Um, you wanna count us in?
Yep, we count in like Wayne's World does.
Okay, cool.
So in five, four, three, two, one.
["Rhythm and Wit"]
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Rhythm and Wit.
My name is David Steele,
and with me as always is...
Nick Campbell.
And today we have a very special guest on the show,
and here in my living room, this is Grayson Trice.
Hey!
Hello!
Thank you for coming, Grayson.
Long time, too.
Thrilled to be here, yeah,
it's great to get to sit down with you all.
Yeah, I remember we started right around into you,
again, in the past year,
with running into your wife doing art shows,
and so we kind of connected and started talking,
and you hit me up about doing an interview
about World Tai Chi Day, which is coming up.
World Tai Chi Day, April 27th,
Saturday, April 27th at 10 a.m.
So...
Yeah, door's open at 9.30, just so you know,
so there's a time for people to mingle
and kind of talk to the various instructors,
gonna be their sponsors, we'll have tables
and that sort of thing, and then we'll have a, you know,
actually do some chi gong and some tai chi,
and there's a lot going on.
Where is that at?
It's at the International Dance Studio,
which is 3001 Northwest 73rd Street,
in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Nice, dude, look where we are.
We got notes and glasses and everything.
Yeah, I know, it's really scary.
It's really good to see you after so long.
Yeah, man.
It's like, I don't know, I talked to a buddy of mine recently
and it was just like, I mean, I see you around doing stuff,
and I kinda like see him in the crowd,
I'm like, yeah, that guy's still alive, hell yeah.
Yeah.
And then we just keep moving past each other,
but it's fine to be able to pin you down, you know.
So World Tai Chi Day, this is international.
Yes.
Yeah, and they set it up and the idea is...
Well, the idea is it's a worldwide event
and it's gonna start, there's more information on the thing,
but it starts over in the Orient.
You know, where Tai Chi began, and then on that day,
on the beginning of the day,
as people's part of the world moves into that time,
there's gonna be event in that area,
in the various cities in that area,
where everybody's gonna get together
and do Tai Chi and Chi Gong all at the same time,
with the idea of, you know, for the healing of the world,
you know, give the world an energetic shot
to its immune system, so to speak.
I love it.
So if somebody who's interested in going,
what do you need to bring?
Well, man, really, you don't need to bring anything,
just wear some loose-fitting clothing that you can move in,
and if you have one, maybe a meditation cushion,
but most of the, it's gonna be mostly moving forms.
I think I'm the only Sifu there this year
that's gonna be doing a seated meditation to kick it off.
What about like a yoga mat?
Oh yeah, yoga mat might be good, you know.
No, no, no, I know that, I mean,
from what little I know about Chi Gong, its movements,
is it, do you use yoga mats?
Yeah, well, we use yoga mats.
I really don't care whether I use a yoga mat or not,
but I come from the internal martial arts tradition
where you practice on hardwood floors,
and you get thrown on hardwood floors and stuff like that.
Well, that way you know your ukemi
or your falling technique is good,
because if you can take those kind of falls
and roll around on the hardwood floor, then you're okay.
Usually these days there are mats on the floor
because most of us can't handle
that kind of consistent training.
It tends to run people off.
When did you start?
Oh gosh, I started, you know,
I was first introduced to martial arts
when I was very young.
I had my first karate lesson with the Chiro Takahata
here in Oklahoma City when I was seven years old.
And he was best friends with my uncle and of the family,
and I remember a Chiro coming over
with these old men from Japan,
like Aikido masters and stuff like that,
and they'd show us locks and stuff.
And I was like, I had no idea what was going on.
But you're a kid, you're just like,
oh, this is fun, kind of.
Yeah, well, I really, something about it called to me,
and my parents took me out of the classes
when I started wanting to go in early
so I could do body conditioning.
I wanted to punch hard things and condition my knuckles,
and I was seven, like, no,
you're not gonna start doing that to yourself.
But then I started doing martial disciplines
like freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling,
Sambo, I won a national Sambo championship,
and stuff like that.
And then I got older, I got really sick,
and I realized I needed to start doing something
to get my health back and my strength
and that sort of thing.
I'd had walking pneumonia for seven months
and didn't know it, it almost killed me.
I went to the hospital when I was coughing up blood.
I didn't know I was that sick, yeah.
And so that was some convalescence,
and I found a Aikijitsu dojo near where I lived
up in New York and started taking classes there,
and that kind of spun off, because I was always,
because Aikijitsu is an internal martial art,
and I'm not gonna get into what's the difference
between external and internal and all that,
but save it to say, internal martial arts use energy
to complement their movement and their fighting.
And it's one of those things where it tends
to have a beneficial health benefit.
The people who stick with the internal martial arts,
they tend to stay healthy, live longer,
the external martial arts, they tend to have
a lot of health problems and arthritis in their joints
and all kinds of strange problems,
but we're not gonna get into what causes that
and the reasons for it, but that's how I got into it
because for me, it was always about technique
and training and being smart,
and I thought it was really very much,
that's what made you a good martial artist or anything,
but then I started to feel the chi or the energy
just from the movements, because they're designed
to cultivate and evoke these responses,
and I started to feel it, and I didn't know what was going on,
and I went to my sensei and said,
hey dude, I'm feeling kind of weird,
and this is what's going, I said,
oh yeah, you're feeling the chi.
Can you kind of pin down the feeling a little bit
or associate it with something?
It's kind of like you feel electricity
running through your body,
and your technique is just super easy.
Something that I've struggled with,
even if I was good at it, I found it challenging,
all of a sudden when you've got that body movement
and the energy, it just works really, really done.
It almost feels like you didn't do anything.
Yeah, it's just natural.
Do you use that in your regular life,
like using energy being,
what is it, is it more being in tune with yourself?
Is that the idea?
Well yeah, you have to become in tune with yourself
to be able, you know, this stuff is running
through our bodies all the time.
It's just, we're not aware of it.
So one of the things that the qigong does,
the qigong is the healing side of the internal martial arts.
It's also, you might say, the grandparent of the martial arts
because qigong itself is not a martial art.
You know, it's the healing, meditative side,
energy work side in common parlance,
energy work side of the martial arts
that's for your healing,
your self personal transformation,
and that sort of thing.
And it's something to keep you healthy.
It's something to help you live longer.
It's something to help you go through life
with maybe a little bit more grace,
than maybe you would otherwise.
And, you know, scientifically they've proven
that people who engage in the practice
for 10 minutes a day have a greater feeling of peace
and safety and they're just general being.
They tend to be more emotionally balanced,
meaning that even if they do get angry or something,
they come back to center quicker.
You know, they're able to get over it.
You know, greater mental acuity, creativity,
that sort of thing is a result of it.
In the higher levels of the practice,
you know, that's when we start getting into the mystical,
which results like in Houshan Dao qigong,
if you wanna just stay at the level
where I wanna be healthier, more focused,
happier, healthier, you can do that,
but if you wanna get in the higher practices,
that results in running more energy through your body
in a specific way, which creates, you know,
but you know, in psychology, you know,
they call it transcendent experience
where you go someplace that, or in your mind,
in yourself, wherever it is,
and that's often time called a Kundalini experience,
where a massive amount of energy erases up your spine,
hits your brain, flies out of the top of your head
and you go with it.
Do you feel it?
Have you felt that?
Yeah, I went through the Kundalini about 30 years ago,
25, 30 years ago, I'd been studying with my teacher
and like I told you, I was one of those guys,
is like, man, it's technique, it's training hard,
that's what, you know, and all that,
but he was a very accomplished internal martial artist
and I came across his book,
Path Notes of an American Ninja Master.
He studied Togakurun Impa, which is real ninja,
and he was the direct student of Masaaki Hatsumi,
who's the 34th Grand Master of the Togakurun Impo
in the Bujinkan in Japan.
And so I had no idea what I was getting into,
so I read his book and I was like, you know what,
this is, and at the time I was serving
as a Eastern Orthodox priest and yeah,
and I was, you know, and I went and I talked, you know,
to my bishops and my spiritual and I said,
yeah, just as long as you're not summoning demons,
we don't care, you know, go for it, you know, kind of deal.
And then I said, and I remember reading his book,
I was like, you know what, all right,
he said that he was like really meditating hard
and he was doing this and so I started meditating
and I started doing just the exercises
that he had in the book.
And then I started to feel even more things, right,
things started to happen as a result of the practice.
And so I literally, and this was back when we did,
the internet was like the Compuserve days, you know,
and I had to find him, I somehow tracked him down
and found an email address attached to the Bujinkan
and I emailed him and said, hey, I got your book
and I've been doing the exercises and things are,
and he started talking to me.
It was really crazy, yeah, so that's how I,
my first contacts, you know, with my teacher,
we were through the internet and I started talking
on the phone occasionally and he was always back and forth
doing teaching all over the country
and so when he'd come up to New York City and stuff,
he'd give me a call and say, hey, I'm gonna be in town,
do you wanna come train?
And so I would, you know, and it just kind of went
from there but with me, I was like, all right,
he said in his book, all right,
I'm gonna give this three months,
I'm really gonna do it and I meditated constantly.
You know, three months I went through the Kundalini,
like boom, and that changed my perspective
on the world, life, everything, irrevocably.
Now you mentioned the meditation,
I love hearing all that.
It feels like, because I feel like personally
there's something maybe I'm not in tuned with, you know?
Like here recently, I'm more of a push past kind of guy,
like all right, I'm hurting, let's keep going.
You know, we gotta make the money, gotta raise these kids.
Oh, you know, that's a Hoshin model, keep going.
Yeah, well.
Because endurance, you know, if this is,
to use a Buddhist term, if it's your Dharma,
in the West we call it, if it's your spiritual will,
your true reason for being here.
You're the thing that you can do that benefits you the most
and everybody else around you,
that's a good way of looking at it.
Then you have to keep going, you have to have endurance.
You don't stop.
You know, no matter what comes up,
whatever obstacles or challenges you find that face,
that's okay, you keep going.
Yeah, I had an Uber driver.
And this is so crazy, all right.
I had an Uber driver, me and Liz were in Colorado,
she was doing a Comic Con.
And so I was just loose in a city, you know?
And so I was just kind of walking around.
I like to do this thing where I just like urban,
just walk, meet people, talk,
and then just like wherever I'm at.
Urban adventure, that's what I call it.
So I just kind of put on a backpack and run out there
and just kind of walk around the town
if I'm new in there, you know?
So like if I have a show in Lawton,
I'll be like, when we go up there three hours early,
kind of meet these people, you know?
Go to a Whataburger, you know?
Yeah, just love it.
See if I can find some drugs.
But we go up there and I called the Uber driver
to take me to the Comic Con.
And I was just like, hey, we're talking.
And there's this question I like to ask some people
whenever I meet them and I feel like they kind of,
they're like, there's like a ping.
I was like, I like this guy.
Is there something about him?
Or I like this person.
And I always go, what's your main takeaway so far from life?
Like, you've lived this far.
If you could give one piece of information
to somebody right before you go
that you made it this far, what would it be?
And he was like, keep moving forward.
Don't stop.
So I ran into this problem.
I've been dealing with some health stuff.
But that idea still resonates.
It's like for some reason it's kind of like latched
into my brain so when I get like down,
I'll be like, keep moving.
Just get up, keep moving.
It's like, it almost feels effortless.
It's like, oh, this is the right answer.
It's just because it's some guy I met in an Uber.
And then also I keep hearing it in the world.
Some of our greatest lessons come from unexpected places
and it can be the random offhand comments.
Some of the things that really made a deep impression
on me are just some kind of weird random conversation
I had with a stranger who says the right thing
at the right time.
