Testimonial – Lo Ban Pai Training
Bali. I have always wanted to get there. But when the trip was soon to begin, there was a strong resistance inside of me. It was really hard to leave my family behind this time, and when I landed on Bali, it even got worse. What am I doing here? I should be with my family right now. The last five months before the trip have been the hardest of my life. And yet, as things had changed to the better at home, I knew that the time with Lujan would be the best for me and also my family. I wanted to be there – and I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.
Lujan met me two days before the tuition started and drove me around on his motorbike, showing me the way to his location and some other places. I felt uncomfortable, wanting to not be there, I was fighting the situation, the culture shock, heat, motorbikes, everything. He noticed my resistance right away. I tried to explain my feelings and Lujan understood. He knew about my situation at home and offered to postpone the tuition so I could return to my family right away. But I stayed.
Two wonderful weeks with Lujan unfolded, two weeks that impacted me deeply. It is hard to put into words what occurred with Lujan, how I changed, and how I love this man.
Part of the training this time was Lujan’s new book Who Am I? that was almost finished. The writing of the book had started one year ago when I last saw Lujan. I had no clue where it would lead, and certainly not where it would lead me. I read it when I was in Bali and Lujan and I would talk about the chapters and contents every day during tuition.
Therefore one of our main topics during the two weeks was bias. The whole book felt like a catalyst. A catalyst for all his previous books, but also for things he had said to me before. In week two with Lujan, I started the book all over again, and different layers appeared. I felt I made good progress during these two weeks, internally and opening up again, although progress sounds like something that has to be achieved or accomplished. But all milestones or a finish line even, that is not important anymore. All my bias about Kung Fu, internal Kung Fu, spiritual work, teachers, spiritual healing, black and white – I now know it is just that: bias.
“Feelings are all that matter.” Bad people will appear, and good people, but that again is just bias within this reality of suffering. Allow something inside of you to watch all this, and wait for your true self to speak, and to be able to do so, be empty. Be empty.
Additional to the Lo Ban Pai movements Lujan showed me various standing postures and a meditation during the two weeks, along with many insights and guidance. That was when I was able to completely be empty, during the first standing posture and after a long coiling exercise. When I was standing still I experienced myself as an empty hull. There was nothing there, nothing inside, nothing I normally relate to being part of “myself”. I felt a hull, I felt outside, I felt inside, or rather: there was nothing outside and nothing inside, except for a burning fire in my lower dantien.
I was not there, but who does feel if I am not there? Who watches all this?
Lujan smiled with joy. “Exactly! Interesting, isn’t it?”
The standing postures are a very important aspect of Lo Ban Pai and became a daily routine in my life. I thought I would have strong resistance doing this every day, 45 minutes of standing, and pain in my body and legs. But oddly enough, I love it. The body gets used to it real quick. You stand, the pain bothers you less and less, and you watch internal, and you just watch for something to come to you. This may take years, up to ten years or more, Lujan said.
I thought “Oh, really” when he stated this, but now I just want to continue this exercise my whole life and never abandon it. To gain what? I do not know. It just makes me more empty, and that is more I ever thought. Also, my body and mind feel stronger with every standing and something else feels stronger too, something I cannot describe.
And then, of course, there were the Lo Ban Pai movements. I had booked Three Treasures and Jaguar Series for these two weeks, but pretty soon during the first week, Lujan decided to additionally also show me Small Mountain and make the whole set complete, because I learned fast and was able to perform the movements quite easily. What a beautiful gift that was! The challenge was to remember all that input though, and I thought I would need some time after the tuition at home to be able to do the whole form without always double-checking on my notes in between. But amazingly enough, only two days after the tuition, when I was still in Bali, I was able to do the whole set almost without a glimpse to my notes already.
This form is explicitly beautiful. Its coiling movements are demanding and easy at the same time, at least once you understand the coiling basics on both sides. Lujan would say “Oh, this one is very easy” before almost every new movement, and he was right because the coiling movements and many, many elbows were rolling into each other quite naturally. You cannot deny their martial aspect, which is the most direct and fierce combat I have ever experienced. And the whole form has a signature to it, a rhythm, tune, or flow, that is just fascinating. I only had an idea of this when doing the other Lo Ban Pai forms before.
