YMAA Chapter 7: Goodby Yellow Brick Road

Saturday morning; up as usual for 6:00 AM meditation, final packing up, one last breakfast with Dr. Yang and the boys, and then it was time to fire up the SabBatmobile and drive off into the Pacific mists once again, back to "the matrix" as Dr. Yang might put it, of  21st century America.  (Though I should admit that I write this from my staggeringly lovely lodgings in Oceanside OR -as evidence I present the images on this post- still on sabbatical. I'm hoping to forestall full reentry into the matrix for another couple months at least.)  After three weeks I had pretty well acclimated to the rhythms of the YMAA Retreat Center, rhythms that exerted a definite sort of gravitational/inertial force I had to shake off.  It is a remarkable place, they are remarkable people; I will be forever grateful for the patient attention Dr. Yang paid to my form, technique, and to my questions, and for the warmth, hospitality and camaraderie extended to me by everyone at the center, guests and all.  But the truth is that at heart, I'm a restless spirit. A strong current of wanderlust roils just below the surface of even my most sociably comfortable self, providing an ever-ready energy that makes it relatively easy -even pleasurably exhilarating- for me to "break free" of... whatever.  What I leave behind and what I'll find up ahead, while important stories in their own right that mustn't go unattended, are nevertheless irrelevant to this particular high; the exhilaration derives directly from the transition itself, the journey between worlds, sparking across a synapse the size of a life story.

So, I don't think I could be happy living a monastic life of deep commitment to an ordered community.  Let's just say I "have commitment issues".  I prefer to cast myself as The Wandering Monk, a benevolent troubadour/ shaman who, while not belonging perfectly to any of them, moves easily between the realms of  "the matrix", the natural/animal world, the arts, the monastery, and the university, by utilizing the dark and ancient art of deep improvisation.  A peaceful itinerant tinker/teacher of voracious curiosity, with a handful of certified specialties, a vast store of  little bits of knowledge from here and from there and from all over the map, all wired up together in a completely unique, random sort of network in his head, and a strong natural inclination to share what he knows.  That just sounds and feels right to me.  My natural habitat, my meta-calling.  I think I'll think that's who I think I am for awhile.  (I just knew all those acting lessons would come in handy!)  What's the risk?  Yes, it's an embarrassingly 21st century geeky way to think, I grant that; create from your deepest self-impressions an "avatar" of your ideal self, and then live it. But so what? He sounds harmless to me, and hey; we're dealing with the matrix, remember? I can try to be whatever I please, just so long as it doesn't hurt profits. Or prophets, for that matter.  And as long as he's not also useless as well as harmless, why not? The TinkerMonk.  (Monktinker?  That's no good.  Like I said; a work in progress.)

And I do want to note that I'm quite satisfied with how my main intention -to revitalize and tune up my own qigong and taijiquan practice- has been achieved.  While still (and ever) the skeptic, I do understand the concepts and techniques of harnessing qi energy on a much deeper level than when I arrived three weeks ago.  The intensive, daily training with Dr. Yang himself was every bit as enlightening as I could have hoped for, and I will surely find a way to return for another stay of at least this long, or longer.  But to afford that. I'll have to rejoin and work the matrix for awhile.  And that's cool; I like my matrix job just fine at the moment, so going back into that world will not be a hardship.  Though I will state clearly and for the record here what I've been saying, both in my head and aloud, for years; I belong in the Pacific Northwest.  I've felt this way since the summer of 1975, when I first hitch-hiked from my home town in western Minnesota to the Olympic peninsula, the first of what was to become several visits to this part of the world.

This visit has crystallized my determination: I hereby pledge to actively devote myself to steering the trajectory of my life to a total relocation to the Pacific Northwest, somewhere in the coastal range, from Northern California to Vancouver BC, but most preferably within easy distance from Portland OR.  Even if it means a fairly radical reordering of the basic infrastructure of my life. Into every stable system must occasionally come a disruption -a fire, a hurricane, an asteroid, a plague- to jump start and re-invigoration of the engines of evolving life, and this won't be the first time I've put a match to my "settled" life.  But I've learned some things along the way, and at my age, with my family responsibilities, a controlled burn makes more sense than a wild conflagration.  I'll need a plan this time.  But I'm on that.   

