A personal account of the Tai Chi, Qi Gung, & Taoist Meditation Workshop held at the Omega Institute with David Carradine from October 6-8, 2000

More comments and questions continued. One person got up and talked about David's music. He stated that as a musician he appreciated his music.

Rob then stated that music is such a wonderful teacher. I did not know that Rob was also a musician. Rob stated that David was a real good musician and that he was a hack blues man, but that it was okay. Rob then mentioned, "The think is kung fu is as vast as music. So you can do it from as many different angles. I know you're a musician, but do you bang the symbols, ore are you a concert pianist. Do you listen to country western. Are you a drummer or a guitarist. Do you play the harp. See it's so vast. And kung fu is every bit as vast as that. There's so many different directions that you can seek with it. And these little games that I come up with, they are just ways for pursuing your own truth. And how you choose to elaborate on them, is as completely up to you. Some people need to, you know, the wow , wow , wow, and in their mind fight monsters. Some people can just feel the light and the wind and just completely fly and completely embrace God right away and don't need any of that stuff, and everywhere in between. Just like music. I think Music is a wonderful analogy. And language is a great analogy. When you start learning kung fu, you first have to learn to block both different ways. Then you have to go through the opposite of that. You need to know when . . . if you’re both going one way or the other way. Then you find that you do it really loud at first. Then you get to where you can even feel them without even having to go through them. You just feel them with your internal organs. You can come up with this stuff, right. It just goes on and on. And then it's like learning a language. Little babies, first thing they learn is, uh, dada, right. The first thing I wanted to teach him was dada. And then milk, you know, potty, they've gotta go potty. They learn these little brief things and they know how to get what they want. Or you'll recognize these *made sounds* oh that means he wants milk. And only their big sister can tell what he said, *Waaa* That means he wants that big bottle on the third shelf behind the video . . . Sisters know that. Even tually, they'll master language and they can say and express themselves because he wants to. You have to think about where the words are coming from. And Kung Fu so often is structured in a sense where as opposed to learning how to speak, you learn how to quote Shakespeare. So this is all laid out. And this is the most elequent way to speak and people get such pride with it that they can't carry on a conversation. They can't see the relationships between the movements. And that's why I . . . The task that I'm trying to take on is to relate these elements of the benefits of the movements and put them in a little bit easier where they can be done. They never have to be done the same way twice. It's just a matter of being aware. Pay attention. It works itself out in the wash and as far as a protection stand point, getting back to our original question, at least you won't have to think, One, Two, hmmmph, and try to reassess the ability to move. You will be less apt to fight, freeze, or flee, you're going to either flight or flee. You certainly shouldn't freeze. And if you flee, it should be out of respect for life. It shouldn't be out of fear. Because if you're comfortable with yourself, your relationship to God, there's nothing to fear."

Another man stated that one of his teachers would say, sometimes kick, sometimes run.

Rob agreed then stated however you choose to defuse that bomb, you want to be as gentle as possible.

Then a woman got up and told a story from ten years ago. She had wanted to mention last nigh that she had worked in Camdon NJ. She mentioned that some guy tried to grab her off the treet one night because he thought I was trying to interfere with his business. She could not understand a work her said because his street language was so think and he was just yelling and carrying on so. She was looking up at him (because for her everyone was so much taller than her) and she stated to him that she did not understand what he was saying. He then gave her one more look and gave her one more threat and then he walked away. When she had ran into some of his prostitutes and they told her that he was known for killing people at the shipyards and they could not believe that she was standing there telling her story. They would have been more scared and I was just so fascinated and he as so confused. She mentioned that she would like to develop more of that sense of armor around her because she is so small and everyone is so much taller than her.

Rob stated that all she had to do was continue the practices and it would make her more aware of things. He stated that it was had to know what protected her in that situation. She might had made him reassess himself. Maybe he felt embarrassed with himself. Ron wasn't certain. Without being in the situation, all you can do is speculate. My take on it is that she was calm and simply fascinated with the guy's usage of language. Because she could not understand him probably worked in her favor. She wasn't afraid at that time. And the fact that she showed no fear probably earned her some respect. He could not just bully her. She also speculated on the reason and Rob then stated that for whatever reason, they were happy she was here. It's rather odd. I had my share of bullies growing up, but I have not ran into some of the dangers that some of the folks at the workshop mentioned. I should feel lucky that I have not ran into anything like that, other than a man who tried to forcibly make love to him. It was someone I know. He made me mad more than he made me feel afraid. The fear came afterward. I chew him out for it later in a VERY public place. I never went out with the guy again. I saw a year or so later and he offered me a ride. I turned him down and walked away. So, that's the closest I've come to experiencing something that would have been considered dangerous.

Rob went on to say that it's not about having he ability to be able to clobber somebody. "It's not like . . . Oh, we can just say spend a weekend at some retreat and you're going to go off and take the title off of Mike Tyson. It's not necessarily that far, but that doesn't mean you can't better yourself. And this is what we want. We want to just improve our life. Just give you a little direction. If you want to pursue kung fu further, be very open. And it's not about this technique and that technique, and we learn to do this . . . you block this way, you can block that way, or you can go forward or you can go back."