I love that.
And with you saying it, again, it's like I heard it again.
My wife told me I hear it in the Mastery Book too
by Robert Greene.
It seems like everywhere I'm going, it's telling me that.
And it's like, I need it right now.
Yeah, well, and that's, you know,
when you start doing energy work, meditating,
there's this thing that's called the shadow that pops up.
And you know, and it's a pretty kitschy term these days,
shadow work.
And so one way is to look into what the shadow is,
it's all your nonsense.
You know, it's all the trauma, it's all the bad thinking,
bad habits, bad habituations,
on a practical, maybe psychological level,
emotional problems that come up as a result
of doing the energy work because our body
and the various centers in our body store trauma
and memories in our muscles and in various places,
you start doing the energy work
and starts flushing all that stuff out.
And so it all bubbles up to your head
and you start feeling these things.
Because you know, the way in the West we deal with stuff
is we just suppress it.
We don't deal with it, ignore it.
And people wonder why they're an emotional basket case
the majority of the time.
And we all have a really nice veneer going on,
but everybody's like on the inside screaming,
you know, because of everything.
And they don't know why they're so stressed
and tense and upset.
I mean, Chi Kung for sure,
but I know that what I know is like it helps you move
the energy through your body and kind of move it around.
I do a lot of meditation, mindfulness meditation,
and there's a lot of it that I like to do
is just focusing on different parts of the body,
just still and stillness,
but you're moving your concentration
on different parts of your body.
And you start to feel like,
oh, there's something in my stomach.
It's not like a stomach pain or some, you know, my legs.
It's like, I think I carry a lot of stress
in my legs personally.
I don't know, I've never thought about that
until recently, but it's like moving my legs
helps me get stressed out less, you know.
Or about any moving in,
certainly with moving your body
and doing different things definitely can help you
on an emotional level that we don't realize.
But certainly meditation is a part of that.
But yeah.
Well, I read from your teacher, his name is Glen Morris,
PhD.
I found some information that he wrote online.
Yeah.
That was really, it was kind of like this book
that he put together with another guy.
Where is it?
Yeah, he had sent it to me.
Yeah, Dr. Glen Morris, Wayne Oliver, and James Dow.
Yeah, I know Wayne Oliver.
He's a really cool guy.
James, I might admit, I might not, but yeah.
So they wrote this manual of information
and it's basically how to get to the Kundalini.
And what it had is it's really great intro
of just like, hey, what is this?
Yeah.
And one of the things that it said was,
the idea is to consolidate the health
of the body, breath, and mind.
Yeah.
And then to remember that the body knows
better than the mind.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
And so it's kind of just tuning into the body.
Yeah.
And kind of keeping that.
Learning how to feel it.
If I'm wrong, all right.
Keeping it in tune, keeping that pathway clear.
Yeah, well, I think it's a great way of putting it
is we tend to have a disconnect.
We spend most of the time in our head
and we don't pay attention to our body.
We just assume it's there and it's gonna do what we want
and we tend to ignore it.
And so yeah, I mean, there's three places
that you have to think about health.
You have to take care of your body,
which as a direct and the ancients understood
that they might not have had the scientific knowledge
that we have now, but they knew what they were talking about.
So you get a lot of flowery language.
It might come about seem a bit mystical.
But really what they're doing is they're describing
the energy in a very abstract way and how it works.
But yeah, you have to start with the body
because the idea is, and we hear this theory all the time,
there's even some CIA papers that have been released
talking about the idea that everything is somehow
a fractal hologram that's reflected.
And so the idea is the human body is a reflection
of the greater universe and vice versa.
And as a result, if you wanna, as a result,
you first go into your body, get in touch with your body
and start working on that mind-body connection
and the health of the body, which then affects
the health of the mind and back and forth,
you get this feedback.
But as a result of the practice and getting in touch
with your body, you come to a deeper understanding
not only of yourself, but also how the world
at large around you works as well.
Does that make sense?
I think so.
I mean, I just was doing something
so I was halfway paying attention,
but I love that whenever you said the mirror,
it's like the reflection, because I think that's what a lot of,
I think all the time about art in general,
but it's like art is a reflection of ourselves
that we create and put into the world.
But there's something also I think a lot about
is that every human is just a unique expression
of the earth itself.
So we're all a part, we're all one thing.
We're all this globe of life and energy in the earth.
And it's like, I don't know.
Well, we're all a bunch of stardust.
Traveling through the universe in a big spiral
that's doing this, but somehow orbiting the sun
and the sun's doing this too.
I mean, it's crazy when you start thinking about it.
We get so much energy from the sun
and it's like we wouldn't be here without the sun at all.
It's like the sun is so important to our existence.
And I think that we don't, a lot of people do,
I do certainly, but a lot of people don't think a lot
about how important it is to get sunlight.
It's like if you're trapped inside the house
for so much, like many people have been
in the past five years or three years.
So a lot of people work from home now.
Yeah, that, you know, it's like we're starting
to change more into this society of indoor, you know,
we don't need to go outside at all anymore.
If we don't, you know, we do for our health, but like.
Oh, I know people who avoid being outside.
They go outside only if they have to.
It's so important to get, to use the sun for what it is.
And it's like, you know, helping us be healthier
and be more of what we actually are, I think.
It's funny, we even have an exercise
in Hoshindal Qigong called,
Crane Opens Wings, Look at Set Sun.
Yeah.
You know, one of the best places you can guess
is to do it in the morning outside
and while you're looking, you know, in the sunlight.
There's something to that too.
I mean, that's, you know, gotten more into like,
I mean, scientific, like neuroscience and stuff
about the sun and its effects on us in the morning
and how it can trigger like cortisol release
and hormones and stuff that our natural body
is supposed to do.
Also helps regulate your circadian rhythm.
You have like 10 minutes of sun in the morning
when you first wake up, just kind of be out in it.
You know, yeah.
That's something that I've focused a lot on,
you know, in the past year, but like it's interesting
that they probably never knew why that,
or specifically why that technique you were talking about
was, but it's like, it does.
It helps you just set your day, I think.
It helps you get those energy levels
when you're supposed to.
I don't know, I like it.
And all of this stuff too.
It's like meditations and all these things
are like thousands of years old.
It's like these people have figured this stuff out
a long time ago.
Maybe not truly figured out why, but they have, you know.
Well, I kind of think they, when it comes down to it,
the really advanced practitioners, they knew why.
Because they had experienced it, you know.
But at the same time, the way they expressed it
was different, you know.
And I think that's one of the things.
And what's interesting is that these practices
are extremely old.
And from the anthropological evidence,
they think that the practice of qigong
and the stuff could be anywhere from seven
to 10,000 years old.
So that's like, really?
That's prehistory?
And that qigong comes from the shamanic practices
of the indigenous people in China.
And so that's where they think that,
because they found pottery and pots and stuff
of people doing qigong that are that old.
Yeah.
I think it's very interesting that you
end up in the same place.
Like, back then, it was listening to your body, right?
Because I mean, well, there wasn't
a lot of distractions, you know?
Maybe you do your work.
You go hang out with your family.
You do your thing.
You're more in tune with maybe even the world around you,
because you're not just consuming without knowing
where it's coming from.
And so you kind of move through life
with an understanding of where you are and where you come from.
And then you go, I think it's a little easier to go inside
and kind of just feel what's going on in there
and maybe be more in tune with your body.
But they still found the same place that we're doing now,
but with science.
It's like we're trying to prove them right.
Yeah, and for so long, scientists, it was like, oh,
that's a bunch of poppycock.
This is a bunch of nonsense.
But then the scientific evidence started to mount.
And that's one of the reasons what made my teacher Glenn
so unique was that he had a PhD in psychology,
a science doctorate in psychology.
And then he had a doctorate in philosophy as well.
And he was a college professor on top of it.
He was also, for a while, the psychologist
for General Motors.
Yeah, so I mean, he was a big fan of the scientific method.
And so he used that in refining the Hoshin system of Qigong.
You know, he double-blind tests, you know,
what exercise is really weird.
Because there's a lot of exercises
that made its way in the scrolls that are what I could call,
you know, for lack of a better word, filler exercises,
something to kind of like holdering exercises that really
aren't going to advance the student,
but it's something for them to do and things like that.
Well, Glenn was all about, I want
to get rid of all that stuff.
You know, and he wanted to give people a direct path
to being healthier on all levels.
And if they wanted to go for it and peek, you know,
through the veil, so to speak, they had that to do as well.
Qigong has often been called like Chinese yoga
or Chinese Tantric yoga.
And you know, so there's a correlation
between Tantric Buddhism.
And so it goes on and on and on, Tantric Hinduism.
And he wanted to distill it and get rid of the language,
not the fluffy language, but be able to present it
in such a way that the Western mind could understand it
and practice it and actually get something from it
instead of hitting that wall above.
This is a bunch of nonsense.
Yeah.
That's what I like.
I think that it's something interesting a lot about
with the more, you know, the scientific community looking
at these things.
And it's like people are now like refining them,
making them even better because we do understand
more of the chemical levels and the things that it
does to our brain and body.
Well, you know, it's like just to talk about, you know,
the science catching up.
Me and Gwen Davis, who is from a different school,
the Supreme Science School, we did together,
we did a nine week intensive course
on the correlation between modern science
and the mystical approach of Qigong and meditation.
I delivered the mystical.
She's a licensed therapist, you know, body therapist,
and stuff like that.
And she brought the science.
And some of the interesting things about it
is like at every place where traditionally,
like the so-called chakras are, there's a major nerve complex.
Bundle of nerves that's doing a bunch of processing.
And also, you know, in the system I teach,
we say that there are three major energy systems,
or I guess what you call generators, in our bodies.
There's the hara, or the dan tian, which is your belly.
There's the heart area, your chest, the heart chakra,
if we're going to talk about the Hindu system.
And then the third eye, or the Chinese
call the crystal palus, which is the hypothalamus,
pituitary complex.
It sits right in the middle of your brain.
Well, what's interesting is that gray matter
runs between that complex, the heart complex, and the gut,
and nowhere else in the body.
And the ancients said you had three brains.
And well, now the science is saying is that, well,
you have gray matter in these three places.
And nowhere else in the body.
It's all connected.
Also, a funny thing is, then you have
seven major bundles of nerves that are doing,
they're all connected to your brain,
that are doing a bunch of processing, the three chakras.
And they all said, you know, that's
part of your conscious structure, how you think.
It's happening on all, your body's doing all this thinking.
And they even found, and you can find,
I can't remember where it came from,
but they found that organs, you know,
like the five Yin organs and stuff like that,
have way more nerves and stuff in them
than they thought initially.
And this was a study that was done decades ago.
And so they said it's really strange.
We didn't realize there were so many nerves
and so much processing going on in the organs.
It's almost like they're acting like independent brains.
Nice, yeah.
The gut affects your whole body.
Oh yeah, your gut health gets off.
Are you gonna start having all kinds of problems?
I created eating gluten.
Yeah.
And it really like,
Changed your life.
Cleared my body from mixed signals it felt like.
Yeah.
You know, cause I'm thinking, I was always kind of fighting
this weird battle in my butt where it's like,
well, I couldn't get the right nutrition
because my intestines were swollen.
You know, and it was, you know,
it was making things difficult.
My stomach biome was messed up
cause of the sugar and the gluten and you know,
high sugar, high carbs.
Yeah.
And I feel like when I cleared that out,
I could hear my body more.
You know?
I can hear, oh man, my stomach hurts.
It used to be like, well, it hurts all the time.
Why would that be a thing?