I entitled my very first Evolutionistas! blog post The Sabbatical Search For...?   Have I maybe found it?  Better sleep on it; probably won't seem like such a good idea in the cold light of the matrix's morning sun. But gotta stay at least one step ahead of the machine.  I'm not yet so enfeebled by my years spent in this contest that I can't manage at least that, for awhile longer.

                                                                                                          All images captured by Scott Stroot at Oceanside Beach,

                                                            Oceanside OR, using an iPhone.

YMAA Chapter 6: Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast.*

As it turns out, my visit to the YMAA Retreat Center was a two way exchange: they shared their facilities and knowledge of qigong and Taijiquan with me, and I in turn brought music into their curriculum.  I made it clear that I was merely a player with no bona fides as a music teacher, but, for whatever reason, Dr. Yang evidently had faith that I would be able to give The Boys music lessons. 
But The Boys were not to be my only students; in younger days
Dr. Yang had played guitar, and sang, and even composed a bit, and was eager to re-engage those long dormant skills, so....

That's Dr. Yang, second from left, at my first music lesson. Jon and Xavier were in attendance, but off camera making lesson copies- and shooting pictures.

There was one song in particular that captivated Dr.Yang, and he practiced it with great focus and patience, a sweet, simple little guitar melody that could be heard wafting softly from his room.  He couldn't remember the name of the song, but was patiently coaxing the complete melody from the memory of his fingers on the strings. Fantastic role modeling for The Boys, and just plain nice to hear. 

I had one guitar and a keyboard with me, and had picked up some basic beginner's lesson books for piano and guitar on my way down from Oceanside, and figured we'd make do sharing  these few tools.  So it was a pleasant surprise to find that Dr. Yang owned a nice little classical guitar we could share; the nylon strings and lower tension of classical style guitars are much easier on tender, unconditioned fingertips than my steel strings would be, and now we had three instruments to work with.  But I needn't have concerned myself; the day after my first lesson, Dr. Yang gave me a one-on-one intensive in ancient Chinese martial shopping technique.  We took the afternoon to drive to Fortuna/Eureka, where we hit two music stores and a pawn shop, some of them twice, and in less than two hours Dr. Yang -on my somewhat nervously delivered reviews of their quality, price and value- had purchased 5 guitars (3 classical style and 2 standard issue flat top style steel string) 5 sets of matching strings, 4 guitar cases, 3 tuning peg winders, song books, straps, strap pegs, electronic tuners and tuning forks, and a nice, used Casio keyboard with lots of bells and whistles.  So at the next lesson...

...everyone had their own guitar to play.  By the end of the first week, the sound of scales, finger drills, and halting shots at House of the Rising Sun, Paint it Black, The Boxer, Sounds of Silence, Greensleeves and Silent Night filled most "quiet" hours.  (I assigned all of the drills and some of those songs, but most were self-selected.  Blows my mind a little that the music I grew up on still carries such value generations later, though I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the stamina of classic values.)  The place literally rang with music, albeit of a raggedy, just learning sort.  But music nonetheless, and this seemed to please Dr. Yang very much, who confided in me that he had not played his guitar in nearly 30 years, and was very glad to rekindle those musical embers, and more importantly, to see The Boys dig into it.  And I gotta say, as a teacher?  It was pretty gratifying.

The final lesson ended with a "works in progress" concert, and true to his word, Dr. Yang gamely -and entirely voluntarily, I would note- took the stage himself to play the now fully recovered if not yet flawlessly executed old tune he'd been practicing with such diligence. 

I also managed, in those last couple days, to coax guitar chords out of two songs Dr. Yang had written many years ago, melodies that a musician friend had arranged and hand-transcribed into piano scores.  So by the time I left, The Boys had been given all the tools needed to learn to read and play both melody and chords, and enough theory so they could read the rhythm of the pieces.  When I return someday, perhaps they will be able to play duets, trios, or even a whole 5 piece band treatment of those two songs, in any combination of piano and guitar they choose. But my primary wish for them is that, no matter what, they just keep playing.

Javier rockin' out.

*Brownie points to whoever can tell me -without googling or wiki-ing- to whom this quote should be attributed.   

YMAA Chapter 5: The Night Sweats

Back in September I wrote about feeling the need for some sort of purification ritual, and thinking that a Sweat Lodge might be just the thing.  (The Vigil, Chapter 2: The End).  Well, ask and ye shall receive.  When I arrived here at the YMAA Retreat Center, I found this awaiting me. This was evidently constructed a year or two ago, during one of the training-work camps held to layout and build the center.  It needed only a couple repairs, and it was ready to go.

