Keeping your whole body alive like that."

Aftward, we went over what we did starting with the LINE MANTIS. He had us do one line mantis, grabbing that rope and going all the way from side of the room to the wall on the other side. With the rope, we turned around and went back the other way, this time turning into the string. Rob always encouraged us to apply ourselves to our own being. He said, "Make sure you twist that. Sometimes we gotta pull it out of there, keep that alive. Slide across there, pull that sucker right out. And any direction is fine, but I want to keep it in a line cause it's easier to teach that way. Keep everyone from crashing into one another. Just rotations, how rotating the limbs applies."

We then went right into MANTIS IN THE VORTEX, reminding us of the teardrop shape. He used the analogy of a train wheel. He described the part of the train, the bar between the wheels and that helped everyone to visualize they kind of movement he was looking for. He stated that was what gave it so much strength for that locomotive type of power . . . "So your hinges from your shoulders can move that way. So when you're bringing this shoulder back, and this one forward, and moving from the waist, you'll move with greater power and more efficiently. You won't need as much effort to get a simple task done. So let's go ahead and try that. Now on the way forward, we'll do the teardrop shape. Don't always keep it straight. Let this thing travel up. Use different types of hand applications while you're doing the shape. Feel around that shape and make it linear on the far end. You want to triangulate with your projection of your technique. There again, the faster you want to go the sharper you make that triangle. Now, coming back this way, once again we're going to gather. Start gathering with your feet just apart comfortable. Start bringing it in. You can be pulling lines in but you're bringing them into your center. Or you could be scooping in. All that is a form of gathering. Now it starts taking steps. And you start to pull in with your steps. Incorporate your footwork with your handwork. Gather in, bring it in. Don't clutch. Don't hang onto anything. Just gather it in. Move without tension.

We then went right into MANTIS CAST A WEB, using the old fishing pole trick. We started with one pole, casting it out. All the time he was doing these with us, he was getting into it himself. He told us to yank it back out of the water, bring it around, and throw it off the other side of the boat. He then changed it into a tablecloth. "Yank it out as fast as you can and leave all the china still on there. Step, step, get into that. Now feel these elliptical shapes, right, yin and yang incorporating both sides of your body. Mental projection is so very very important. You need to feel the stalls, like a bullet, it's that stall, the change of state, the shape that creates a miniature sonic boom which is over 700 miles an hour. And it's done by the flip of a wrist, bang. So with your body, and proper linkage, and moving without tension, you can actually generate that type of power. Okay, through linkage, through mental projection. So when something gets cast out, that elongated technique, as you move your upper torso first, It will snap out to the other side. And you'll have maximum velocity without having to feel hurried or to push it. It's more of a pull threw type of effect. You're creating a circle and then zooo, tying right threw the circle. So let's do this for a minute. Go ahead. Double heads is best, right? Don't repeat yourself. Like I said, it's important to bring it up, and shake it out like a dirty sheet, bam, right, snap it down. Bring it over like a sack of potatoes. Throw that sucker over there. Pick it up and recast the fishing pole. One way you cast it is one you got a sinker. You're casting back the other way it's got a tuna. So you need to alter the weight distribution of what it is you just gathered. Now you got a fish on there, you're going to have to step first, right. And then woooo, and then throw it out there, okay? Have fun with this. Have fun. Okay, nice review. You guys are really ripping.

We did MANTIS SWIMS UPSTREAM next. He had us start off first with one hand and reach out as far as we could. In reaching out so far we were forced to take a step. He then had us follow it and making it interesting. He encouraged us to make a little adventure out of it. Swim around a few rocks. Jump out of the water. Get a little breath. Go underneath see what's underneath that seaweed. When we would get to the other side, he said to surf up and then use our opposite hand. By using the opposite hand, he stated, chances we would use the opposite side of our brain, too. He also said, "Any time that you're doing any of this stuff, even though it's a right hander's world, you always want to incorporate both sides of your body. It's very important. Keep you from being too opinionated. Okay, now you get over there, don't stop. Don't die on me over here. Let's go, pick it up. Now you got two. Here we go, two fish now. They're going to let them cooperate for a while and then let them play. Once they play, they're going to chase each other. They like to jump. Going to dive down for a little bit. When they dive down, let your upper torso weight lower, make your legs work a little bit. Get some exercise out of this. And always project forward. Now this again, through your imagery, you can adjust what kind of river you're dealing with here. It can be a gentle brook. It could be just swimming through calm water. Or it can be a whole flood coming at you where it's actually bowing you backwards. You can even deal with having to fight with coming forward here. That's a good reason to back pettle also. If you don't want to keep turning around, when you get, and they've open up the channels, now there's even more water and you're going to have to move back again. So you can adjust then swim forward. So you can do this in a phone booth. There's still plenty of room. There's plenty of room because you bring all the elements towards you.