Yeah.
It takes some time.
Yeah, quit being a baby.
You kind of have to clear out the cobwebs.
That's what I think about,
I mean, when I started doing mindfulness meditation,
it's been, well, less than a year actually,
but it was something for me, it was like,
that and journaling too is some similar thing,
but it's like, you're kind of clearing away all this junk
that you're, that's clogging your mind
and your emotions.
And then it's like, once you do that
and you learn to listen to your body,
then you can, you know, see things clearer pretty much,
I think.
Well, when you eat better,
maybe there's not as much static.
Right, yeah.
Cause it's not fighting as much.
It's kind of the cobwebs static,
any kind of just nonsense that you don't need.
That's been my experience.
No, and you know, if you don't feel good,
if you have health problems,
that affects your mental landscape
and how you view things,
cause you don't feel good, you get grumpy,
you get pissed off, you know, whatever.
You know, you're not thinking straight.
And you know, that's one of the things.
So when we start, you know, it kind of brings me back
to what you're talking about,
the consolidation of the health, the mind and the breath.
And you know, what's interesting,
and I could get into the metaphysics of that, you know,
yeah, well, you know, there's this thing
called the three treasures,
which is related to the three energy systems
I just referenced.
And the, the horror is, you know,
if we tie it to what's called the mother elements, water,
and that happens to be where the water chakra is, by the way.
Yeah, one of the, you know,
and that's the energy that creates the physical body.
And that's what they call the Jingchi.
That's the function of the divine feminine
or the feminine principle, the yin gives form.
And then fire is the brain, right?
And that's considered to, you know,
that's our thinking process.
A lot of people, a lot of religions or mystical systems
say that that's kind of the seed of the soul, whatever.
And that's fire.
Well, that's the father, the yang expression.
Well, then you have the human, which is the heart.
The human treasure is found in the heart.
That's where you experience that feeling
of unconditional love.
And most of our emotional feelings are processed,
you know, we feel them very strongly in our chest,
whether it's a good emotion or a bad emotion.
And that's the mercury.
So that even ties or air in the Eastern system,
which in West would be mercury.
So it's all in agreement, even like with Western hermeticism,
which kind of blows my mind,
the idea of the three mother elements
and how they interact to create the five elements,
which creates the entire physical world.
What are the, so you said the five, I have a few things.
I went to your YouTube and kind of went over a few things.
And one of the things you mentioned
was the six perspectives.
Yes.
Yeah, and being childlike.
Yeah.
And how does that fit into this?
Well, it fits into it for one is that
that's what I'm going to be sharing with everybody
at World Tai Chi Day is I'm gonna share
the six perspectives with everybody.
And I'm gonna give a meditation on the six perspectives
in the three energy centers.
Now the six perspectives are very important
in the sense that they help us to condition the energy
that we're cultivating and work with.
It also makes the shadow work that comes up
a lot easier to deal with.
Sokay, my teacher, used to say all the time
that to successfully navigate the shadow work
that comes up is to engage in positive thinking.
And so we're not talking about,
like affirmations or something necessarily
if you wanna use those of course,
but it's not to say I'm good enough,
people like me, I'm nice.
It's not that it's like cultivating a positive
state of mind.
And so the way that we go back to that is
we invoke what's called the principle of child's mind.
Takamatsu Sensei who is Hatsumi's Sokay
who taught Hatsumi, who taught my teacher stuff.
He said that you should try to approach your life
and particularly your practice from the point of view
of a three year old child.
And the reason being is a three year old child
has absolutely zero filters, no conditioning,
sees the world exactly as it truly is.
They can see into the so called other realms
all the way to source.
They're still just totally plugged in.
They haven't been conditioned.
They haven't been put into somebody training
as Ram Dass would call it or hasn't been any trauma
like abusive parents or society or school or other kids
or social programming.
These are the rules.
This is how you think about it.
This is religion.
There's none of that with a three year old child.
They're just there.
And what's interesting about that scientifically
is that three year old children have way more
neural synapses than we do.
They process way more information than we do
as we get older, as we reach the age of reason around seven
during that process and because of experiences
and program synaptic pruning takes place.
And so you lose more and more synapses
because you don't need that information anymore
and you're trying to interact with this world.
And so as you get older, you get cut off.
And by the time you're seven,
you're pretty much here in this realm.
You're cut off from source, all seeing the angels
and all that stuff that people write about being a kid,
their visions, their way, that's all gone pretty much.
And so when we approach everything
from the point of view of child's mind,
what is a child?
A child has perspectives.
There is perspective and that's where the six perspectives,
the six perspectives of a three year old child are love,
kindness, courage, openness, gentleness and creativity.
If you watch how a three year old runs through life,
that's exactly what it is.
They're very loving, they're kind
and they're absolutely courageous.
They have no concept of death.
They don't care if they live or die, you know,
and they can just deal with anything
no matter how great or how horrible.
And they're very open, they're gentle
and they're very creative.
And so we try to cultivate, you know,
these principles, these perspectives,
because a lot of times you can find them in books
and they're usually called laws or virtues or something.
No, it's a perspective.
It's a way that you filter, this is a filter
that we're going to cultivate in how you look at
and interact with the world and yourself.
And so that's what we're gonna be doing at WorldTouch,
at least what I'm gonna be sharing is the six perspectives
and a meditation on that because when you start,
this ties into consulting the health of the mind.
Yeah.
Because through positive thinking,
you know, along these lines, you slowly over time
begin to change yourself in the way you view
and approach the world.
And it's a practice, people have to remember this,
this isn't a religion, it's non-religious,
it's a practice.
You know, you try the ideas, I'm gonna think about these,
I'm gonna meditate on them, I'm gonna try to express these
in my day-to-day life.
And over time, that begins to change you.
And as a result, because you're changing,
it's gonna change the way other people interact with you.
Yeah, because you're changing,
you're affecting the world around you too.
I mean, that's something that, like I said,
I mean, I started seriously like doing mindfulness meditations
about last summer and it's like my life has changed dramatically.
It's in that time, a lot because of how people interact with me
because it's like, I don't know, it's just like,
like you said, I mean, I'm doing things a little differently,
maybe not even that much differently,
but enough to like make a big difference, I think.
And it's just like, I mean, the opportunities that I have now,
I think there are just stuff that I've always wanted
and tried to go towards and then now it's,
I feel like I'm starting to see things clearly,
I can see what I need to do and get it done
and not be, not stop myself.
I mean, there's so much of anxiety and self doubt and shame
and all this stuff that I did a lot of work to get rid of.
Yeah.
And like you said too, it's a daily practice.
I mean, if I usually, it's like these days,
I don't meditate every day, almost every day.
I do five days a week at least.
Weekends, I kind of don't need to as much though, I feel like it.
But it's like whenever I need to, I do it.
That's like I can tell too.
It's like I need to sit down and it's like,
when I start to get unfocused pretty much,
it's like when I start to lose focus, I'm like, something's off.
I don't know what it is.
So I just need to sit down and sit for half an hour or whatever
and try to practice and do some kind of work.
Well, that's what I love about Qigong is it's a practice
that you weave into your daily life as you're doing stuff.
You know, whether you're working, driving a car.
What's an example?
Well, you know, a good example of, you know,
is like I can do my baby's breath.
At this point, I've made it my everyday breathing.
You know, what's sometimes called belly breathing.
You do when you're sitting and doing formal meditation
or traditional meditation.
It's called Zen breathing, Buddha breathing, belly breathing,
Bella's breathing.
We call it in our practice, baby's breath.
It's actually how if you watch an infant breathe,
they breathe from the belly.
The belly gets real big and then they contract and it gets big.
And that actually pulls more air down into the lungs.
Another thing that you can do is like when you're walking around,
keep the tip of your tongue touching the roof of your mouth.
What that does is that engages on a scientific level.
That engages with the parasympathetic nerve response,
which creates a feeling of safety and calmness.
And on an energetic level, that connects.
You have two major what you call energy channels that run up the front
and the back of the body by touching the tip of your tongue,
the roof of your mouth.
That connects those two and that makes it possible for you to ground.
So if you're running energy, doing Qigong or whatever,
the Chinese, there's actually a proverb that says,
don't cook your brain.
So by touching the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth,
that gives the energy a place to go and ground out through your feet
and out your hands.
You're feeling like maybe I'm a little stopped up up here.
Let me kind of take a moment.
I love the idea of practice, this idea of giving your...
I think this comes from being of the childlike mind,
but it's like it almost feels...
Something I did with comedy versus music is I kind of put a lot of bad habits
around music.
I wrote a song about it, it's called Bad Habits.
Yeah, it was like...
You know, it flows as taking on bad habits,
trying to find my way or something like that.
Was that what that was about?
Taking on bad habits tonight, if you've seen the truth, let me know.
Mine was hung up in...
I still have it, like I have a hard time writing, not as much anymore,
but writing lyrics because I was afraid of not doing well
or creating a song line.
But in order to get to the places, like you're saying, you have to be free.
You have to be free of fear and you have to have this kind of attitude of play,
which comes from the term practice.
This idea of coming to this, we're just practicing.
Yeah, it's no big deal.
If we mess up, it's just practice.
And if everything is practiced for the next thing, then nothing really matters.
I think I look at meditation for me, it is a bit of a practice,
but it's like, and they teach this too, but it's like you're sitting
and making yourself calm so that whenever you're in a real state of stress
where you might need to do something quickly and think on your feet, you can.
Well, the thing is and something else is that if you've done the practice,
from a martial arts perspective, we call that fighting from the void.
In other words, you just respond appropriately to whatever the situation is.
And you don't even have to think about it.
Well, that's my experience with comedy now.
Instead, I was like, I'm not going to give myself fear.
This is supposed to be for fun.
I'm going to live the rest of my life.
And I put it like this, I'm an electrician, I'm a dad.
This has to be fun or I'm not doing it.
Well, that's a good way to approach anything.
I remember when Seema, my wife, Ophelia, she's the Seema of the dojo.
And we can get into terminology some other time.
So I really appreciate her support with this because she's been a measurable help
even though she's super busy with her art and everything.
But she helps out and she practices alongside me and all that.
And it's pretty darn cool is that I remember when we first got together,
I was like, as long as this was fun, I'm down.
And we were both kind of saying that's a good way to, you know,
it doesn't mean that you're not going to have problems, you're not going to have disagreements,
but you know, there's got to be that love and there needs to be a sense of adventure and play
no matter how mundane your life is.
And I think that's really important, you know, playing.
They've shown that if people are playing, there's a feeling of play to it
that they learn quicker and they progress faster.
It's the one thing that Mahoshan Mato, there's a second part to it that I didn't share.
It's keep going, keep playing.
Exclamation points on both of them.
I'm writing that down. I want to tattoo it on my arm.
All I can say about comedy is I look at comedy,
stand-up comedy is the difference between music too is that like music,
you sit in a rehearsal space or whatever with your band or by yourself even,
but you rehearse the songs and you practice by yourself.
That's how you get better.
And then you go to the show and that's the show.
It needs to be good, you know, it needs to be well practiced.
Comedy is not really like that.
Comedy is you get up on stage, that's where you're practicing.
That's where you can't do it in a room by yourself.
You have to do it in front of people to get better at it and to learn how to even learn how to get better at it
because it's an interaction with the audience.
And so maybe that could be what I just thought of whenever you were talking about that,
but it's completely different in the mindset of whenever you go on stage versus music and comedy for you,
I'm sure it's like you're going to getting up there to play and practice
and not to like, oh, I've got to play these songs.
I got to remember all these lyrics and do all this stuff.
There's a certain amount, there's something I learned along the way.