Our first attempt was a dry run.  A smokey, lukewarm dry run; a learning experience. The rock pit had not been cleaned thoroughly enough, and though the sweat rocks had not really been sufficiently heated, they did retain just enough heat to smolder the dry leaves left in the pit.  By the time the smoke cleared the rocks had cooled to the point where we were able to get a couple decent steam clouds, but no dry heat in between.

But the next time was the real deal.  I spent several hours digging a decent fire pit, cleaning and lining the rock pit (with some of the sandy clay dug from the fire pit and small rocks) securing the lodge, choosing the sweat rocks, and building a good, strong layered fire that allowed me to heat a good number of rocks to glowing red hot.

The night cooperated nicely, cool, mostly clear and calm, and the lodge worked like a charm.  The atmosphere and energy in a hot, dark sweat lodge are extraordinary, as is expected, and normal conversation gives way to silent contemplation, and sometimes to extraordinary stories.  In this case, given my motivation for conducting (pouring) this sweat in the first place, I told my version of my step-father's story.  The topic then turned, somehow, to the Greeks, and I became sort of an ersatz Homer, telling the stories of Prometheus, Oedipus, and the House of Atreus to a lodge populated with bright young men who knew little or nothing of ancient Greek myths and legends.  Not typical sweat lodge fare perhaps, but felt just right somehow.  It worked out so well that Dr. Yang decided that he would like to try it, so a couple nights later, I repeated the whole preparation process, and we held another, successful, well attended sweat. 


But we still had some learning to do; we had used the wrong sort of rock, a potentially dangerous mistake.  A pile of rocks identified as "the kind you're supposed to use" had been left from the lodge's maiden voyage years before, and The Boys had worked hard to find and supplement that pile with more of the same; some kind of sedimentary rock shot through with viens of quartz. But after only one use, all but two or three of them had become so unstable I could crumble them with my bare hands.  So, after the fact, I did some of my own research, and almost immediately came across this: "Stones that have quartz in them, are from river beds, or have white granite in them are never to be used, for they sometimes explode when they are heated and water is poured on them." So the quartz veined stones so carefully selected and carried up from Salmon Creek were exactly the wrong rocks.  Gotta' appreciate the precision of our error.  And we were fortunate; no injuries from exploding rock chips.  No exploding rocks, actually; they just cracked and crumbled.  But, for future reference:

"The best rocks are those least exposed to weather. Certain quarried rocks are therefore the strongest. Glassy rocks of high quartz or iron content are not recommended. Iron is a fast conductor of heat and when water is poured on, it becomes trapped in a shell of vapor and tends to form beads. Obviously, rocks that produce poisonous gases or offensive odors should not be used.

One of the best rocks is peridotite, a quarried Finnish rock.. Certain North American rocks work as well. Freshly quarried basalt, black and fine grained, from the Cascade and Sierra ranges, is excellent. So is hornblende, found in many parts of this continent. It's a textured rock which has been re-crystalized at a high temperature making it ideal for multiple reheatings. Locations of these types of rocks can be found on geological surveying maps available from any Bureau of Mines or through the Government Printing office in Washington, D.C.

TESTING THE ROCKS: Exploding rocks are dangerous. Perform a simple test to guarantee their safety. Thoroughly heat a sample for two hours or more. Drop it into a pail of cold water, then look for cracks. When the rock is cool, test it further by hitting it with a hammer or against another rock. If the rock cracks or makes a soft grinding sound when rubbed against another rock, discard it and find another source. If it survives you have a safe rock.  A more elaborate test can be made by your local metallurgical laboratory. It costs a few dollars.

What doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Nobody was hurt, and now I know better. I thank the rocks for that.

YMAA Chapter 4: Xiou Hu's* Grand Adventure

* (In English, Xiou Hu would be "Little Tiger")

