Giving Up For God

Introduction

By the title of this article, one might think I’m about to write up about giving up addictions and bad habits such as smoking, alcoholism or drugs, or merely handing one’s life over to God.

Whilst this blog entry certainly shares some themes with the aforementioned, it is not the subject I write about. Rather, I wanted to share my story of giving up a passion I once had, which at one time was a daily presence and influence upon my entire lifestyle and outlook for my future. A passion that, once I had learned the true nature of, I felt had to be thrown away for the God I worship.

This story is intended to both encourage and admonish others in doing what they too should do for God in their personal lives, and in part as a way of warning others of the things I had learned about the activity and lifestyle I once held so dear, and to counteract the influence I may have had on others in the past in the promotion and encouragement of it.

My Story

The story I wish to tell is of my journey of my deep involvement in a passion I once had for Traditional Chinese Martial Arts and Self-Cultivation practices.

Many people are at least somewhat casually familiar with the subject of such things. In the common Western world, the terms “Kung Fu (Gongfu)”, “Tai Chi (Taji)”, “Chi Kung (Qigong)”, and “Meditation” are well known amongst the masses, either from exposure to martial arts movies, or perhaps from just casual gym classes and Yoga halls, where such things are promoted for health.

Most people, however, don’t tend to explore past the surface labels, and simply have in their minds the classical 1970s-80s Bruce Lee, Jet Li, or Jackie Chan flicks, or perhaps in more recent times the Donnie Yen movies (and probably other names now, that I’d not be familiar with whatsoever).

Yes, the casual image in people’s minds are fantastic feats of athleticism and martial arts, with a splash of funny names or quirky animal poses. But such things can be very impressionable on a young mind, or even an adult mind! I of course, was one of such people.

The Beginning

From a young age, I had grown up watching movies and playing video games that had fantastically choreographed martial arts scenes, and of course, as any kid, wanting to do them myself too! What young boy wouldn’t be fascinated with graceful movements, throwing men three times your size across a room, and the portrayal of invincibility against any would be attackers, all whilst looking pretty darn cool at the same time? Even now, I still think these guys look cool when they do what they do.

My interest had risen over time that I had essentially become a complete Kung Fu game and movie nerd (alongside my other passions and hobbies I had, of course), where I’d buy one after the other. Becoming more familiar with the genre, beyond just typical action movies that have a few martial arts scenes in them, but more and more interested in the Chinese culture behind it all. The philosophy, the lifestyle, the attainment. The ‘wholistic product’.

Being the type of person I am, it was never enough to just watch it, but, I wanted to be fully invested into it. As with any interest I have, I tend to go pretty full on with it. And so, by the time of 16 years young, during my early college years, I decided to seek out lessons in Chinese martial arts myself.

I knew, of course, that many Chinese martial arts and health practices, were steeped in Chinese philosophy and religion, specifically Buddhism and Daoism. And being raised in a Christian household, though I was not yet at this age baptised, I wanted to make sure to avoid getting involved in such things due to my own belief. And so I sought out styles of Kung Fu classes that were absent of such religious practices and teachings, and to purely learn for the benefit of self-defence, discipline and fitness.

I first found classes teaching a modern non-traditional style of Wing Chun style Kung Fu and Tai Chi. Taking a few, I often practised by myself at home what I had learned, and this acted as my first dip into the world of practising martial arts. I had begun my journey of full investment into the things I was learning, purchasing a traditional Chinese martial arts uniform for myself, and looked into saving up money for purchasing training equipment, such as the ‘wooden dummy’ (or “Mook Yan Jong”), though I never did end up purchasing one, those things were insanely expensive, especially for a teen who didn’t make much money.

Of course, I still explored my options, looking into different styles I took interest in, for schools, whether locally, or long distance online teaching programs, that were teaching the real authentic and traditional product, and of course for something that was more aesthetically my tastes (since my interest in learning these arts was not only for self-defence and fitness, but also of course, for the “cool factor” as is the common draw for many young people to these arts).

A Deeper Dive

After some time of exploration by the end of the year, I had explored my available options, and crossed an online school based in Canada, which had also begun to branch out into other lands. A school that was teaching a very rare style of authentic Kung Fu, that was passed down a real family lineage, from fathers to sons, which had then had finally fell into the hands of the Canadian man who had learned from the last surviving elderly male member of the family.