Again, because I like I told myself I'm going to build good habits around this.
And it was don't worry about the outcome as soon as you start worrying, good or bad.
As soon as you start worrying about the outcome, then you have an expectation
and that expectation can be dashed and that kills your freedom on stage because you're not free.
And the void that you're talking about, if I get it right, I can tell myself it doesn't matter.
You get up here and your goal is to make these people laugh.
Now, if I have prepared stuff that works, great.
But if it's not, then we got to figure something out.
It's just like in a conversation.
Like I want to make this person laugh.
I don't mean to.
I'm just really good at it because I've had to in my life.
This is what we did in my house.
That's what you learn to survive.
But whenever I'm going good, I'm not even thinking.
I'm just there with them.
And that's dashed as soon as I start going, I hope I do good.
I hope I do this.
I want to be better than that guy.
It's like, well, then you're not at service to the thing that you're doing,
which is making them laugh.
That's the goal.
Right?
Yeah.
The purpose, something similar to what you said.
You don't feel good.
Or at a certain point, you were clogged up and you were out here making moves.
And then you don't feel like you really changed anything of yourself.
But from the place that you're coming from, the purpose, like you're in a better place.
Your actions, how you speak and how you talk to people are just even so slightly more better.
And so that's what I try to do.
And then now with my music, I'll do it.
I'll have any judgment.
I'll sing in my house.
I used to be kind of nervous about singing in my house.
What do you think I'm doing?
You know what I'm saying?
Do my kids.
Yeah.
Obviously, this is like eight, seven, eight years back.
Yeah.
But she was a baby.
She didn't go, remember?
You know, like you just go and then now my kids sing.
It's a beautiful place to be.
They join in.
They see you sing before.
They probably didn't.
I sing the wrong words.
They think it's OK to sing the wrong words.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, and it is.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know?
And that's the funny thing about it.
I can identify with what you're saying is I remember I felt like there was a big impasse
when I was writing music.
But you know what changed it all is the minute I started liking my music.
I love it.
Yeah.
Instead of tearing it apart and writing trying, well, are other people going to like this?
Yeah.
Now, I started writing things that I liked.
And I liked it.
And I was happy with the way I was playing and stuff.
And then guess what happened?
It came through.
Everybody else liked it.
Yeah.
Yeah, they can see.
And they can.
I think people, whenever you do stuff for yourself in any art form, I think that whenever
you're making it for yourself and not for what other people might want, then people
see that.
And then even if they don't like it, they see your passion.
They're like, well, he clearly really likes what he's doing.
So they appreciate it in some level, at least if they don't like it.
Also, I think that, too, you can see the joy on someone's face.
And then you're automatically going to feel that joy, I think.
And you can feel it.
You can tell the, if we want to stay on music, you can tell the artist or the musician or
whatever that's trying too hard or doesn't believe in themselves or whatever.
I think one of the greatest lessons I ever got was going and playing festivals and having
dudes come up and say, hey, man, we got a set.
You want to play?
Yeah.
You want to sit in?
And of course, it's like, oh, God, these guys are really good.
I don't think I'm on their level.
But doing that taught me how to improv and we had some great sets.
But then what was really cool was I was living out on Festivalland, which happened to be
Indian Holy Land.
And there was an old shaman that lived out there.
And I got to study and practice with him.
And he's a weird cat.
He's a visual artist, but he works in every medium, sculpture, painting, carving wood,
metal.
And then he can play any instrument, but he's not a musician, has never taken a lesson.
And so I would hang out with him and his wife and we'd do shamanic things together and he'd
teach me.
And then we'd just start recording music that went with the ritual.
And then the next thing you know, you had albums that were being just put out with all
the orange media and the stuff that was all emergent.
There was no practice involved.
There was no, okay, no progressions, no improvisational progressions that we're going to utilize is
literally do the ritual, hit the button and start recording.
And whatever came out with everybody that was involved is what came out.
No overdubbing, nothing like that.
Just pure expression.
Yeah.
There's a, if you wanted to check that kind of project out, there's a series of videos
that go with it and you can find them on YouTube.
It's called Hit Machine and it's on Bandcamp.
All that stuff is one pass, recorded live, totally emergent, no patterns, no nothing.
And you'll kind of, and it's, and it kind of really catches that, that shamanic vibe.
It's like it was done.
It's you know, shamanic journey is what's going on in those albums.
And it's pretty, so you might enjoy that.
Yeah.
I love that, you know, something that I've read, I mean that you can, they used to do
drum circles, right, they still do, but they were different back then, obviously, because
that was their entertainment.
But like they were doing drums.
It was much more involved, more prominent.
That was the night.
Yeah.
So you're doing drum circles and there were people dancing, right, and people playing
different things, but nobody knew what was going on.
Yeah.
So you would just play and the drums would affect the people and the people would affect
the drums.
Yeah, exactly.
It's kind of like, I'm on the same.
Yeah, we had, we talked to him last week and it was something that he does is like that
kind of interaction with the crowd and kind of vibing off of, I mean, it's any kind of
DJ I think, which was interesting to learn about.
It's like, if you're a club DJ, you're playing music and seeing how the crowd responds to
what you're playing.
And then you make decisions based on that.
So fascinating.
And I think that what I really love about that idea is that it becomes less of scales,
progressions, in theory, in theory, and more of like, what can I do?
Right.
I can do three chords.
I think the key.
You know, and then you do the three chords and go, well, let me see what I can do with
this to affect these people.
And then how they react is like, oh, they liked D and D minor together.
Yeah.
Let me kind of, all right, we keep going back and forth.
They're like, yeah, you can see them moving.
And then what do you do next?
You go, oh, okay.
And so the play, the interaction with the world is in how well you are with your, how
in tune you are with your instrument.
How much you can represent what's in your head quickly becomes, even if you can only
talk that language slowly, you can still affect the room.
Oh yeah.
You know?
I mean, yeah.
Even if you know only a couple of chords.
You can play badly.
That's still affecting the room.
Yeah, that's true.
Oh yeah.
And it's all about being intentional about it.
You know, how do I want to move these people?
And learning how to get better at it, how to affect them.
I mean, I think it's just a-
And your music filtered through your perspectives.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
But I mean, a few curiosities I had was the meditation.
Yes.
You started doing your meditation and you opened this book and you're starting to learn.
And then versus now your meditation, what would you suggest for someone?
Because the problem with me is I like the idea of meditation, but I feel like I get
there with writing.
Yeah.
Because I'll shut my brain off and tell myself, just go with your hand.
I don't even want to hear the communication that's happened between these two.
I just want it to go.
Yeah.
So that's how Mysoke wrote his books.
Oh really?
Yeah, he automatically wrote them.
He didn't think about it.
He just wrote them.
And then we'd go back through and edit them.
He might have just would start writing.
That's how he did all of his books.
And that clear, and when I get that out, I see something more than what I even-
Yeah.
It's tough.
Because you know what you're saying?
When you ruminate, you're like, oh, this one thing.
And then you see it and you're like, oh no, it's not.
Look at all this other stuff.
It's so great.
Yeah.
Well, getting trapped up in your mind, that's kind of a form of shadow work.
I shared this with the class is I have one of the things I do is because I'm trying to
get this out to as many people as possible is for $5 a month, people can be a member
of the dojo and they can either zoom in and livestream the class with us and practice
with whoever's actually at the dojo in real time.
But also those videos are available for them to go back and review over the past month
and practice with it, take notes, do whatever they need to do with it.
Then we also all talk about various topics related to Qigong.
And I think that being able to have the information available is one of the biggest things because
everybody's really busy, so it might not always be practical to be at the dojo of the sun
and moon at 7 15 every Thursday for a public class.
But what you can do is practice when you can and the video of the real classes right there.
Or if they can only make it once a month and you can catch up with the other ones.
Yeah.
Well, you can keep going, regardless of what your situation is.
Right.
You can't make it every week.
Where can they go to get the videos and donate?
Well, go to the Patreon.
And we have a Facebook page, Dojo of the Sun and Moon.
We also have a private group which is open to the public.
That information is there to the Patreon.
Information's disseminated through that.
And there's all kinds of options.
If somebody wants to systematically study and become a recognized student, we would
call a recognized or a formally, a formal student of the system.
They can do that.
Or in that, the cost more.
Or if they want to be a direct student and have a personalized curriculum and one-on-ones,
private one-on-ones with me and that sort of thing, then there's that option as well.
Different levels of commitments or what you can do.
So we're pretty, you know, we're on Patreon, Dojo of the Sun and Moon.
We're on Facebook, Dojo of the Sun and Moon.
We're located in Oklahoma City.
So we're pretty easy to find.
One of the cornerstones that I saw was this idea of giving it.
Yeah, making it available.
You like donations, that'd be nice.
But mostly it's making it available to everyone in the world.
Yeah, because you can show up, right, every Thursday.
I mean, you can go to the class and pay what you can if you just...
Yeah.
Yeah, we have a little donation basket.
And if you want to throw something in there, please, by all means.
And there's no minimum suggested donation.
It's just if you want to throw five in, fine.
If you want to throw 20 in, whatever.
Because that operates on what's known as the principle of geisha, which is spelled in English
G-I-S-H-A, kind of like geisha, but it's not to be confused.
And it has the idea.
And that principle translates into English as pay what you can.
The idea is I'm putting this out there.
The universe is going to take care of it.
If I'm doing something of value that's helping somebody, then they will give back what they
can.
It kind of has the idea of appropriate return.
Yeah.
You know, it's kind of...
So that's the idea behind it.
And the important thing is everybody, regardless of their circumstances, if they want self-healing
and they want to work on changing themselves for the better, fancy word, personal transformation,
if they want to go deeper and get into the mystical side, then it's available to anybody
who wants to do it.
That's great.
You know, so I love it.
Yeah.
I like this idea you're talking about because that's kind of what I do with, I think this
podcast and my photography, I mean, that's something I've been struggling with or at
least trying to figure out how to transition to actually monetize it better.
But it's like, I think that it's also, I'm still practicing it too.
I think that it's like a kind of a system or process I'm going through with that.
Yeah, it's like, I think that whenever you do stuff for people and you don't ask for
anything in return, it's like, what's the natural response for that person?
They're going to want to do something for you too.
I mean, that's just the way that we are, I think, as humans.
So it's such a fascinating way to operate.
I think it's like you were saying, if you give something, you're offering a valuable
service of any kind.
The universe is going to repay you, I think, in some way.
And I like this idea too, because it's some people maybe want to come to your dojo and
learn this stuff and just they're broke.
They just are struggling to get anywhere financially.
But then so they can go there and still maybe not pay anything.
But then the other people that have our well off, maybe throw in extra, you know, helps
cover that person.
Yeah, and that makes me think of some of these people, you know, the whole point purpose
of a dojo is on one level, it's there to challenge the individual to help them grow in a positive
way.
On a societal level, it's about building community and it's run on a family based system.
In Hoshindal Qigong, there aren't any ranks.
You know, you're not white belt, you get yellow belt, you don't go through with the Q ranks
and then the various degrees of black belt.
There's none of that.
It's run off, you know, what they would be called a dojo or a quun system and it's a
family term.
The term sifu is just kind of an honorific that means like honored father, because the
idea is that everybody in the dojo is family, brothers and sisters.
The sensei, to use a Japanese word and not a Chinese one, is kind of like the dad.
Sensei literally means one who's gone before, you know.
So the sifu is somebody who's been entrusted with this information and so he's kind of
like dad.