lazy day sun-day nobody up for the little house today sun's out nobody come 'cept now new guy nice guy nice gives me treats and scratches and he plays and I can BITE I can bite and chase and he doesn't yell or hit so I bite sometime he lets me and he gives me new bouncy ball funny ball run it down bring it back run it down bring it back HA funny bouncy ball but now we walk we like walks like walks really like walks with him he let's me go new places not smelly old road so we go I'll show the way but he goes down the hill down the hill OK OK lots of trees down the hill and SQUIRREL! SQUIRREL SQUIRREL HEY!, HEY! HEY! HEY!, BITE! HEY! UP IN TREE! SQUIRREL! SQUIRREL! HEY! HEY! HEY! dumb squirrel scaredy squirrel run up and away in trees dumb squirrels Ok Ok down hill down hill steep and sometimes he slips I NEVER slip I'm strong and fast and never slip so we keep going down and down and down till we come to water different water not the same as every day walk water cool here now and slippery and WHOA! WHOA! WHAT'S THAT BEAR? BEAR!
we follow bear not afraid I'll BITE bear and stupid slow bear but then he turns around and goes other way OK OK I'll lead that way very steep very slippery but I scratch and scratch and he pushes and I get out turn around BARK him out BARK BARK him out OK I barked him out now uphill uphill this way this way ok not this way but he gets wrong too sometimes I'll lead the way I can smell it's up -SQUIRREL SQUIRREL SQUIRREL HEY!, HEY! HEY! HEY!, BITE! HEY! UP IN TREE! SQUIRREL! QUIRREL! HEY! HEY! HEY! dumb squirrel scaredy squirrel run up and away in trees dumb squirrels I'll bite you better run- where did he? oh there he goes I run though run and go ahead follow me follow me- Ok not that way but he goes the wrong way too lot's of times then we come to the regular water this water everyday water then easy to go home this way this way home OK that way I'll go first I'll go this way ok too see! there's home up there
up there so we come home from long walk very long walk and he gives me treats and I'm smart I sit and stay and sit and stay and get treats new guy nice guy I like new nice guy go for more walks more long bear and squirrel walks. Dumb cat home sharp cat sharp cat nice sometimes then mean and sharp. Dumb cat.

But I'm not like dumb cat I'm a good dog that's what he says, all the time he says;"good dog" I'm a good dog I made us home safe!

YMAA Chapter 3: Paging Dr. Mom

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the features of life at the center is the coming and going of a variety of interesting guests.  Some stay for a day or two, some for weeks at a time. When I arrived, Dr. Gerda Whittman was in her second week of a three week stay, her second annual visit.  Dr. Whittman is a Holistic physician from a small village in Germany, who has become something of a surrogate Mom, gleefully cooking for, training with, and generally watching and fussing over the The Boys. Her ministrations include holistic assessments and acupuncture treatments, which she graciously offers to all, even though it means letting her day job follow her into her vacation (or holiday, as the Europeans call it.)  So it was a sad day when Mom had to depart back back to her home and practice.

Bye Mom.  We miss you. Hope you can come back again. And again and again and again.

YMAA Chapter 2: A day in the life...

A Typical Weekday at the YMAA Retreat Center:

Up at 5:45 AM for a quick sip of green tea, always at the ready at a moment’s notice, thanks to a handy hot water dispenser, good self-straining teapots, and lots of teas to choose from…

…and maybe a handful of nuts or a bit of apple or pear (on the advice of Master Yang; “to keep the stomach busy and quiet during meditation") from the “snack bar” that’s open 24/7…

Mostly nuts, fruits, bread, peanut & almond butters, you know, typical snack stuff. (Yes, those are tiny dried fishes.)

…then it’s off to the octagonal gazebo, built especially for this purpose, for an hour of group qigong meditation beginning precisely at 6:00 AM. (These days it’s pitch dark when we begin, and only slightly less so an hour later, when we finish up.)

                                                                      This is what the floor of the meditation gazebo looks
                                                                      like, when it's not covered in with mats, cushions,
                                                                      and blankets. In the dark.

After meditation it’s back to the main house, where the indoor training studio is located, for 45 minutes of moving qigong; most often White Crane, but other styles too, as appropriate for special conditions. 

The main studio... ...and library/music corner.

Breakfast follows; the resident students (The Boys) usually head up to their dorm for this, but occasionally Master Yang –who cooks for all the guests- will invite them to stay, and cooks up a big breakfast of eggs, sausage, sautéed tomatoes and/or potatoes, and of course, rice. Almost always rice, with every meal, a habit I might just take away from here. After breakfast dishes are done, there’s a quiet period until 9:00 AM, when two hours of Taijiquan practice begins, which includes specialized qigong exercised designed especially for taijiquan, form correction, push-hands work, and taiji ball practice.

Zach doing an unauthorized "taiji cat" exercise.

At 11:00, I take the stage; I’ve been offering hour-long music lessons six days a week since I arrived. These have been pretty guitar centric -how that came to be is a story in itself, and I’ll write more about that in upcoming chapters- but I see to it that beginner’s level theory & piano are part of every lesson too.

