How did the most incredible meditation energy work and mind, body, and spirit connection system end up in Ogden, Utah of all places?
Coming from overseas in a land far, far away, to land in a small town that is barely on any map, it’s an interesting question.
When I was five, I had chickenpox and a 103-degree fever. I was hallucinating. Back in those days, you had to rent a VHS VCR. So my mom went to the video store and got a VHS VCR. She rented a bunch of movies, and brought them home. I was totally enthralled. I watched one in particular that was so magical for me. I was watching a mid-1980s, B Ninja movie (the kind with voice-overs that never matched the lip movements). They were jumping off 100-foot buildings, and landing in the superhero stance. They were throwing Ninja stars 100 yards and hitting the guy right in the eye.
I was just enamored. I said, “Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to heal up. I can’t wait to try this!”
And I did get better. I went and jumped off my hay barn, and things didn’t turn out as they did in the movies. I landed in a big pile of blood and tears and spit and dust. It was really gnarly and left quite an impression on me because it was painful. I realized something that day, “Oh… Movie magic is just that. Its movie magic. It’s not real.”
The next year I had a chance to see Karate Kid and Star Wars. I had a mixed message here going on. “Hey, I can do cool martial arts and Mr. Miyagi did healing stuff.”
And then I saw Star Wars and it really piqued my interest, but I always had this doubt in my mind of, “Hey, that doesn’t really exist”.
A few years went by, I was about 10 or 12 and I had a chance to see a group of traveling Shaolin Monks. These guys must have been 90 years old, straight out of a monastery in China. They were not very tall, and so wrinkly, they looked like a sun-dried raisin. They were doing the most amazing mind over matter and chi demonstrations. They were asking for volunteers, and a bunch of big, husky football players hopped up there.
This one monk, the littlest of all of them, just barely touched him, and the football player went flying backward and landed on his behind. He left skid marks!
And I was just like, “Oh my gosh, that guy is like Luke Skywalker, but old!” It really caught my attention.
The next thing that I saw totally hooked me and blew me away.
A woman came out onto the stage. She was using a walker. She could barely walk, and she made it to the center of the stage. They laid her down, and a monk hovered his hand over the top of her leg. And then after 30 seconds, she gets up and walks away!
My jaw was on the floor. “Oh my gosh, what did I just see? That is magic. I need to find out how to do that.”
I started looking into martial arts, and I became quite an accomplished martial artist. But at the time it really had more to do with the fighting. Big egos, bobbleheads, and all that kind of stuff. What I was really looking for was mind over matter. I wanted real-life Jedi powers. I wanted the ability to make a difference in the universe and turn frowns upside down.
And when we found Empi or Merpati Putih (the full martial art from the Royal family of Java Indonesia), I knew that I’d found home.
This was unlike anything that I’d ever seen before. It was all based on love, personal empowerment, and self-discovery. I’ve been through so many amazing experiences over the years, and I’m going to have a lot of stories coming up. But as it is for right now, this is what set our journey into motion. This is how our curiosity was peaked. And this is how we ended up in Ogden, Utah. We can’t wait to see you here.