His wife is called Sima, you know, so that's the one I refer to, I feel you that way, even
though she's been practicing Qigong for a year, but she's the Sima of the dojo and so
it's kind of like this whole family interaction gets going because then what happens is that
starts building community right there in the dojo and you start taking that out, you know,
you take those six perspectives, you take those five positive emotions which you haven't
talked about, you know, and stuff and you try to change yourself, have you embody those,
have that energy, get really in tune with the energy of these ideas and concepts and
then that goes out in the world and, you know, so building community, building something
positive and...
You know you're planting seeds and seeing them grow in real life.
Yeah, and in yourself and as a result, you know, a good mood or a bad mood is contagious
believe me, you know, and a good perspective or a bad perspective is contagious.
Yeah, so there is something I found from Glen Morris that I thought was really good and
appropriate for this month.
I kind of figured we'd get into this, but in that packet, like I said, it's online,
it's at Scribd, I've never heard of it before.
I don't know, it's probably something that's been pirated or put it up, you know, Glen
died on April Fool's Day.
Really?
Yeah, you know, it's, yeah, yeah, he died.
I had a hard time accepting the fact that he had died and this was back in 2005, I believe.
He's been gone for about 20 years now and it was really devastating because he was healthy
and nobody was expecting it, you know, and he, you know, kind of, and there was a lot
of chaos that ensued as a result because, you know, I won't get into that kind of stuff,
but it was very hard on everybody who was close to him when he passed because what he
gave me, and I was young when I was training under him and I really didn't understand it.
And you had asked me, you know, my understanding of the practice is much deeper as a result
of keeping going and, you know, it was always there, you know, has literally saved my life
over and over and over again.
I'm not just talking about the martial arts that I learned from him or those kinds of
friends, it was just like saving my sanity, not being, I mean, we've all talked about
there's like this drain underneath this man and you get too close to it, it tries to suck
you down, you know, and you can always feel that pull.
You know, the pull upwards is a little bit more subtle and you have to pay attention
to it and want it.
This kind of way and I think that, yeah, I mean, but it just really literally saved my
life, probably kept me out of getting into bad, you know, going down that drain, making
that bad decision.
Do you know what I mean?
Especially playing music, you know how crazy it is out there, dude.
I cannot remember, I cannot tell you how, and you probably knew all these cats too,
just passed away, accidentally killed themselves with heroin and stuff.
I went out to the desert and I come back and all these people are gone that I knew who
are really great musicians because apparently now there's a heroin epidemic in Oklahoma
City again.
Oh, this is recently.
No, this is back when I got back.
You know, this was a while back.
Back in 2014.
Yeah, the 2014, you know, that, yeah, about then I think is about when I got back from
the desert.
Yeah.
I remember, I know that fentanyl is the whole thing now.
And that's the new thing.
Good God.
It's been a while.
But like, I didn't really realize about the heroin problem here back then, because I guess
we had got, we stopped playing, our group was over in 2012.
So, I mean, that was...
I had a few friends that we kind of fell off the music.
You know, and I was raising kids and stuff.
So it's like, you kind of, but I like this, there's this idea of like this idea of being
a dad and, you know, and seeing and basically planting these seeds and hope, seeing them
grow and guiding, you know?
Yeah.
And the idea that now you can kind of go back and look at that time where you had your Sifu
and you were like, oh man, I didn't even know what he was teaching me.
And now that you're older with the experience of being in the same position, you're like,
oh, I see it.
And then now you can give it.
Yeah.
Well, and because back then, you know, I was really wanted to be a bad-ass martial artist
and I was more worried about, you know, getting, you know, stripes on my black belt.
That's what I wanted, you know?
And Glenn was always, he used the internal martial arts to bring people into the healing
and energy side of it.
I mean, that's what he was always focused on with me and I could never quite understand
why it was almost kind of like he was trying to push me away from that.
And so instead of sending me to the Bujinkan to train, he sent me to the Chinese, you know,
where I learned Gong style Xingyi Bagua and learned a lot of really, really interesting
and deep, you know, Qi Gong practices that you're not going to get elsewhere maybe, you
know?
And then at all of a sudden, but once I had done enough shadow work, it all of a sudden
clicked and I got it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And that's really what it was.
I had a lot of work to do and he'd given me what's called my blue belt work.
And that was, he felt that for the survival of the art, that it was really necessary to
be able to interpret and express Ho Shin from a Western mysteries perspective, aka Western
Hermeticism.
Yeah.
And so that was my work to do and it was pretty, and so I finally got that all done, you know,
and all that.
And so that's where the Dojo of the Sun and Moon comes from was just from my blue belt
work that he wanted me to do this.
And because he felt that it was absolutely necessary that if the artist survived, and
he was also a big fan of, he wanted to verify and always if this is truth, if what we're
teaching really helps people, you know, his scientific mind is, well, can do the Western
systems agree with what we're doing here?
Or is there an impasse we need to know?
And you having been a priest and being an initiate into the Western mysteries, he wanted
me to do that work because I served up until his death from 2000 to 2006, I served as the
chaplain of the room.
We're non-religious, but you know, I was more like an advisor, people having counseling,
they're having cheese sickness, what's called cheese sickness, they're doing the higher
practices and they're running a lot of energy and they start vomiting and stuff from the
energy, you know, so I deal with that kind of stuff.
So that's what I did as the chaplain.
But anyway.
Do you mind if I read this real quick?
Yeah, please.
I'm sorry for getting off on a tangent.
No, no, no.
I think it's great because this is kind of what he was talking about.
I think, and this is an intro and what I found, I don't know if it was a book or anything,
but it's introduction, Glen Morris, as the years go by, most of what amazed me in the
beginning strikes me as parlor tricks.
Now, the experience of energy works, changes your perspective and perceptions over time.
The experience of a Godhead becomes a so what in comparison to raising your children and
keeping your career afloat.
I can't say going through the Kundalani has brought me any joy.
Most of my students and accidental impregnation have been interesting experiences.
I am too curious and analytical a personality to be able to ride the waves of bliss forever.
Perhaps that is a good thing, as so much is written from a secondhand experience, which
often reports opinion as fact.
The psychological problems of being more aware are painful if you desire positive outcomes
and rewards for your existence.
There are many well-meaning, wrong thinking, egocentric individuals who will go out of
their way to attempt to denigrate your experience or defame your character.
They suck up time and prevent you from working expediently.
There are times when I long for monastic life.
It becomes very important to consider some of the magic and mythological applications
of subtle energy.
God helps those who help themselves.
The major reason I formulated a scientific set of exercises to replicate my own experience
was I was lonely.
I didn't have anyone to play with except Hatsumi-san.
Now I have a bunch of buddies and more that I have developed through reading and experimenting
on their own.
It's a beautiful sentiment.
Yeah, yeah.
I hear the baby bird from you.
Yeah, yeah.
I didn't really think about it.
Yeah, because it was...
Yeah.
You know, yes.
Yeah.
I was thinking about whenever you said that he saw something in you, I think he saw what
you needed to be before you ever knew it.
And that puts you on that path to open this dojo and do what you're doing now.
Yeah, I guess.
That ties into this concept of geary.
Geary means roughly, once again, I love Japanese because you can have one word, but it's a
whole concept that you can write a book on if you want to.
But geary means dutiful obligation.
You acquire dutiful obligation.
That's G-I-R-I.
I see you're getting ready to make that up.
It's my first day.
Geary is dutiful obligation.
In other words, it's an obligation, a debt that I accumulate because what I was given
is something that I could never pay back and I would not have gotten it on my own.
I wouldn't have found it just reading books or doing my own thing.
And like I said, what he gave me literally changed me and it saved my life.
I could never pay him back in a million lifetimes for what he gave me.
And so out of geary, he writes in one of his books, how do you solve your problems?
Geary.
And I didn't get it back then, but because of what he gave me, I didn't even understand.
He'd given me the ability to do certain things, had given me some certifications, and I didn't
even really pay attention at the time when he gave me.
Once again, I was focused on martial arts and kicking ass.
And then all of a sudden, how do I, I started realizing what's really important is to be
of service, kind of be open and just like be of service.
And I was given something that literally saved me and I have, and it's real.
And then the way I got back into this is there was an event, something happened where somebody
was in serious distress, was on the floor lying down, shaking and freaking out.
And I had to use my qigong and the healing that I had learned through methods through
my soke and the teachers that he sent me to work with to help them.
And as a result, people started asking me to teach again.
And then I got the message.
It was like, oh, then it all clicked.
It was like, so I opened up the, made the dojo public and started doing this out of
gear, you know, because, and so if I figure I can help one person, then it's all worth
it.
I love that idea.
It comes with the idea of like putting into your community, giving it something, giving
it your skill because you can't offer anything.
I think, I think that offering money is a lower form of helping.
Yeah.
It's like the easy way out.
Well, I don't want to say that.
I don't have the time.
I'm going to do, I mean, I'm going to try and help you out.
I think it's, it's important, but it's easy to just, okay, here's a month.
Yeah.
You don't have to do anything.
Yeah.
What we give attention to, gross.
What is the opposite of love?
It's not hate.
It's ignorant or neglect.
Yeah, basically it's indifference.
Yeah.
Indifference.
And this idea of giving your skills to a grown community, that community gets something out
of it, but then you do as well by the effect that you have.
I think that, I think that, let me say it again, I'm sorry.
I have a terrible memory.
Glenn, Glenn Morris, I think maybe you feel like it's a dutyful, obviously a dutyful obligation,
but I don't, I mean, from my perspective, it looks like you gave him a buddy to play
with.
And he did.
Yeah.
And so, and he, and what he gave you was a better understanding for the world.
And so there is, I think you did pay him back.
I think you paid him back every time you showed up and you were interested and he wasn't alone
in his research.
Oh, he had a lot of students, you know, man, and came back for me, you know, he traveled
all over the place.
And he still came to you.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, you know, I went to him, you know, the funny thing is he lived right in Louisiana,
you know, at the end of his life.
Yeah.
So, but yeah, I know what you mean as far as, as far as I know what he gave me, what
he taught me, what he passed on, the energy.
You know, there's this whole idea of transmission that you hear in Buddha circles and meditation
circles and in Western mysteries, initiations is what they're called in the West.
And you know, it's that energy that, you know, they pass on.
If I hadn't gotten around him, if he didn't want to play with me, then I wouldn't have
gotten it.
Right.
You know, but it was the fact that he took the time and loved me enough, even though
I didn't love myself or didn't even understand what that really meant.
You know what I mean is, is priceless, you know, and the fact of it, you know, for somebody
can't believe that I'm pushing 60, you know, always look good for your age.
Yeah.
You know, and it's like, I'm telling you, it's the Qigong and, and you were telling
us this when we were younger.
Yeah.
I got something here.
I was like, yeah, but I've got these drugs.
Alcohol.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
But now I'm starting to see, I like, now as an older person, obviously, and coming into
things, I'm like, uh, I, I touch this again.
Now this time in my life, we had to talk to you, but it's like, oh my God, this hits,
you know?
And maybe like you said before, sometimes you just gotta be ready.
Yeah.
This is not the right time.
Cause I think that too, I mean, you know, similar to what we, I think we've been saying
too, it's like, we don't pay attention to so many things in the world.
And I think what you're talking about, whenever you start seeing the same message over and
over, I think it's your body's looking for that in a way too, whenever you start to see
things like that.
But I mean, that's something that you need and it's like something that you don't even
know you need.
Well, synchronicities, but the universe will talk back to you.
I believe highly in that.
I think that, and it's something with synchronicity too, that I thought a lot about, especially
the, over the past pandemic years, whenever I was inside and it's like, if you stay inside,
that can almost never happen.