Lujan said that Three Treasures will change all my previous forms, which is true. I have a deeper understanding now, without being able to explain that. This understanding does not come from the brain. It comes from the flow and rhythm and also from the exercises we did in between. These exercises were meant to give a better feeling for my correct stance, upper body movements, energetics, the whole body structure, and alignments altogether. These exercises and body fine-tuning, although they appear very simple, were harder for me to do than all the coiling together.
The Three Treasures part of the form is similar to some Chi Gong movements, and the Jaguar and Small Mountain parts add the martial aspect to it, with aspects of Wing Chun, Tai Chi, Bagua, Monkey, Mantis, Drunken and probably more. But although the coiling, drags, elbows, locks, blocks, and fists are very external, you “have to move away from those martial meanings and allow it to become what it really is meant to be: something bigger and so much more beautiful.”
When Lujan said the words “so much more beautiful”, he performed the movement in a slightly different manner, although just the same, being there and totally being somewhere else, connected to something you cannot grasp, with a content look of fulfillment in his face that can only be felt and not be mimicked, totally devoted to that moment. The martial movements were still there, totally, you cannot hide that, but at the same time, they were something else now.
I love to do those movements, and at the same time, I love to see Lujan do it. It does something with me, internally, watching him. I feel the movements inside of me when he does them, it is very uplifting and I just have to smile. “Be there before you are there.” Before you perform a movement external, you do the movement internally. This and his connection with an omnipresent awareness are what makes his system so unique.
After we practiced one longer Jaguar coiling movement for quite some time Lujan suggested to sit down and let the movements sink into the body. He asked me how I felt but I kind of freaked out and seriously wanted to know whether the sofa or floor was shaking. It felt like a little earthquake when I was sitting still and the energy was coiling and vibrating up and all over through my body. Also, these coiling movements have the ability to empty you, which I then experienced very strongly within the first standing posture.
Last year when I was with Lujan I had thought that now Lo Ban Pai had really started, with the more internal aspects, the lower dantien moving and the deeper understanding of the fractal Lo Ban Pai movements. This time it felt even more so.
For me, these two weeks again felt like a new beginning, and Lujan said for him it felt like something was ending. The three forms he showed me, that are eventually one long-form all together, had changed during those two weeks, compared to what they were before. When Lujan showed me the movements and I watched him, he recalibrated and the movements became different and changed without his intent. The movements adapted themselves to me and gave the form a new signature.
This always happens with his students and during workshops with bigger groups also, and whenever a form recalibrates like this, Lujan sticks with the new flow and abandons the old, and therefore Lo Ban Pai never stays the same but constantly adapts to every given circumstance. A new beginning is always an ending and vice versa.
I have had strong resistance within the first days of tuition, but Lujan guided me gently through this. I always want to understand, but there is nothing to understand and nothing to know really. I can smart talk and quote some intelligent stuff, making it sound my own, but that is just a mask trying to influence others around me.
“I don’t do guilt”, Lujan had said this at various earlier occasions, but this time I totally experienced what this really means. It is all about feeling. I had been guilted during last year by others, and although I had felt that something was not right, I had overlooked that feeling. The result was a weird, manipulated, twisted me, trying to cope, trying to catch up. Lujan showed me what had happened and made me aware of this. And when I internally judged others, he gently pulled me out of it. His guidance and beautiful example of not doing guilt and never manipulate anything changed me. At the end of the two weeks I was able to be much more open and myself again.
Putting a tuition with Lujan in words is a mission impossible. It is about who you really are. Who is Lujan? Humble, innocent eyes that look upon you and the world out of nothing, truly open, full of love.
My deepest love
Arne
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This is a lovely testimonial, very beautifully written. Thank you.
You communicated your experience beautifully. Really enjoyed reading this!
That was very beautiful. Thank you for relating your experience.
Your communication and share are grately appreciated. A beautiful offering!
I feel you embodying the beauty of the movements and you are able to communicate how beauty is you and also, how beauty affects you. Thank you for sharing. Your words opened my heart and connected me with the Love and beauty inside of me.
Love,
Georgina
This is a beautiful and moving testimonial. The video is gorgeous.
Thank you for this- such an uplifting testimonial, your warmth radiates through your words!