This man was the founder of the Kung Fu school I was about to take an interest in. And he had begun to teach long distance courses coupled with in person visits to his students, for a very reasonable price, for his aim was not merely to make money, but to preserve this rare and dying traditional system, to pass it on to a new generation.

Truly, it was something you’d hear from a Chinese Wuxia novel, or movie. This was the real deal. There was a culture, a history, manuscripts, traditions, secrets. It wasn’t just learning fighting moves and earning coloured belts or sashes. No, this was an authentic traditional school, that had deep knowledge of these arts, that far surpassed your typical martial arts class that you’d walk into down your local street or gym.

The system that was taught, consisted of several arts that were unique to the specific family style, such as Ma-Longfist, Praying Mantis, Hungry Tiger, and even the very rare system of Drunken Boxing (which I long already had a love for in movies and video games). Along with several more well known styles of Kung Fu, such as Xing Yi, Xinyiliuhe, Baguazhang, Taijiquan, and Wing Chun, which had also been integrated from other lineages and traditions into the system.

I essentially had hit the jackpot.

The system was known as “Eight Shadows Boxing” or “Ba Ying Quan” in Chinese (a very cool sounding name), and was based on a very specific philosophy, which was not about mastering each style in itself to completion or combining the styles together into a diluted mess. But rather, mastering the tactics and “energies”, or “principles”, of each art, to create a “complete martial artist”. The style consisted of eight of these principles, the number eight, of course, being a key Daoist number, as is seen in the “Eight Trigrams” of Daoism. A number in which was thought to be “perfection” in Daoism and Chinese culture.

It is here we begin to see how my passionate dive into this art, began to draw me closer to engaging with non-Christian philosophic and religious ideals.

On the boarders of a Religion

Of course, I had made my intention clear to my teachers, that I had no interest in learning anything “religious” or “spiritual”, but only did I want to learn the arts themselves for the sake of the things I aforementioned. Of course, at the same time, I was indeed fascinated by the culture, and wanted to be as fully as immersed into it as I could get, closely bordering the line between involvement into the spiritual traditions and secularism.

This is where the deeper parts of Chinese martial and health arts usually are lost on the casual everyday person not invested or knowledgeable of these things.

The phrase “Kung Fu” (Gongfu), to most Western minds, means “martial arts”. But this is not the Chinese meaning of the term. It actually means “hard work” or “cultivation”. A practice that is done over time repeatedly to attain something, typically resulting in a transformation of the individual who does it. Cooking can be “Gongfu”, as can painting, anything that requires continual effort to “cultivate”. Of course, the deeper philosophical meaning of it, is that the cultivation is transformative or enlightening.

Thus, these traditional Chinese martial arts, are not just about fighting, in fact, in reality, far from it, but they are “cultivation arts”. It is why it has been long practised by both the Daoist Wudang monks, and the Shaolin Buddhist monks of China, (though the ‘real’ Shaolin are not the performers you see publicly in the Shaolin Temple today, making a quick buck for the Chinese government by impressing people with acrobatics – I digress).

Of course, there is far more than meets the eye to these arts and where they really come from, as we shall get to as the story quickly progresses.

With my intentions made clear, my teachers were happy with where I put my limits, and insisted that I could learn many things without getting involved in religion at all. And that in fact, many of the philosophical elements of the system were just “sciences” wrapped in old fashioned traditional Chinese language. So with that I was happy to begin learning.

I was quickly integrated into the “traditional family unit” of the school. I was to call my teacher “Shifu” or “Sifu”, the traditional title for Kung Fu masters, which means “father” or “uncle”. I was to call my fellow students “Sihing” meaning “older brother” and “Sigung”, for “younger brother”. In hindsight, this had a very religious communal vibe about it, but at the time I didn’t really think about it. In the manner we call Lord Yeshua our “master”, and our fellow Christians brothers and sisters. Or how Jews might call their instructors “Rabbi”. In turn, the “Shifu”, would call us his “sons”.