You know, it's like, if you stay in the house, you have to put yourself in the world.
You have anything happen to you.
So it's a, well, guess what?
Even if you're in your house, you're in the world.
Yeah.
It's not taking advantage of the beauty that's surrounding you.
I think that, you know, something could happen.
So you could come across something on the internet and it could change you.
But like interaction with people, I think it's the most important thing with getting
those kinds of things.
And I think that our bodies, like our bodies go into the world and it's picking up so much
information that our brain is never, you know, we couldn't even possibly comprehend or we
do, but not consciously comprehend everything and all the information that we take in.
Yeah.
Well, getting into what I call the science, you know, calls it the subconscious.
I call it the unconscious mind because you're not conscious of what it's doing.
It knows everything that's going on.
And that's one of the reasons why I'm getting ready to do a six week intensive course on
what I call the journey to Dalmos cave.
It's a very powerful exercises that creates an interface, a way for you to interact and
talk to your subconscious mind.
You know, so that's part of the health of the mind thing that you were talking about.
We take care of the health of the body.
There's all kinds of ways you do it.
And we take care of the emotions, the heart, you know, because you're emotional.
And then we also take care of the mind.
Well, understanding yourself is being able to go deeper into these levels of consciousness
that from our perspective are down below us, but they're actually the ones that are running
the show.
Right.
Yeah.
You're just kind of riding the wave.
Yeah.
You're not even steering the boat.
You're just up there like, man, I'm in control.
And then somebody else is driving.
You're like, yeah, I'm sure you are, buddy.
Yeah, exactly.
So, you know, and that results in, you know, a deeper understanding of yourself and greater
creativity and all kinds of stuff when you start touching that kind of thing.
Because what's interesting is the cave exercise, you know, a lot of people kind of think that
when they first get into it that it's just a silly exercise on creative visualization.
But then what happens is the cave, the meditation practice begins interacting with you.
Oh.
What does this look like?
What does this practice look like?
What does it look like?
Well, it's a seated meditation.
All right.
So, it's with your eyes closed.
And you know, there are certain preparatory exercises that you will do to make sure that
you're in a good space emotionally and mentally, like practicing the six perspectives.
And then when you do the cave exercise, and I don't want to get too deep into it.
Basically, you know, it's a, you go to a different place in your mind.
Yeah, it's like you're kind of creating.
Yeah.
He talks about the cave exercises actually in his book, Path Notes of American Ninja
Master.
The cave, you know, it's laid out in a certain way, but then you kind of decorate your cave
the way that you want.
But then what happens is over time, but through consistent practice and going doing this exercise,
your unconscious mind begins interacting with you.
And it starts inserting things that you didn't insert things, start acting on their own that
you're not controlling.
It's the only, I don't know how to describe it.
It's really wild.
It's interesting.
And so you can interface with it.
Do you talk to it?
Do you just look at it to understand or?
It's a little bit of everything.
You know, how it manifests for any one, every, any one individual is going to be unique.
Yeah.
So it's like, you know, for example, for me, the, you know, I won't get, is like, I remember
right before I went through the Kundalini, I was doing the cave meditation and I was
sitting on a little bench, you know, by a shrine, you know, little tiny church looking
out on a pond on a monastery.
And I was doing the cave exercise and then this figure appears and is running back and
forth and doing all this stuff in my cave.
And this figure is wearing a kimono and has the traditional gear head up, you know, the
waxed hair with the pins through it has cherry blossoms and I could actually see it.
Oh, like very clear.
Well, it's like, I knew I could actually see it.
And as this was, and I didn't make up this career.
I kept chasing this thing around asking like, who are you and what are you doing?
Just kind of interacting with playing, right?
You go into the cave with a sense of play.
And then the only thing that this person said to me was like, well, somebody has to clean
up the place.
And then the next thing I know, it felt like somebody, I felt like an electric jolt, like
in my right at the base of my spine, it felt like somebody had kicked me and it knocked
me off my seat onto the ground.
And the meditation was over.
A few days later, I went through the Kundalini.
So oh, that's beautiful.
Okay.
And this is what you're trying to bring everyone.
You're trying to bring about understanding or healing and self healing and personal transformation
and we can start on national debt.
What is it called?
Chi Gong.
World Tai Chi Day, April 27, Saturday, April 27th at 10 a.m.
Yes, World Tai Chi Chi Gong Day.
Yeah, let's talk a little about it because there's a lot of stuff.
I mean, there's a lot of people involved.
Oh, yeah.
We've got a great group of presenters this year.
It's been going on for three years now and I'm really thrilled to be able to be a part
of it this year.
One of the sponsors.
This is your first time being a part of it and this is the third year and this is the
third year for the world.
I mean, this is like an international thing, right?
Yeah, it's an international thing.
It's going to be the third year overall too.
I can just read you a little bit what it says is that on the last Saturday of April at 10
a.m. local time worldwide events begin starting in the earliest time zones of the New Zealand
where the mass Tai Chi and Chi Gong teachings and exhibitions are held.
Then as the planet turns, events unfold all across Australia, Asia, Europe, Africa, North
and South America and finally ending in this worldwide wave of key and health education
with the final events in Hawaii.
The mission of the World Tai Chi Chi Gong Day is educating the planet on how to boost the
world's immune system with scientifically proven natural health practices.
Nice.
And then who are, can you mention some of the instructors?
Yeah.
We've got some here.
Oh yeah.
Well, you know, like.
You mentioned Gwen Davis.
Gwen Davis.
That was mentioned coming on this interview, but can you talk to her?
Yeah, she's teaching a 10 hour continuing education certification thing today and had
to have the space in the dojo because we share the space.
She is a student from the Supreme Science School of Chi Gong and she does a lot of other
disciplines as well.
And she's a really great person.
She's given the dojo a home through which we can fulfill our mission.
And we do, you know, intensive courses together.
You know, we team up instead of being competitive.
You know, we, we work together and yeah.
And she's real awesome and she's going to be warming the crowd up.
Rick, Brett Shubert, who's a really great Tai Chi and Bagua player and Chi Gong practitioner
for God knows how long he's going to give the opening statements.
And I love his perspective and I think that's going to be really good.
I'm going to go over, you know, meditation with the six perspectives, which we've talked
about.
Gwen's going to do an opening cultivation exercise that kind of prepares the body for
moving the energy.
And then the older, what the old men as I call them, the seed, the older seafoods are
going to get up and, and go through their, their stuff.
Like, you know, Rick Krauss, who's awesome.
He's going to go over Yang style, Tai Chi long form, which was the form that was taught
and developed for the yellow emperor, for the emperor of China.
That was the Imperial courts form of Tai Chi that they did.
It's funny, Rick Krauss, I had never met him, but I tried to get, cause he also does therapy,
like talk therapy, I think too.
Like he's a therapist.
What is the word I'm missing?
Anyway, speech therapy?
Yeah.
Cause I was looking to get into that last year, but I never did read, but I read a lot
about him and he learned, that's when I kind of first learned about Tai Chi at all.
And I was like, what is this?
This is interesting.
Yeah.
I believe he's a psychiatrist or something.
Yeah.
He's, yeah, he's like, all these guys are like doctorate and stuff.
I'm like, I don't carry a doctorate, you know, from a normal universe.
I saw his name on this.
Like, I think I recognize that name.
So it's great to see him like in all these other people.
Yeah.
And then we have master Van Tran.
He's, he is awesome.
He does a form of Tai Chi.
He's an acupuncturist, you know, and, and he does a form of Tai Chi that stimulates specifically
the acupuncture points of the body.
And unlike his, his, his style of Tai Chi only has two, what they call forms or kata
that go, that go through it.
So I'm really excited.
I think that's really cool.
And then Ed Cunliffe, who's, you know, does a bunch of stuff and, you know, an old Aikido
player and other things.
And he's been certified.
He's going to do the 10 step Tai Chi form, which is good for various things.
And then Quan Asante is going to go over nine step child longevity, Chi Gong, which I've
never gotten a chance to experience.
So I'm really excited, you know, a lot of, a lot of really, really good knowledgeable
people are presenting at this year's event.
It seems like a lot of different types of, you know, you can probably go to this, even
if you practice one or several, you can probably learn about some other techniques and different
things.
And it's a good place to kind of get exposed to different, you know, people when they hear
Tai Chi, it's probably whatever, if you're haven't gotten into it, it's whatever you've
seen or been, you know, in whatever form it is.
Cause there's all kinds of, it's like, there's all kinds of schools or styles of Chi Gong.
There's all kinds of schools of Tai Chi and, you know, Tai Chi can be looked as like the
great grandson of Chi Gong.
It's a martial art that it waves the Chi Gong into it, which is really cool.
And yeah.
Yeah.
How long on average do you think this is going to last?
Do you think this starts at 10?
When do you think it will end?
Oh, well, it'll be done by one o'clock.
So you know, we open the doors at nine 30 and there's about 30 minutes or so for people
to mill and kind of talk.
And then we're going to start the event and then, you know, each instructor, it's going
to be, I think about 15 minutes, 15 minutes, you know, per section.
And it'll give everybody a good taste of what's going on.
And it'll be done in a way that regardless of what, whether you're an experienced practitioner
of some form of discipline or practice or you don't know anything, you'll be able to
follow along and practice with everybody and hopefully get exposed to it.
Feel some energy and see how it makes you feel.
See if it's something that resonates with you.
Well, I'll be there.
April 27th.
See, it starts at 10 a.m. but your doors open at nine 30.
There's a recommended donation of $20.
Yes.
And it's at International Dance Studio 3001, Northwest 73rd Street, Oklahoma City.
So it's going to be very exciting.
And I just love being able to talk about this and share this event.
I mean, that was kind of your whole idea was just, you know, talk about it and spread awareness.
Yeah.
And that was I going to say about that is it also we have an online component.
This is the first first year that that's being offered.
Nobody can't come or isn't in Oklahoma City.
But you know, knows about it.
They can go.
There's a link on the Facebook event pages and all the information that we have out there
that they can go to that link, make a donation and they'll be given a link to stream in live
to the event as it's going on to either listen, participate, however you want to go about
doing it.
I love that.
I love the freeness, the openness, accessibility.
And to what would probably help all of us.
Oh, yeah.
That's the thing is, I think that's kind of why I was really thought it was important
to bring you to be on here because I've been getting into some of this stuff.
Like I said, the mindfulness stuff.
And I think it's just so important.
It's hard to convince people to try stuff or anything.
You bring up my meditation or any Tai Chi and people are like, no, what?
No, they don't understand.
They don't.
They think it's.
Oh, gosh.
I mean, I remember when I first started doing this stuff, if I tried to talk to somebody,
nobody had any clue what I was talking about.
And then at the same time, then it was like, you know, being here in the midwest, southwest,
you know, tends to be pretty conservative.
Yeah.
What are you doing?
Chinese witchcraft?
Yeah.
That kind of stuff is like, I think there's a little bit of that mentality, especially
here for sure.
I mean, that's why it's like I don't really talk too much about what I do.
And it's like, I think you try to tell some people, the people that I know and I grew
up with, if it's like I can think of telling something like my dad, for example, it's like,
you know, it's like, I don't know, he would just not understand it at all or something.
It's like, and just probably look at me like I was crazy.
It's like, what?
You just sit for half an hour and just close your eyes and don't do anything like.
Yeah.
It's called sleeping.
Yeah.
You're not asleep, you're awake and conscious.
I mean, it's weird and to people that don't haven't tried it or whatever.
So it's hard to talk about.
But I'm thankful you come here and talk to us.
And I think that our viewers and can get a lot out of this.
