Jan 28, 2023

K-pop song: “Alien” by Lee Suhyun

My body has been my enemy all my life. As I try to survive cancer again, I remember my dystopian childhood and the body.

When I was a child, I could never sit still. I ran to the table, as I found my way underneath to safety, for aliens were attacking. I suffered from ADHD. I would quickly grab some energy goop as my hand would steal food from underneath the table. Yeah, I would eat, run, hurry, for my life was in danger. Run away. Fast. I didn’t have many friends, but my imagination kept me busy and kept my soul company.

Always I was suffering from pain from over training in martial arts or gymnastics. The curse of stupidity. Training to fight demons is not easy psychologically, but it is even harder physically. However, the real purpose is to metaphysically defeat the demons. I saw things other did not. I was bullied and suffered as a child.

Through martial arts, I learned that power is generated from the Earth. You twist your hips. The center of the body is two inches below the belly button. My father taught me this when I was young. He learned it from Mas Oyama’s dojo in Japan. From that center, you can learn to knock down the biggest opponents with a punch, a kick or just a thrust.

However, you must train your lower body more than your upper body to fight demons. You must generate power from the Earth itself, from its center.

When I moved to the Heartland, I found myself an old man in an old body. After years of training, my various black belts tests were memories of merely overcoming pain. Usually pain won as I failed my tests. As I retook them, earning the black belt would simply be a recall of the level of pain that could I endured trying to pass. The demons smiled as I was in pain.

Once before a test as I stayed awake all night thinking should I go to the emergency room because I was unable to lie down and breathe. I walked and practiced, sleepless.

My test kendo test the next day because I could only raise my shinai (bamboo sword) as high as my shoulder. So I had to do these small fast strikes. I could only strike a few times because moving was so painful. I finished and hoped I passed. I wasn’t sure.

One sensei passed me. He always said quality over quantity mattered. He meant it. Another failed me because he emphasized quantity over quality. Strangely, from the pain, I learned a more effective way to do sashi men, or small short fast high strike, which is hard to do well. It changed by technique as I improved my kendo.

However day by day, the pain increased more and more in my knees and my ankles. Finally, I was unable to train any more. I couldn’t even walk without an extreme amount of pain. The demons enjoyed this.

I didn’t know what to do. Without training, I would die. The demons would surely win. I went to specialist after specialist. Furthermore, I went to a physical therapy. Nothing worked. The stretches they recommended were useless. They wanted me to take very strong pain killers. I refused. Demons laughed.

I understood I was on my own. I also knew that I could solve it. Therefore, I refused drugs. I knew that they would not work. There would be side effects. So I bought ankle and knee bracelets for support. I bought special shoes for walking to absorb the pain.

I asked a yoga teacher for better ways of stretching, and she helped me to develop a new way to stretch using pillows. Bless her. These stretches were the most painful think I ever did. However, slowly the pain was less and less as I did more and more. Demons watched from a distance.

One day I woke up and stopped eating meat. Overnight the stomach pains I had experienced all my life ended. I suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) which meant that I would have violent stomach pains at least once a week. I would be up all night in pain. I remember being in class as school still but being in a lot of pain. The demons would smile at me.

Being a vegetarian changed my life. Nothing the doctors recommended ever worked. All my life, I had never paid attention to nutrition. Bruce Lee books didn’t mention much about that. I don’t recall it in my readings.

Moving Meditation: Walking Away the Pain!

I walked a little, half a block one day. I painfully stretched more and more, multiple times a day. The next day I walked a block. Each day I increased the distance. Some-days, I would walk less if the pain was too much. However, every day I walked, more and more. The demons with wings flew above me in circles.

Finally, I built up to a mile. Then a mile and a half. Then two miles. Then two a half miles after lunch. Then I after dinner, I walked more. Five mile a day. More and more.

I kept walking more and more. Becoming stronger and stronger. I took off the ankle and knee braces. I was walking three times a day about 8 miles. I even walked up to 10 miles a day. The demons followed from above.

Sometimes when just walking across the room, by legs are in deep amount of pain. I wait and tell it to leave. It does. Or I shake my leg. Wait. The pain vanishes. I look at the demons. They look away.

Today I am almost pain free. However, my right knees still hurts. I am working on healing it.

At times, the pain returns often when I haven’t trained in a couple of days. If I don’t train, I hurt. Or if I don’t take my superfood mix, the pain returns.

However, I have demons to fight. No time for pain. Every night, they attack. Every night, I defeat them. They die only to be reborn as new forms of demons. Death and rebirth.

Cancer Pains: Mindfulness Mediation

Jan 22, 2023

The pain has returned to my body, but not in my lower body or back. Instead, my head is in a lot of pain from my cancer. The head pain is hardest to take. It is hard to make it go away.

I will take pain medication to help me sleep tonight. I bought a special yoga/gymnastics mat to help me stretch. Over the years, I developed a different way to stretch growing up doing karate and from when I did gymnastics.

I lie on my back and pull my legs up. This stretches my back muscles and doesn’t cause stress on my legs. I am working on a double yoga certification now. I am about 85% through the process of earning the certifications. I want to help others to fight their pain.

–Doc Nirvana

AKA Dr. Wayne Stein