My lessons consisted of typical martial arts training, as one would imagine, punches, kicks, workouts, forms and routines (Taolu), as well as Chi Kung (Qigong) techniques, which means “breath work” or “energy work”, for “building up one’s Chi (Qi)”, and was a set of various breathing techniques combined with physical movements, very much akin to Tai Chi.

Of course, the qigong wasn’t merely just breathing and moving, but was a form of moving meditation, where one would intently imagine various sensations, or emotions, for the intent of mental and physical regulation, as was understood according to the ancient philosphy of Chinese medicine and martial arts. That there was “energy” inside the body that could be directed and used. This of course, was explained to me by my teachers to be ancient myth or poetry lacking real scientific understanding of what it “really” was, which was described to me as merely “relationships between the body and mind”. Which of course, does have a basis in reality.

There were several forms of qigong my teachers had on offer to learn, some were simply said to be “medical”, and non-spiritual, whilst others were Daoist and Buddhist forms, intended for religious or spiritual enlightement, of which I avoided of course.

There were also certain techniques that were forbidden for some of us to learn, until attaining a higher level of “mental fortitude”, for some of the meditations and qigongs taught were said to have had the potential to be mentally and physically dangerous, and some people had been driven into breakdowns or psychotic delusions by practicing them (if that doesn’t sound creepy or questionable at all). A condition known as “qigong sickness” and wasn’t too far off from what is also known as “kundali syndrome” which can be triggered from certain practices of religious Indian Yoga.

The martial training required understanding Daoist philosophy, as it was completely intergrated into the entire system. Every movement, every breath, had some kind of Daoist or numerlogical logic to it. The balance between Hard and Soft, Yin and Yang. Again, simply played off as a form of “ancient science” with real world practicality to it.

Not only that, but even some of the very martial routines and movements I practiced, were named after Chinese folk gods. For example, the Eight Drunken Immortals (again, noticing the number eight there too, catching on?).

Of course, even though I was made aware of this, as a young and impulsive teenager with a passion for what I was learning, I was happily led into brushing it off as just “movements named after mythology” and not a form of religion.

A Temporary Turning Point

I had learned this system for two years up to the age of 18. It was a part of my daily routine, each day I’d practice, it was my life style. I found opportunity at every moment, outside the house or inside. It was a part of my outlook on life, and it was part of a my plans for the future. I wanted to eventually even take on students myself once attaining the level of masterhood.

But I came to a sudden turning point…

I sat down one night, reading scripture from the Bible, and some Christian literature. And I realised that, my life, and my view of life was becoming all the more fleshly. Focused on “this world”, and not on my life for God or Yeshua, or the “world to come” (Romans 12:2). So, I simply decided to stop, to take a break. To reevaluate what I wanted in life, and what I wanted my focus to be. Where was the end of my road?

And was it really right for me to be practicing arts that had the names of false gods in them anyway? I had to think hard to myself.

It was at that point I stopped practicing and taking lessons, realising that, I shouldn’t focus on trying to make a career for myself in these arts, but instead to focus my life on God’s will. And that year I was baptised as a Christian. But that isn’t the end of the story.

A Rebound

A couple of years later, by the age of 20, I took interest again in these arts. But this time I wanted to stay further away from the religious elements that I had been slowly drawn into engaging with before.

I took up a few classes under a new teacher, for the style of 7 Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu. Which was approached in a very practical and modern way, though was an authentic traditional style. However, being drawn to what I had learned before, I returned to the teachers I had abandoned, and began taking up lessons again with them.

I avoided the styles such as Drunken Boxing, seeing that they involved the names of false Chinese gods, and decided to learn other elements of the system that I was more happy with, that seemed absent of such themes.

I continued my martial lessons, including learning weapons techniques with real swords and staffs, purchasing such things for myself.

And of course, I still practiced qigong techniques, and accepted the explanation of it just being a “science”. I had soon reached an advanced level where I could in fact then feel the “energy” between by palms, and could create a “ball” of this “energy”. I was curious about this, and had wondered if it was just an “illusion” that I felt between my hands through the effects deep breathing hand on my body. So, I decided to put it to an objective test.