Hopefully people can become curious and try and go to this event or just even pick up
a book on meditation or.
I mean, just whatever.
I mean, there's all kinds out there.
And I think that that's one of the biggest challenges.
I remember you sent me that is just like as far as the biggest challenge is really raising
awareness because most people, when you say Qigong, they have no idea what you're talking
about or traditional healing arts.
But exactly, you know, and so getting it to being able to get it out there and present
in such a way that somebody can wrap their mind around like, oh, yeah, OK.
That's why I think maybe I'll give that a shot.
Yeah.
That's the most beautiful thing is seeing somebody who does give it a shot.
You don't see him for a while and they come back.
You're like, well, and you don't see him for a while again.
And then they start coming back more consistently and they start talking about what's happening
with them and changing them or the things.
And I think that's a really beautiful, exciting thing to see.
And everybody that's done that has come back with being better.
Right.
Yeah.
I haven't seen anybody get worse.
Yeah.
As a result of it.
Yeah.
And that's one of the reasons why in Hoshindouchi Gong, we're really, you know, we're real all
about, you know, what's called the kudin or the oral tradition practice of the secret
smile, which creates it's an overall arcing practice that you're supposed to do your entire
life and involves all kinds of things from exercises to stretching to perspective.
Management is a good way to perspective.
Management.
I really like that.
It's the idea that your perspective can be managed and you're not stuck with it.
Yeah.
And that's what it comes from practicing child's mind.
Another one I like is Shoshin that walks hand in hand with child's mind, which is, means
beginner's mind.
In other words, whatever you're doing, even if you're an expert at it, approach everything
as if you're a beginner.
You don't know anything about it.
You know, so if I go into a Tai Chi class, well, Tai Chi, Qigong class, some kind of
thing, I don't go, well, you know, I got three black belts and I know what I'm doing.
No, I go in there and it's like, I don't know anything.
Yeah.
And that's how you learn.
Yeah.
Empty your cup.
Yeah.
Empty your cup.
You know, always a beginner is what Hatsumi would say.
I'm always a beginner.
I've heard a little bit about, I mean, I've read and learned a little bit about this child's
mind, beginner's mind, but something about, I've learned about teachers.
If you're a teacher or somebody like that, like the best teachers are always the ones
that like are learning with the student.
They're like, yeah, it's like you're learning.
It's like you're teaching someone, but it's like their eyes are bright and why just like
they're learning it for the first time.
And I think this part of it is like learning it, seeing that the student learned something
is kind of that visceral experience or that vicarious kind of thing too.
But I think that's the best way to be because like you're saying, I mean, you're open to
learning new things.
Nobody, it doesn't matter how long you've been doing anything.
You're not a complete expert and know everything about it.
You know, it's just.
Well, even if you are, let's pretend that you are, you know, go into whatever you're
doing is, I'm a beginner.
And that way you'll be open.
You'll catch things that maybe that you didn't before.
And that's one of the things that we've been talking about.
Like my personal experience with the practice over 25 years is it constantly changes.
You know, it's a living thing.
And you know, one of the makes it possible for me to catch things that I didn't before
is because I approach it as a beginner.
And from the perspective, you know, try to a child that's just playing and having a good
time with it.
And you're asking me is if I were to tell somebody something is like, I think the most
important thing, those are kind of those are the more most important things you can do.
The most important things, honestly, when you're first taught Qigong or a style of meditation
or martial arts is are the basics.
They call them Qihong.
You know, these are fundamental principles.
The most important stuff is taught to you first because it's that important.
What we consider to be more advanced technique or higher practices are not as important as
the stuff that you're taught as a white belt, so to speak.
That's what's really important.
That's the stuff that's going to save your life.
Like the rest of the stuff is not necessary.
I think.
Well, and also if your basics, if you're Qihong, whether it's meditation, aren't good and really
solid, when you get to the higher stuff, it's either not going to work or you run the risk
of damaging yourself energetically or or if it's in a martial context, you're going to
get yourself killed because you've been taught bad technique and you never you never mastered
the basics and you wanted to get off into the cool stuff that looks really cool.
And oh, well, then that technique isn't really going to work necessarily if your basics are
bad because all that stuff has to be be there.
Foundation.
Yeah, the foundation.
Something else I want to ask you was in.
I've been running into the situation where it almost feels like going against the grain.
I feel like that was my 20s.
Now that maybe in my 30s, I'm more or less finding ways.
All right, man, where do we follow this?
Does that kind of make sense?
Like comedy became a thing.
Let me follow this.
Let me follow these emotions.
Let me follow this idea.
It's almost like there's a spark of interest in things that directions you need to go.
And I feel like I fought that in my 20s.
Do you feel like opening yourself up that because openness is a big part of this is
opening yourself up and allowing even the good and the bad through allows you to see
those and maybe find that spark and go towards the right direction.
I would almost say like a fish goes with the stream instead of against it.
Well, that's the whole idea of, you know, Taoism or, you know, there's a lot of what
I love about the Japanese systems.
And, you know, the way Soke taught me or Glenn is was, you know, it's very syncretic.
It's non-religious.
We consider worship a private matter.
That's up to you.
We don't want to necessarily need to get involved in that.
But really, I was going some there somewhere with that.
What did you just say?
So the fish going with the stream.
Oh, yeah.
Well, going the way, you know, the Tao means the way, you know, going with the way, the
energy of the universe, go with the flow, be mindful, start paying attention to the
great energetic cycles like the seasons and the astrology maybe even and what's going
on in your learn about, you know, these concepts like the five elements and get to that point,
you know, like the old man in the desert, you say do without doing.
And that's also what's really weird.
This is an American Indian, you know, practice, but it echoes something that said by the Tao
of sages all the way over and this all comes from shamanic practices, you know, the same
thing, you know, be still, do without doing.
I've heard that even in, you know, the Qigong circles too.
And so you find this idea from these old practices where it doesn't matter where it is in the
world is echoed and even almost verbatim repeated, which is kind of interesting.
Interesting lessons that are the same throughout different cultures.
Well, if you think about, hey, the universe works a certain way, nothing you can do to
change it.
It's going to keep doing whatever it does.
It's just, are you in tune?
Yeah.
Are you, are you, are you trying to fight against it?
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing is like, I think the world, I think our culture at large and especially
commerce and corporations and any kind of advertising is, um, mimicking what the world
naturally wants to do to you, to give you your purpose.
Here's McDonald's, here's McDonald's over here.
Here's McDonald's right there.
Oh, I must want to go to McDonald's.
Yeah.
Instead.
Yeah.
It's called, it's called programming for a reason.
Yeah.
You know, it's a form of predictive programming, you know, and people can read up on the psychology
of it, but yeah, you know, humans are creatures that have it.
And that's why, uh, we're talking about the subconscious mind, why corporations use logos
AKA symbols and stuff.
That stuff gets anchored in your subconscious mind and then it gets processed back up.
Oh, I must really, I need to go to McDonald's today.
I got a real hankering for McDonald's.
No, you don't.
You've just, you're, it's just that loop that's coming back.
It's just at that time it's coming back around.
Yeah.
I feel like now that I've kind of listened to my, I've had to be less static so I can
listen more.
I've been able to better go with the flow, find those interests, follow my nose and the
work that I have to do or that I end up in going that direction feels effortless.
Yeah.
The idea that like anything that I do for comedy is I've never had this feeling where
it's just like, I'll just do it.
I would just do this.
I love doing this, but I have to kind of fight myself to tell myself to get up and go to
work because I'm like, well, I got to make money for this family.
I got to feed these people.
But I take the idea of play from this and I try to apply it to that.
Yeah.
As you should.
I can't be kind of again, I'm going against the grain a little bit, but I'm also, I know
that it also feeds me.
So let's just go have some fun.
Yeah.
There's no reason to go to work and be miserable.
Yeah.
Even if it's something that you don't particularly care for, you know, how does that benefit
you or anybody else?
And in those moments when it is like, oh, this customer is terrible or this is happening
and it's a little bit harder to, I have comedy to be like, all right, this is going to be
a great bit.
Yeah.
You know, or let me turn this around.
Even then you can try to do something.
Yeah.
Any hardship I deal with now, I give it a little curly Q at the end and go like, oh
man, I got these hemorrhoids.
You know, I got this problem.
Well, it's real pain in my ass.
It's an astastrophe.
An astastrophe.
I like that.
Yeah.
And that's like a new line I put in.
And now when I think about my hemorrhoid, I just go, you know, like changes the idea.
I mean, it's still uncomfortable, but you know, it's a thing nobody talks about, but
it's prevalent.
It's one in four Americans.
And I feel like the unspoken is, you know.
Well, you know, it's kind of funny is that that's one of the reasons why.
And there's things that you can do and I can share them with you.
You know, is that one of the things, boy, how do you go into this?
One of the things is when you cough, don't push out.
A lot of people push out, you know, like, you know, like, you know, getting the habit
of sucking your pelvic floor and your butthole in and then cough.
And because what happens sometimes is that can push those veins out, you know, weakens
the pelvic floor.
And that's one of the things that in Qigong is that we do a lot of exercises where we're
tightening the taint, so to speak, and all that.
And that helps prevent stuff like that.
And actually, I've cured hemorrhoids that way.
Well, I'm going to go.
You push the vein back up and then you tighten things up and you kind of hold it and then
you make a habit of, you know, start doing your belly breathing, tighten your pelvic
floor.
And then you take it off, you know, this is a silly thing to talk about.
It feels funny.
But it's not because we talk about it all the time.
So this is good.
Because the alternative is like some of the stuff they do, like put a rubber band around
it and let it die and fall off.
That sounds real.
I've known people that that seems really painful.
So but, you know, I've actually successfully taken care of hemorrhoids in my life at various
times by doing that.
Yeah, and that seems a lot better than going to spend, you know, whatever, seven thousand
dollars.
Yeah, some guy who's barely giving you attention.
If we're talking about attention as a form of healing energy to something, I've never
spent more money at a doctor and not felt attention.
That's the only I go.
I went to a doctor.
This is the every time I go up, I'm like, hey, man, I got this problem.
You know, it didn't fix.
He's like, maybe we can open up again.
It's like, man, what are you a car?
Can we figure it out the first time?
You know, but it's a there's a lack of attention in American medicine.
Yeah, that kind of like biomechanics.
Now, it's not even like, well, it's not a perfect.
I don't know.
I'm not going to get very frustrated with it.
You walk in, spend two hundred fifty dollars and then they're like, yeah, looks this.
Let's give it six weeks and they shoot you out the door.
And like I said, I think attention is where you get energy.
It's like, I think this is a great thing, too, because Eastern philosophies and medicine
or whatever like that kind of these things can heal to and different than our Western
surgery.
You know, all this crap.
Well, the it's really interesting is that the Oriental or the Chinese theory behind
change is very holistic.
They believe that if your energy systems are off, then it's going to affect the organs,
the mind, everything, and then you might manifest a particular kind of illness.
And so what they do is they treat the whole thing in the West where myopic we try to find
the one single pathogen and then kill it or cut it out.
And that's going to fix the problem.
Well, guess what?
If you're still out of whack, if you're cheap, your energy isn't flowing well, your nervous
system and all that stuff isn't working right.
Your body's not in shape.
So don't be surprised if the exact same illness manifests.
And they've done they found that like Chinese medicine is better at dealing with a lot of
like mental illness issues in Western medicine and all of its drugs and stuff is that a lot
of it is about, you know, balance being balanced, a balanced human being.
And we can get in.
That's another podcast on how you can go about doing that.
Well, I'd be happy to revisit and come back and, you know, good chance I'm going to go
into this, but it's a good chance that I'm going to continue because I'm looking for
that David mentioned meditation.