Another woman mentioned that it takes time to find a teacher.

And Rob agreed, "You go into a place and you really . . . the same thing what we're doing here. Awake your senses. how does the teacher work with his students. How do the students work with each other. Are these people you feel good around. Check out other schools. What their teaching isn't always important as just the vibe of what's going on in there. And you may have to check it twice. First impressions are not always right. If you're really serious just take your time and pursue it."

Then I spoke up and mentioned about visiting the first school. The instructor that I spoke to tried to discourage me from doing kung fu which did not make me feel good. i had already been doing kung fu through the video tapes. But he said to do Tai Chi, it would be better for me (as if he knew what was best for me). I didn't go to that school. I knew what I wanted and I wanted to be able to find the right teacher for me. I had already been doing kung fu through the videotapes. Rob stated to me that was good. I then mentioned when I went to the school the next, White Birch, that the sife made me feel welcome. He did not try to discourage me.

Rob then mentioned that the problem with Martial Arts it has a tendency to be macho land. "So many people are caught up on their own fears they just never really grow out of that. It takes a while. Most of the time the reasons we go into the martial arts are so different than the reason we stay. We want to be heroes or the star of the movie, or something when we go in there. Beat up that big brother or guy down the street. It's usually a fear-oriented thing. And once you get into it you find, WOW this is great stuff. And you get this great respect for life. If you don't confront a situation and you do walk away it's generally out of respect for life, and it's not because you are afraid. You want to at least get to that level, have a positive effect, regardless of what you do. The outcome should be positive one way or the other. Whether it be just, fine, let it go. I'm having trouble grasping a particular situation, but I think you know what I mean. I'm mumbling?"

Then David say, "Yeah, but it's charming."

One guy mentioned about Einstein and Rob replied that he was not that familiar with the man the only thing he was familiar about Einstein were from pictures that he had seen.

Then David chimed in with, "Einstein was the greatest comic that ever lived. Some of the stuff that he would come out with, the lines, sometimes they were so obtuse . . . He would have some very straight strict orderly mind and maybe a brilliant one, trying to confront him with hard, you know, trying to make him define things exactly. And he would always come up with kind of Rob Moses sort of answers, these just flowing . . . What was it . . . One of my favorites is that thing he said about how the relationship that a word has to the concept that it signifies. He said it's not the same relationship as beef to beef broth. It's more like the relationship between your overcoat and the little square of cardboard that the hatcheck girl hands you. And you really have to think about that for a minute before you can even figure out what he said. And the difference between genius and stupidity. Genius has its limits. I remember seeing him on film once, and somebody was introducing him. They had one of these microphones. Remember they had those microphones that was this big (making a circular gesture) and the guy says, 'Would you like to say a few words to the people.' And he looked at the microphone and he said, 'You really believe that I talk into this that people will hear me?' And I thought, what is he trying to make people think, that he doesn't believe in electricity or something. And I thought, well maybe what he's actually saying is that they won't listen. I mean I can say anything I want, but I know that the guy who was asking him to talk into the microphone was just left, like he said, he was on another plane. It was a plane of humor or whether he was saying something that needed to be reinterpreted before you would even understand it. I mean, he was so far over this guys head. And I guess over our heads. I mean we have to . . . whole bunch of other scientists have to make up a whole new kind of science just to explain what he said. But I really do think he was just a stand-up comic."

Then Rob added, "And kung fu guy, too. Because he would talk about the relationship of walking in different directions on a train in relationship to the landscape."

And David said in the background "Standing on an airplane."

And Rob responds, "Yeah, and you can feel that."

"You're waking backwards on an airplane but it still feels like your walking forwards," David added.

"You're walking on a train and you're feeling that inertia as you're trying to go forward it's almost like one of those deals on the train. When you go the other way on the subway, you don't feel that. Or even when the subway stops. Me and Mike Verdroe (?), we were raised around subways, we're from the hood. The beach, because we surf and stuff. That's the way we approached the subway. The first time we road it's like WHOA can't stop it, hanging onto stuff. It was like, let's try not to hang onto stuff, right. Then it was like we would end up in these fu positions and these surf positions, right. But you could feel how it wanted to throw you forward. And it was just a fun way to do kung fu. We're doing kung fu riding on a train. And it relates to Einstein even though I don't do the math. (Big Laugh) But I could feel it. So it's uncalculated reality.

At that point we took our lunch. It was then I had the idea of buying David a chocolate chip cookie after having been in line with him yesterday. I happen to get there where there was only one chocolate chip cookie left, so I bought that cookie and another ginger snap cookie. Their ginger snap cookies were absolutely fabulous. They were thick, dark and chewy, not thin and crisp. So after having lunch and buying the cookies, I went back to the main hall to wait for the short afternoon session, a treat to be sure.

End of Day 3 - Morning Session - Part 7

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2002.
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