21st Day of Not Really Training...Went to the Damo Cave.
Its Sunday today. The day off. Aaaah. I got out of bed around 10AM, aaaah, so nice. I needed that rest. The morning and thru lunch was spent just chilling out. The weather wasn't raining, but it wasn't the nicest either. It was very overcast and threatening to rain. Dude...hold up, I am listening to the SUPERMAN theme song right now. Man, is that infectious. Da da da da da da... I want to rub and polish John William's bald head.
Anyways, back to the weather. It blew. I was afraid it would rain. I was like, please don't rain till after I get back! Michael, the remaining German guy, and I had made plans to go visit the cave that Bohdidharma/Damo meditated in for 7 or 9 years with his brain upright. The legend goes that this monk from India came to the Shaolin Temple and was denied entrance into the temple, prolly because he looked different from all the chinese, and he went to a very small cave near the top of the mountain right behind the Shaolin Temple. He meditated there for 7-9 years and left his shadow on the wall. (this shadow stone is apparently in the Shaolin Temple now). When he was done, he came back to the temple and was allowed in and he then taught all the monks exercises to keep healthy and this is where Shaolin Gong Fu comes from. So, he is credited with brining Gong Fu in Shaolin.
At about 2pm, I met up with Michael and we started off on our trek. The path to the cave started on the other side of the Shaolin temple, between the temple and the Pagoda Forest. The sign said, "Damo Cave 3000M ->".
It was all up-mountain. It was a long climb. Took us about 1.25 hours. The walk up there was tiring and quite steep. They had rock stairs and stuff and the construction quality was total Chinese. It must be about 2 years because all the stuff looked to have just started to fall apart. ;-) Just kidding. The stairs and railings have just fallen into disrepair over the years. The views from the steps and from the platforms that were built were very beautiful. You could see the whole valley. I got some great, if not repetitive, pictures.
We got to the platform where the cave was, just about 50m from the very top of the mountain. The cave itself was basically a hole in the wall, like most Chinese dwellings. ZING! I am on fire today! Henan is actually well known for having cave dwellers. There are still people in this province that live in caves. Apparently, some of them are quite luxurious (sp?). Anywho, its a small hole in the wall of a cliff face and there was a little sitting, meditating statue of Bodhidharma.
OH OH OH! BREAKING NEWS! I just got word that Josh had his balls cut off in a freak saber accident while he was practicing a form. More details as they...arise...
Back to Damo. I took some pictures. I walked into the cave and there sat a tiny chinese man staring at me. I was afraid to take any pictures because I thought he may blow my head off with his Qi Gong.
After that, Michael and I walked up to the top of the mountain. Wow. I mean, Wow. It was absolutely beautiful. Even with the overcast sky. It was getting a bit brighter though, the sun seemed to want to come out but we still under a blanket. But on the other side of the mountain there were a bunch more mountians covered in mist and it was amazing. I took lots of pictures. I hope they turn out well.
We just sat in the little pagoda for a while just enjoying the scenery.
We then walked over to the Damo statue that was built 10 years ago about 30M from the Pagoda. Took some pictures. It was nice.
We hung out there a bit longer. We then started to head down about 4pm. To get to the bottom of the mountain and on our way back, it took us about 20 minutes to go down. Much easier. As we were heading back to Tagou, all, well, about 95% of all the Tagou students had their weekly Sunday assembly meeting on the big sand practice area. It was pretty amazing to see about 7000 students march/walk down the road from the school and line up. Wow. They were packed in like sardins too. I got some pictures, don't worry.
Then I headed back to the room. Michael and I said our goodbyes, he is off tomorrow morning. I got his email, so thats good.
I had some dinner and later, Josh and I watched some Gong Fu VCDs - some WuDang Wushu and some Ermei Wushu. Then we watched Madagascar, that animation movie. It was ok. The best parts of that movie were the Penguins, the Lemurs, and the Monkeys. Unfortunately, the Monkeys werent used enuff. The Penguins ruled though.
Then we headed to bed later. Well, good night all.