So you don't forget... 

The journey back home has started and this morning said goodbye to a dear dear friend in Las Vegas. Boarded the greyhound direction Los Angeles and as the miles go by I reflect upon my time spent in LA and Las Vegas. If one were to ask:"how was it?" my immediate reaction would be, AWESOME! And that is no lie but at the same time it was confrontational and a lesson in acceptance, patience, humility and most of all once again realizing that I know nothing! That's right, I know nothing. Well maybe a little...
The first stop in the USA was at master Yan Xu's Shaolin Temple Cultural Center USA. There is this particular routine I learned on a few occassions but it never remained and was missing something. This routine happens to be one of his signature routines so off to master Yan Xu. It was going to be a lesson I will never forget!

Nervous as hell, when he said : "show me"...
When I was done he would look at me and ask "who teach you this?" Well it is always a bad sign when a master asks that and I thought oh oh. But it is also a good sign because then he would start correcting the form. In the end he corrected almost everything. It was overwhelming, this feeling of being a total beginner of knowing so little, of knowing nothing...but at the same time it was liberating and I felt great!!!
Why? Because it erases ego and gives purpose to your practice.
Next I would go to Vegas and train with master Xing Wei. That week in Vegas I would work on what I learned and it looked horrible partly because my knee still isn't one hundred percent. After training I would feel sorry myself but that feeling would not last since the atmosphere at that school would be one of support and friendship. Sometimes we are unnecesarily hard on ourselves, as was I. Realizing this and giving in to the state of knowing nothing made my training experience a most pleasant one.

I mentioned earlier that I was not going to forget my training with master Yan Xu anytime soon. Not so much because of what I learned but more because of what I felt. At some point during training he demonstrated an application on me (and my travelcompanion). We were standing on either side of him, not knowing what to expect, when he suddenly got hold of a spot on our upper arms and pinched us. My feet literally left the floor! Three weeks later, I can still feel it...
So you don't forget and I surely won't this routine is now here to stay.

Omituofo!