We then did SHADOW. He had us give ourselves a little room. We put our arms out, making sure our neighbor's not right next to us so we would not crash into our neighbor. He encouraged us not to be shy. "Remember that's a crime around here to be shy. Come on, you got to get out here. Someone in your way, step around them. Using your peripheral vision you're going to use circles along your sides." He stated that he liked doing a crab style or sketching along the side of a building. He stated when you're along a building, you can still do it, but you're turned flat. You stay along a flat plane when you do that. He told us to make out senses aware of what was going on the side of us, behind us. He said that's what that is very important for.

He then took us into EMPTY MANTIS. That was the one where we were dragons protecting our treasure or where we were shaping a ball. He stated that it was housing this emptiness, making this emptiness important to us. He talked a little about the center and in meditation the center of one's being is located in the abdomen. In gyro physics, he stated you can have more than one center and that this particular exercise was an example of that. He stated that as we create this ball, it has a center. "So you've created a center within . . . Not only do you have your center where you're moving from, but you have an outer center that you're moving around as well. So that's what brings in that figure 8 which is the beginning of all perpetual motion." He then told us to move around and have fun with it. He reminded us to expand and reduce. He said that sometimes it's extremely heavy and sometimes it's extremely light. He said to let it suit our mood. "I know we're not as fired up as we were earlier today, some of us. But we're getting by. See that does apply to other moods."

With that in mind we went and did the HURRICANE from there. He again had us start out with a breeze. He then stated that it was just like the fish one, but this one was weightless. He encouraged us to take nice wide steps. He didn't want us being lazy footed, as he put it. He said, "If you step wide, you have a better feeling of where your body mass is traveling. The weight distribution is so important in all of these lessons. Seems to come into play more. Doesn't mean you have to do it that way, but it is helpful since it is an exercise. You'll get more out of it."

We finished up with the NINETH IMPLOSION. We once again created that little housing then sent it off in another direction. He said, "You can pick it up and smash it on the ground. Let it swirl in one hand. Throw it over here, Dr. J for the lay-up. You got the ball, come up, voom, make the basket. That's still part of this because you have this actual tangible illuminated spherical shape. It seems crazy in your mind, but you've made it real."

He asked at the end if everyone felt good, and everyone burst into applause. Then David came in with copies of Rob Moses' notes that they passed out to us and David shared with us that these NINE PSALMS of Rob's can be done anywhere and that we didn't even have to use the notes, but do whatever the mood strikes us. He shared a story that one of the greatest lesson of kung fu that he ever learned was playing with his dog. He discovered that he was teaching kung fu to his dog. He said the question of being alive, he was sitting back watching us to this and he said we all looked great. He said that he saw serious faces turning into smiling faces. David stated, "If there is anything that you can take away with you is the idea of this all new personal self expression. The precepts, the rules, the forms, the specific moves, you can find that in you." He spoke a little more about taking away with us just the idea even if we didn't remember what it was that we learned. Afterward, everyone broke up for the evening. More people came up to get David's autograph.

In fact, Rob asked Helen if she would not mind sending him a copy. He did not have a photo of David and him together. I thought it would be nice if I would send copies of my photos to Rob as well, so he could have some from this event. Afterward, I decide to get some tea and meet Helen over at the cafe for dinner. I ended up getting behind David in line. I could not help but notice he was looking over the chocolate and I said to him, "Choco-holic huh?" and he replied, "Oh yeah. It's the real reason why I agreed to come back here was for the chocolate." He then bought two chocolate chip cookies and two cups of coffee. Rob Moses joined him at a small table and I sat at the table next to them to continue with my journal writing. I did not want to disturb them. I felt they both deserved a little time together since they probably didn't get together that much after Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. It was great just seeing them together relaxing. You don't get to see that very often.

End of Day 2 - Afternoon Session - Part 10

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
This personal account cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.

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