They helped him out a lot.
I find meditation in my music and like writing, but I think there's something to after I read
that I kind of sat with myself and I do do that now where I'm like, oh, I feel different
parts of myself differently now.
Like I said, there's not as much noise.
And now that it's it expresses itself, you know, through me now.
I mean, obviously, I still have to kind of stuff things down just to kind of go exist
a little.
I think everybody does.
Yeah.
You know, but I think now I'm like, oh, well, I know I'm stuffing it down now.
Yeah.
Before I didn't know.
I think that's how you exist.
If you do have a big issue, like something in yourself that you need to address and it's
very difficult and you have to recognize it, but it might take a long time, but you can
work on it and do different things.
Maybe you just try to always push it down and not try to work on it ever.
I mean, that's then it comes back as a manifestation.
Yeah.
And for me.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not just in your body or I mean, just whatever.
You said the body holds like parts of your body hold trauma.
Yeah.
How is that expressed?
I mean, if you don't get it cleaned out.
Oh, exactly.
You know, you start you start manifest.
It starts manifesting in strange ways, strange illnesses, aches and pains.
You develop a condition, you know, you know, mental health, the way you I mean, that's
another thing is like how you think directly affects your overall physical health, just
like your physical health affects your mental health.
Yeah.
So, and also the way you breathe, you know, we'll talk about consolidating the breath,
the breathing techniques and stuff that affects your body and your health because are you
all you're breathing real shallow and you're using your upper chest, you're breathing
slow and deep as a general rule, you know, even when you're exerting yourself, are you
activating are you breathing through your mouth, which activates the sympathetic nervous
system, which is the fight flight response and get you all amped up a bunch of cortisol
and adrenaline, you know, biological speed running through your body and you're all paranoid
and freaking out and triggered or are you doing things to engage the parasympathetic
nervous system, which creates a feeling of safety and peace and helps you.
Is that through the nose?
Yeah, it's by breathing in and out of your nose and touching the tip of your tongue to
the roof of your mouth and if you engage in the best and just doing that helps engage
the vagal nerve response and all the stuff which creates these feelings.
Start coupling it with baby's breath, the breathing, then it becomes even more powerful
because right there you're affecting the mind, you're calming down the body and you're
affecting the breath and you're getting more oxygen.
Getting air down into the lungs that there are places that most people that those lungs
never get any air, it's all up high.
Yeah.
Because of the high chest breathing, yeah.
Does it as a muscle start to atrophy over time?
I mean, is that a thing?
Oh yeah, muscles, if you don't use something, you lose it.
You don't use your mind, you're going to lose it.
If you don't use your body, it's going to decline.
I mean, we can't, we're all going to pass, you know, at some point this vehicle can't
keep going, you got to lay it down at some point.
But yeah, you know, how you treat it and what you do with it affects how long it can help
you out.
Yeah, that's what's crazy is like these old guys that are still, they're still like Monaka
Sensei who is another student of Hatsumi who was my teacher's teacher.
He runs his own school and I know a lot of guys in the Genincon, he's like, God, he's
pushing 80 or something and he's jumping and rolling and teaching people how to use katanas
and exotic weapons and locking them.
I mean, it's amazing to watch and then if you get the opportunity to listen to him speak
about some of this stuff, that's really illuminating too.
He probably speaks like a much younger man that would then because of his mental training.
Yeah, and you kind of look at pictures of him, you can tell he's healthy.
Yeah.
You see pictures of an old man in mid-roll, you know, flying through, they're doing a
roll that's locking these young guys up and executing techniques.
It's pretty, pretty amazing, honestly.
There's something to this stuff, I think that's for sure, like with the health benefits.
So I think that's it for the show.
I don't know, is there anything else that we didn't touch on that we wanted to bring
out?
I don't think that, I just tell people, find us on Facebook.
Yeah.
You know, we've got all kinds of things.
If you want to friend me on my personal page, Grayson Tries, you know, there's links all
over the place.
Dojo of the Sun and Moon on Facebook, on Instagram, on Patreon.
We post a lot too, as far as, you know, you always post a weekly, you know, events or
your weekly class for sure.
Yeah.
And also do you want a monthly Sunday?
Oh, that's right, the last Sunday of every month, right down here, not far from you,
Point A Gallery, 39th Street, I do, Sunday afternoon Qigong from 2 to 3 p.m., you know,
just for the community here.
Same public format as we do at Spirit House on Thursday nights, pay what you can, just
come out and train, man.
I would want to come out to that one because that one I can make.
Thursday evening isn't too bad, I mean, it's great for, you know, most people, but I usually
go to sleep at 7 p.m. because I work early, early in the morning.
So it's difficult for me to, but I definitely want to come out to a Sunday afternoon, sometimes,
you know, I think I missed the last one.
I thought about it that day and I was like, man, I should have went, but maybe next, this
month.
Yeah.
And we have classes every Thursday at 7.15 at Spirit House Yoga at 50th and Shartel,
if you're in Oklahoma City, if you want to get, you know, join online, you can do that
by going to the Patreon and signing up for the $5 a month.
And that's one of the reasons why I try to keep things as low as I can.
And be, if you're interested in this stuff, I'm getting ready to do a six week intensive
course on the journey to Damos Cave, which deals with the interface between your subconscious
and your conscious mind.
And once again, I only charge $200 for that.
And that's like daily lessons and a weekly class and a conversation with me once a week
if you wanted to talk about your practice, any questions, challenges, successes, whatever.
Six weeks?
Yeah, six weeks.
Dude, that's not bad at all.
Yeah, that's a really good deal.
Yeah.
Well, like I said, you know, at some point the price will go up, but I really, really
want and the thing about this is, is that there is a private discussion group and all
this information, all the videos, all the lessons I send you, all that is as long as,
you know, are available to you forever.
You know, as long as there's an internet, you can go access those videos, you know,
and so you can keep that in your repertoire and review it and work with aspects of it
as you deem necessary.
That's all I was curious because you have a Patreon, so if you join the $5 a month.
The idea of the $5 a month is, will you have access to all those videos?
They'll be up for a month and then it gets deleted and we just kind of keep moving and
talking about different topics and that sort of thing.
Yeah.
Because Patreon, I think, can work in different ways.
Yeah.
Well, that is just, you know, that's now, if you were like at a different tier, if we
want to talk Patreon, if you're like, you know, systematically studying Hoshidao Qigong,
then any video, all that stuff is in perpetuate, it is available to you because you're what's
called a formal student.
You're publicly recognized as part of the family.
You're not just a, I mean, you're a student.
You know, you're part of the family.
That information is available to you.
And also, there's all kinds of, there's training manuals and all kinds of stuff that a student
on that level gets and so you're not in any danger of losing the information if you're
serious about doing it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You can get it.
Yeah.
It's available.
Yeah.
And the thing is, is if you're just doing the $5 a month, if you just keep coming back
and doing the classes and participate and reviewing and engaging in the discussion,
you're going to learn a lot, you know.
It's a really good value if you're going to do it continually for sure.
Yes.
I learned a lot.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I'm going to start belly breathing, baby breathing.
Well, I think that's it for the show.
Thanks, Grayson.
It's good to see you again.
Well, thank you for having me.
It was a pleasure.
Yeah.
Hey, guys.
How are you?
Good.
How are you?
Good.
Hey, guys.
How's it going?
We're here doing a thing.
We have a few upcoming events.
First one we have is Put a Cork in It Comedy Prom.
All right.
This is the most fun we're going to have at this venue.
This is our first of the theme shows.
You can show up.
You don't have to dress up like you're at prom, but it's a fun thing.
There's going to be a winner for best dressed based on some secret judges.
All right.
So nobody gets their butt whooped for picking somebody.
All right.
And then we got Dave, he's going to show up about an hour early.
We're going to do prom pictures.
Yes.
The doors are open at 530, right?
That's where we will take photos from 530 to 630 or whatever.
Yeah.
And the show will start around 630, 640 like it normally does.
We're going to be participating.
I'm going to try to dress nice.
Liz is definitely going to dress better.
And so the idea is step into an enigmatic, okay.
Step into an enigmatic world of laughter and intrigue, put a cork in it, comedy prom nestled
in the heart of downtown Oklahoma city.
Let the anticipation build as we transform your Friday night into a mesmerizing comedy
prom.
All right, guys.
And we're our headliner.
This is a super fun.
Our headliner is a magician.
Yeah.
Very cool.
Yeah.
Just like prom.
That is John Shaq.
He's super funny.
Then we got Curtis Newsome featuring as well as Ashley Watson.
And then I will be hosting.
And then we get $10 in advance, 15 at the door.
And that's downtown.
Put a cork in it.
Brick town winery.
Nice.
Perfect.
That was awesome.
Okay.
So that was on Friday.
The same night.
Friday.
Yeah.
Friday.
Oh yeah.
The same night is Friday.
So just after that.
See, the problem is I'm going to be taking photos there and I'm going to leave immediately
and then go to Norman.
Because Norman Music Festival.
Oh yeah.
What's happening?
So I'm going to go down and try to catch some shows there.
But I would normally go to this show, which is also down the street at Point A Gallery.
It is Date Night with the Martin Duprass.
Date Night with the Martin Duprass.
Yeah.
And Second Chance 420.
Yeah.
Because they do like if you have a card you can smoke in there.
Anyways.
So Date Night with the Martin Dupras is back.
The show that tries to get you laid.
Has it been to every one of them?
Has it worked?
Yeah.
I don't know.
They're doing their best.
I don't know.
They're working with what they've got.
I'm trying to work on myself personally.
So that's my own issue.
We're stoked to present this month's stacked lineup of Brett Jennings, Jamie Clark, Wampus
Reynolds, and returning for Second Date Night appearance is Lynn K.
So that's a great lineup.
Yeah.
I mean, like I said, I'm going to have to miss this one because I just can't.
There's too much going on.
So that's going to be Friday, April 26th at 8pm.
Five dollar cover at Point A Gallery 2124 Northwest 39th Street.
So that's it.
Well, I guess we got one more.
All right.
We have another show on the 27th.
Saturday, which is also going to be the day that I'll be doing the Tai Chi stuff.
It'll be super fun.
Rough and Ready Comedy Show, Saturday, April 27th at 730.
Get ready to laugh your socks off at the funniest comedy event in town of Edmund.
All right.
Here we go.
Saturday, April 27th, 2024 at 730 p.m. at Rough Tail Brewing Co. for a night of nonstop
laughter and entertainment.
Our talented lineup of comedians will have you rolling in the aisles with their.
OK, guys, here's the deal.
We got really good people.
We got Shawna Blake.
She's coming from Tulsa.
Great headliner.
Constantly works the loony bin.
Then we got Cepeda Cheeks.
Also, isn't he from Tulsa?
Also from Tulsa.
I just saw him this past week whenever I went to Tulsa and killed it all over the place.
But I saw him working out some new hilarious stuff.
Dude, OJ, watch out.
And then we've got Leo Mendus, my heterosexual life partner, good friend and writing buddy.
And lawyer.
And lawyer, so watch out.
And me, Nick Campbell.
It's going to be a 320 West Memorial Road on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Guys, please come out.
It's going to be a great show.
Yeah, this is going to be the first one at Rough Tail.
We have the ability to hold 30 to 40 people.
Or if we have enough tickets, 100 to 150.
So they have a small room or an open room.
Either way, we're bringing both speakers.
Nice.
All right.
Well, that's it for the show this week.
Thanks, guys.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you on the next one.
Bye.
Good job, guys.
Thank God for standing.