Spiritual Bootcamp Shaolin Style
The Chinese say, "Kung Fu is a way of life." Americans don't understand this meaning by using this translation.
A better translation would be, "Kung Fu is part of your path in life."
A less accurate translation would be, "Kung Fu is part of your daily life." This is misleading because most people are like cattle. If the grass is abundant, they have no thoughts of where they are going next. In Kung Fu, you must pursue wisdom and knowledge constantly and consistent -- even without any need for more knowledge and wisdom. Kung Fu requires that the student be smart enough to pursue Kung Fu, no matter how busy you are, how easily you can afford it, and without "wanting to practice."
WANTING to practice? Want is a desire. If your life desicions are motivated by desires, your life path will change every time a new desire enters your life. Since Buddhism is already teaching us to look past our desires so we can DECIDE WHAT WE WANT, we are still limited by the ability of each person to make a good decision. Face it, if people were good at making decisions -- the world would be a far better place.
So how do you get people to make Kung Fu a way of life? I don't know. I still don't know. After 30 years of teaching Kung Fu I can't "make" anyone be a Kung Fu Disciple. Only those who somehow had it in their "heart" already, can become Kung Fu Disciples. Sorry to discourage you, but it's the same for creating a piano disciple. No matter how many students a piano teacher teaches, all but a few will quit. Same in Kung Fu. The statistics may even be identical. The secret ingredient lacking in a couch potato and inherent in a Disciple appears to be that word that Karate schools like to advertise but do not teach: "Self-Discipline."
Oh lower your fists you knuckle-heads. If you are teaching someone to step into a ring and punch and kick his fellow man everyday, then you are expecting him to go practice that whenever he's not in the Karate class. Or, if you are teaching him to not hit other people by teaching him to hit other people... As for the Katas of Karate, they are not only too simple, they are destructive to the student's character. Teaching students to grimace and grunt and yell and tense up -- those are all the things I teach my students not to do.
Of course, Karate schools are much more popular than Kung Fu schools because they are catering to what everyone is already doing, grunting, shouting, and being tense.
To be good at any art or martial art you must practice, and then practice, and then practice some more. That may make it seem more insignificant, but it's the opposite. By making Kung Fu "part" of your life, you will constantly keep doing some Kung Fu. Over 10 years of constant practice, perhaps 3 hours of classes plus 3 hours of practice = 6 hours a week = 24 hours a month = 288 hours a year = a good investment of Kung Fu into your yearly life = ready for next year's life demands! (Or 288 hours of grimacing, getting punched, and being tense if you apply Karate self-discipline.)
So Kung Fu and Tai Chi have their greatest benefits by inspiring the student to continue practicing 200 hours per year. A good investment, but not easy to accomplish without a parent saying, "Go practice your piano for one hour!" That's what self-discipline really is: you being your own parent and saying to your self, "Go practice your Kung Fu for an hour."
That's one of my goals in these Bootcamps: to teach people to be "self-disciplined" by getting each person to look at what their self-discipline actually is and how they are already applying it. Then, the student might have a better chance of really discovering and applying self-discipline properly.
Self-discipline means that you can be a Disciple of Yourself. You are your own mother and father. You are also a kid. Everybody is, no matter what age they are.
This means that part of you has to be an obedient kid, another part a disciplining father, and another part a nurturing mother.
Buddhism teaches us that we are born pure and spiritually clean Zen babies.
Let's reawaken the pure spiritual child. Reshape the protective mother inside of you, and set guidelines for your internal father to follow and use to guide your own inner child...
Let's take you apart and put you back together.
The Buddhism World Conference of 1998 hired me to teach at this event. It was an incredible event. I met so many really nice people. Come to think of it, the only two people out of 2,000 people that seemed to not be friendly with me were a couple of high level Buddhist monks who were evidently threatened by my popularity and student compliments. 