I approached both family members and friends, and didn’t tell them what to expect. I just asked them to put their hands out and tell me “when”. I procceeded to summon this “energy” in my hand and push it into their palms. And what happened confirmed the reality of what I had achieved. My family members and friends told me they “felt” the energy coming from my hand onto theirs, like an invisible ball of warm magnetic energy. The type of sensation you get when you place two same sides of a magnet toward the other and it pushes away.

I asked my teachers about this, and I said; “what is the explantion of this energy? Is this scientific?” I never did get a clear answer. Only riddles.

From what was once suddenly “practical and scientific”, or “no BS” (as my former teacher would say), began to dive into the realms of mystery. My question was only replied to with a question in turn; “what ‘is’ energy?”. It wasn’t an answer, and my further pushing of the topic yielded no results. I expressed my concern, explaining that I was a Christian, and didn’t want to practice things that would comprise my faith. In turn, I was simply told by one of the teachers, my “sihing”;

“Learning Buddhism will make you a better Christian, not a worse one, it’s just a philosophy. What truly is the difference between the teachings of Jesus, Muhammed and Buddha? They are all in reality just weird mirror reflections of one another, of one core truth. And Daoism isn’t religious at all, it’s just the scientific reality of the universe explained in religious langauge, that religious stuff and belief in chi and spirits isn’t actually true Daosim”.

I of course disagreed with his statements specifically about there being no difference between Yeshua, Muhammed and Buddha, but said nothing to not cause a drama or disrespect the man. But such a line of thinking of course, I know these days, is incredibly Gnostic. The explantions from this man started to sound far less like an objective science, and more akin to religious apologeics.

Despite this, I continued on, through with more caution now than I had before.

Reaching the Bottom of the Iceberg

As I went on for another couple years or so with my practices to the age of roughly 21-22, my teacher began to share “secret” or “advanced methods” of qigong.

Along the lines of what I had already discovered for myself, he spoke of the ability to “affect others” with these practices, even from a long distance. Not to the point of being able to attack people with “no touch knock outs” as some scam artists out there sell, but stll in a way that was “tangible” on the world and people. He had begun to share techniques where he claimed one could make others turn around and look at you in the street. Playing on the “instinct” all people have, turning around when when they feel someone watching them. He claimed to have this ability, and openly taught it to us, saying it was through the ability to intently stare at someone whilst summoning one’s “inner enrgy” or “qi” as the tradition would word it, into the eyes and pointing it like a laser to the intended person you wanted to get the attention of.

This of course, he tried to just explain away as “science”, and tappping into the natural instinct. But without having to say more, this was certainly a little weird. But maybe it was just a natural science as he said? I thought to myself. So I began to try to practice the method in my own time.

During this time I also began to learn of more in depth history of these arts in my own time, in how the origins were more mysterious than most people would think.

Many of the origin stories that explained these arts came from the ancient Shaolin Temple, or famous military generals and other such things were in fact just one of “many” kinds of tales, typically promoted for cultural propaganda, marketing and story telling in the earlier days during the late 1800s-1900s, and that the true origins of Kung Fu, actually were very much a sensitive topic of debate.

The Kung Fu world was often very much filled with arguments (of which I used to sometimes get involved in), usually revolving around how “practical” it was for real fighting, compared to other martial arts. Debates over which parts of the arts were purely for health, or cultivation, and which could actually work in a real fight. Where the arts came from, who created them, etc.

In some circles, talking about these subjects could be very offensive, and to attack either the effectiveness or the origin stories of a Kung Fu style, was akin to attacking a religion and their holy books (go figure).

I had already knew this to an extent, but the iceberg was about to get ‘much’ deeper.

I had come across the work of a scholar known as Scott Park Phillips, who was heavily invested into the research of many ancient Eastern arts, be they cultivation, health, dance, or martial. He had published a book known as “Possible Origins: A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts, Theater and Religion”. And it was one of the most fascinating works I had ever read. And explained many of the practices and features of Chinese martial and cultivation arts, that had long perplexed people and were seemingly meaningless. Why “this random pose” or “that meaningless gesture” existed in the art.

This research also fit in perfectly with some of what I had done formally, exploring the origins and types of practices within Kung fu, and everything clicked into place.

Scott, had explained in his book using historical evidence, along with a couple of videos he uploaded to his YouTube channel, that these arts originally were forms of “religious and shamanistic performance theater”, which is why the arts have so many entertaining and aesthetically pleasing movements.