After this, lunch at noon; again, Master Yang cooks for and dines with the guests while The Boys head up the hill to their residence; each of them is expected in rotation as “chef for the day”. (Though again, if guests are few and food is plentiful, we all dine together, something I especially enjoy.) The kitchen is again restored to “clean and ready” mode –everyone pitches in here- and then it’s quiet time again, for individual meditation, reading, tending to small domestic issues, whatever. At 2:30, the long afternoon conditioning and training begins. For the boys, this means donning a special weight training vest (designed to carry up to 80 one pound metal cylinders) for a hike down Yang Mountain (no one actually calls it that, I just made it up) to Salmon Creek, only to turn around a run –yes, run, back up. And by “up”, I mean 800 vertical feet over a little more than 1/2 mile, an average grade of …. whatever- I’m to lazy to make the calculation. But it’s pretty damned steep, if you ask me.

And silly me: I forgot; they don’t actually immediately turn right around and start that run from hell when the reach the creek. No, first, they each gather up 300 egg-ish sized rocks, worn smooth by the creek, and whip them at top speed at small log-targets about 15 meters away.


Pitching practice, essentially, except they throw half of their rocks (150) rocks with one hand, and half with the other. The goal is 200 with each hand, so they’re not quite there yet. But, since they’ve each committed to a ten year training program, they have some time to work on it. Now, as grueling as gathering and chucking 300 rocks every day may seem, Master Yang has actually softened up some to accommodate the general squishiness of 21st century America’s notion of “fitness”; they get to take their vests off for this throwing practice. But it’s back on for the run up the mountain. (Yes, I said run.)*

As a guest, I have the choice to participate in as much or as little of this training as I please. So I generally skip this bit, though I did prove –one more than one occasion- that I’m still a force to be reckoned with when it comes to whipping small hard objects on target (a necessary self-defense skill one develops naturally growing up and going to public school in a snowy northern climate, the natural habitat of predacious flying snowballs.) Instead, I usually join Master Yang, along with any other guests wishing to tag along, in a walk along the same route, thankfully unburdened by additional weight, and occasionally stopping to refresh ourselves with a handful of fresh huckleberries, which grow in great abundance on these second growth slopes of the coastal range.                      

And in interest of full disclosure, I will admit that I in fact skip most of the conditioning drills that comprise these afternoon session, which include (after recovering from the weighted mountain run): jumping up onto brick walls, over railings, and over a short stick held in one’s own hands, like a short, stiff jump rope; upper body conditioning on bars, rings & ropes; various tortures with long staffs & cinder blocks, often while standing on top of two standard red building bricks stacked end on end.

Patrick "3 Brick" Manrioquez. (That's three bricks end-to-end he's qigoning on. Radical.

Most of this occurs in this covered outdoor training pavilion located near the dorm, and continues until 6:00 PM, when everyone gathers at the main house again for a half hour of reaction time training –basically blocking punches- and finally, a 30 minute question and answer/lecture session conducted by Master Yang. These are fascinating, featuring Master Yang holding forth on topics that range from very precise technical questions about the effect of weather on meditation breathing, or a particular hand position for a wrist lock, to first-hand stories about the effects of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, and stern lectures about keeping order in the communal dorm.

At 7:00 PM the training day officially ends, and dinner is prepared. Master Yang cooks, and again, sometimes invites the boys to stay for dinner with the guests, using that occasion for lessons in the proper preparation of traditional Chinese dishes. Otherwise the students fend for themselves –in their fully stocked and equipped communal dormitory kitchen.

The food Master Yang prepares is fabulous; home cooked Chinese and other international dishes, at least three per meal, made with fresh vegetables from the center’s organic garden & greenhouse.

On his cardiologist’s recommendation, Master Yang takes one modest glass of red wine with dinner. By the time dishes are done and order restored to the kitchen area, it’s 8-8:30, and everyone pretty much heads off to their rooms, often right into bed.

Saturday's are pretty much the same as any other weekday, until the afternoon session; then, instead of conditioning, it's chores, which range from chopping firewood to cleaning the residences- whatever needs doing.  Sunday is the only real day of rest in the week, and even then trips into town for provisions are common, though communal dinners at a local Chinese buffet (always Dr. Yang's treat, at restaurants he has personally vetted and approved) are a nice fringe benefit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.