Health and Fitness

It's a good idea to have some small things in your home to remind you that you need to train. Whenever I travel, I always wear a Jade Buddha amulet. This isn't just for good luck, this also reminds me to be peaceful. If something difficult happens, I tell myself to calm myself down. I also carry a small Buddha with me. Before any important decision, I meditate for twenty minutes to clear my mind. I also take my Instant Health Massage Brush with me, and a skipping rope in case I can't find a place to run then I can find a small park to skip for half an hour. This means, I never have an excuse not to train.  In my office I have a Jade Energy Stone and a   Wooden Star Palm Massager in front of my computer. When I work at the computer a lot, I stop and use this to massage my hands for a while. These are all powerful things to remind myself to have a positive mental outlook and to keep training. These positive things I surround myself with, make me feel that I'm not even...

There was a famous Ch'an teacher called Dogen Zenji who said: "Hitting the mark is the result of ninety-nine failures." This means it's okay to fail. We need failure to lead us to success. Thinking in this way means we will never be discouraged with our practice but able to use each experience to enrich it. What makes our Qigong or Kung Fu practice go deeper is the day-by-day effort of taking time out and practicing. If we talk about it all the time then it's just a dream. It's the doing that matters. People sometimes ask me, Why do I still do Shaolin Steel Jacket? I'm thirty-six now. I no longer fight in competitions. I don't need it for my daily survival. But I want to demonstrate to my students that we are far more than we think we are. I want my students to go beyond their limitations, the limitations people set on them or the limitations they set on themselves. Interestingly, it's usually our mind that we have to work on, more than our body. ...