The practices of various animal forms, meditations, and movements, were not merely fighting moves, nor cultivation practices. In part they were, but they were majorly a form of religious ritual, which aimed to summon the power of Chinese folk gods into ones self, to attain their blessing and protection. And such was a practice of the ancient Chinese soldiers for war. Hence, these arts indeed ‘were’ from the ancient military, they ‘were’ also from ancient monks, but they were also from magicians, shamans, and priests.

The forms and movements, were in fact coded stories, that told religious tales in visual form. Every gesture, every move, has religious significance. And by doing this, it was a form of worshipping and an attainment of divine power, or for exorcism. And many of the “origins stories” of the Kung Fu arts passed down today, were once religious stories as part of the magical performance.

A fantastic explanation of this as seen in Taiji (Tai Chi), is shown here in this video from Mr Phillips, in which he also goes onto explain the political and historical events of the late 1800s-1900s Boxer Rebellion, which led to the supression of the true origins and purposes of these arts, which even included the murder of many Chinese Christians:

The various practices of meditation to empty ones mind, or to imagine being an animal, were often done with the intent to open up the way for possession of one’s local deity or an animal spirit. Meanwhile, the tradition such as the lion dances with loud clashing symbols during these practices, were to scare away the influence of the “evil spirits” at the same time. A practice that is in fact still done today in China, and many Kung Fu schools.

And it is a fact, though rare to see, that there are schools one can find where these practices are called plainly what they are, though this is typically seen in the much older generations of Chinese immigrants who had to flee China during the 1960s Cultural Revolution when these old practices were banned.

Hence, this is why today most people believe Kung Fu to just be a martial art with self cultivation and health practices, thanks to the progaganda and rebranding during the period of the 1910s-1930s by the Chin Woo (Jing Wu) Athletics Association, and then again in the 1960s Cultural Revolution and onward by introducing “Contemporary Wushu” (secularised Kung Fu for show and sport), and Hong Kong Cinema. All changing the surface label of what these arts are for the sake of “modernisation”, political saving face, and selling it to more skeptical and scientific minded Western audiences. But in reality, the “practices” and “heart” remained the same.

My Abandonment of Chinese Martial Arts and Cultivation Practices

Perhaps it was pefect timing, or divine intervention, that I had stumbled upon this scholarly research, just as I was beginning to dive into the deeper and more esoteric practices of the arts I was learning and being strung along into thinking they were just “unexplainable sciences”.

Upon learning the deeper truths of these things, I of course, informed my teachers of such interesting history (in a respectful and scholarly way, not like some mad raving preacher of course), and then immedietly abandoned all my lessons, all my training, all my practices.

I could no longer be involved in something that was clearly spiritistic in nature, that was in reality a worship of false gods and summoning of demonic power. I had no hestiation. The hobby and passion I had for a number of years, I threw away. And I also threw away anything involved with it, that could act as a temptation for me. My video games, my movies, all of it. I burned all my books on the topic in the manner the early Christians burned their expensive books on magic (Acts 19:19) , and said I’d never go back to it ever again.

In every single online forum, chat room, or comments section, where I had discussed, mentioned, or had promoted such things, over a history of several years, I sat down one day, scrolled down and I deleted over a course of several hours. I had to do my best to undo any potential damage or temptation I had unwittingly thrown or set on the path of others.

I gave it all up. I gave it up for God.

Conclusion

That is my story. I wanted to share it, with others, as a form of fellowship and upbuilding admonishment for my brothers and sisters of the faith. As both an example of where things can lead, and as a warning to other Christians of just what these practices really are at the heart of it. And to help others find the strength to also give up what they perhaps feel they should, to please God and be clean in his eyes.

I have long since prayed in repentance of the things I once practiced fifteen years ago (in the time of writing this), and for forgiveness for leading anyone else into those things. And that anyone who may have been directly or indirectly encouraged by me, also be guided away from these things.

As for my fomer associates, friends, teachers of the past… I of course, have nothing against them. Their life is their own as is all of our lives. And in fact sometimes I miss them now and again. For they were in fact good people. And so I do of course, pray for them to be blessed and for them to also come to faith in the Gospel of Yeshua.