I began training with my dad in our small Toronto apartment as a young child. A few years later, my parents enrolled me at the local dojo. At eighteen, I was studying under a layman monk from the Shaolin temple. By the time I found myself in China, I had twenty years of daily practice behind me. The last seven had deepened into a rhythm my entire life was built around: four hours every morning from four to eight — qi gong, breathwork, meditation, Bikram yoga — then I'd bike to work, then back to the dojo for another one to three hours of drills, partner training, katas, weapons, and theory. My entire life revolved around martial arts, and I loved it. My family and friends all knew how important a part of my life it was, and that "training" was second nature to me. Rain or shine, no matter what my day looked like, the discipline remained. Truly, it had become a lifestyle.
My trip to China was never going to be about sightseeing. Shaolin was the place so many of the martial arts films, books, and stories I grew up on described and depicted — a mythical place where you developed yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually, and where, to get there, you had to prove yourself worthy. You had to have good character and a strong sense of integrity. The tenets of Taoism appealed to me greatly, and their influence showed in my approach to life and the way I understood it. I was completely dedicated in my training. I did not drink. I did my best to eat and live in a way that honored the natural laws of the universe — in sync with nature and my circadian rhythms — and I watched my thoughts constantly, always trying to refine myself. Some days that was hard, especially when life became difficult. I persevered anyway, and looked at every difficulty as an opportunity to practice what I believed and trained in.
The day I finally walked up the path through the trees in Fujian was surreal. I could feel every one of those twenty years in my entire being. It was a profound experience, and one I will always remember. It was everything you see in the movies, and more.
Children trained in one low stone building, grown men in the next — step, step, kiai, the shout that cracks off the end of each strike, then step, step again, every count rhythmic and exact. Incense perfumed the air. The chanting of the monks carried out of the hall at the top and drifted down through the trees toward me.
A little further up, the cars and the traffic fell away, and there was nothing left but the monks — training, meditating, praying, chanting, sparring, eating. I stood there and could hardly believe it was real. It almost felt like a dream. The energy of the place was powerful, thick with history and with something I can only call hard calm — disciplined and alert, yet utterly at peace.
Getting there had been another story. A few nights earlier, around half past two in the morning, forty of us stood on a local platform somewhere in northern China, in a town that almost never sees outsiders. The moment we appeared, the mood turned dark and hostile. People crowded toward us, shouting, plainly enraged that we were there at all, and it escalated fast enough that guards came out to stand between us, guarding both ends of the platform. Afterward the guards explained it simply: we frightened the locals. We looked unlike anyone they had ever seen, and what people cannot place, they often fear. In the moment, none of that was clear. We had ten minutes to get forty people and all our luggage off the train before it moved on, so we worked in the dark, trying to be efficient while staying vigilant and respectful, hauling bags down the steps while the crowd pushed at the edges of the light. I have rarely felt so foreign, or so unsure how a night would end.
From there we reached Henan province and the older of the two temples, the Northern Shaolin, near Luoyang. I walked the same ground those monks had walked, and I felt right at home. I passed the original stone archway to the front gate, one of the only parts left standing after the fire that burned the rest of the temple to the ground.
Then there was the mountain. Wudang is sacred to the Taoists — those who follow the old Chinese way of moving in step with nature — and you feel it long before the top. The only kung fu school on the mountain sits partway up, tucked so high into the rock face that mist and fog usually hide it; you don't make it out until you are nearly upon it — old buildings furred with moss and streaked black and green with mold. Padlocks left by pilgrims climb the railings for much of the rest of the way. I reached the summit slower than most, fresh from my second knee surgery, the scars still new and the pain real with every step. Yes, the climb was long and treacherous, yet I did not complain despite the pain. I was incredibly fortunate to finally be there after shattering my patella years earlier and needing more than a year to learn to walk again. I felt grateful to be living my dream, and I was determined not to let anything stop me from fully participating.
At the top, clouds sat below me and mountain peaks broke through them on every side. There were no guardrails. You sat where the rock ended and the open sky began. I meditated up there, and to this day — despite the many other people walking around paying their respects — I remember feeling that incredible hard calm, intimately aware of the depth of history, energy, and sacred space on top of Wudang. The inner stillness and peaceful strength of the place reverberated through my entire being, filling me with its magic. In that moment, I felt deep appreciation for my parents, who had witnessed and supported every step of my path; for the teachers who had spent thousands of hours guiding my training; and for my community, who supported me through all of it. Even a career-ending accident that forced me to dramatically change how I trained could not diminish the significance of this experience. This moment was especially emotional for me, as it represented so much sacrifice and dedication over a lifetime.
Our days started at half past four in the dark with tai chi, qi gong, and kung fu — the slow moving forms, the breathing that drives the body's energy, the strikes — until the body stopped arguing and moved on its own, in a rhythmic flow state. No more thinking, only movement. We squatted to eat, plates balanced on our knees. Squat, eat, be ready for anything.
The food at the Southern temple is its own memory. You have not lived until you have eaten there. It was the best vegetarian food I have ever had — ever, in my whole life. The abbot's kitchen sent out pumpkin cooked with its seeds, lotus root and taro, beans and tofu, greens barely kissed with oil. As someone who studied Taoism, I could taste the care in it, every dish chosen for exactly what the body draws from it.
I had carried this place in me for as long as I could remember, and here I finally was — walking its grounds, breathing its incense, eating at its table, meditating on its mountain. Twenty years had been quietly leading me there, and I felt every one of them.