After training for one month in water style taichi i must say that i have found what i was looking for. As a matter of fact taking as a whole, it’s not only a matter of learning a form or martial arts, or not even an art to improve health -what initially was part of my purpose to join a course like this-but also an opportunity to observe oneself through one’ s own training, through others in every day life, in each and every small acts of relating to others and the environment.

Laziness is so deeply rooted in me that i still need a collective discipline to enhance my will power. This is the biggest work on myself. Actually i don’t know where i found the energy to keep on going everyday as every morning i felt so tired before starting training.

As a matter of fact the relationship between mind and body is so obvious. Despite the fact that i had abandonned all physical training for almost 9 years, and that i’m getting older, i have progressed in flexibility as stretching the tendons is not only a physical aspect; as the more i could relax, the more i could endure the pain and go further.

The 2nd aspect of the connection between mind and body that appears to me so clearly during this month is that even i spent only one hour in meditation, the purification process i had undergone through intensive meditation retreat had continued during this month of training. Moving the qi through physical movements liberates energies that were emprisoned in the body for years.

And last but not least shifu is a living example of how one has to keep on walking on the path despite one’s own karma and weaknesses.

Even if i cannot see clearly my past, i have an intuition of pitfalls i have encountered in my past lives.

Somehow i understand why despite the fact that i was attracted to martial arts since my childhood, and qi gong was so familiar to me the 1st time i heard the word without knowing exactly what it is all about…i didn’t follow this path but had an interruption of almost 10 years, exploring other spiritual skillfull means in buddhist traditions before coming back to the taoist path in a place like this.

It was most probably a period where i prepared myself to receive what i have to receive here, without falling again in the same pitfalls i got trapped in the past.

I don’t know if my internal demons have completely disappeared, this “Golum” voice I sometimes hear in meditation retreats, but for the time being this voice doesn’t come to annoy me. Passion was also the biggest “fetters” in my life. Even if it is not uprooted, at least i’m no more enslaved to it owing to vipassana meditation. I guess that these 2 strong karmic obstacles must be overcome before training in internal alchemy.

I have the feeling that getting more and more grounded, gives me this feeling of being fully alive, this kind of sensation I was seeking in passion throughout my youth.

Not feeling my thighs as a burden anymore in the horse stance, is just like throwing away fetters and returning back to the primordial freedom.

The gate to the other shore is still far away but i have the intuition that the last piece of the puzzle to understand my karma is here in that temple, to prepare myself for the real step on the spiritual journey, and face whatever might be on the path.