*** November 19: Manila, Philippines. I have been teaching private lessons to a few students. The classes are one-on-one and are focused on the correction of Section 1 of the 108 movement solo fist form of Traditional Yang Family Tai chi chuan. In certain cases I also teach Tao Basics, a course that includes Microcosmic Orbit Orbit/Small Heavenly Circle (Xiao Zhou Tian) and Zhan Zhuang (Stationary Postures). Two important birthday parties were held for me — one by Roland, my youngest brother, at the yang-ylang farm in Brgy Estipona, Pura, Tarlac, attended by my relatives most of whom came from Bamban, Tarlac, some from as far as Manila. A relative Father Joel Camaya drove up from Canlubang, 6 hours away, to say mass during the event. Romeo Liwanag, a childhood friend, gave an impromptu remark about my development as a healer and teacher. The other party was hosted by Vic Ramos, a University of the Philippines contemporary (this was ion the 1960s), and his wife Nel at their 16th story condo overlooking the Makati City center in Greenbelt. In attendance were friends from the university — Jennifer Romero Llaguno, Bessie Aguirre, Lirio Calixto — and members of the Banana Club like Joe Molano, Temy Rivera, Poch Macaranas, and Jimmy Yambao. Celia Molano came with Joe. Photos will be posted in the next edition of the website.
*** October 24: Autumn foliage came late in Lehigh Valley. I drove around the area last week to see the turning of the leaves but was disappointed to find that many of the trees just turned brown and dry, as if the Grinch had stolen the Fall Season. Early this week it rained a couple of days and when I looked again the brilliant colors came back.
I am celebrating my 79th birthday tomorrow. A couple of Filipinx friends, college contemporaries from the early 1960s in the Philippines, are driving up from Philly. Miel is actually from DC. She was going to take the bus to meet Marylis in Philly on Thursday and then rent a car for the drive to my house in Easton On Saturday two martial arts colleagues and friends are joining me for dinner. Mark, from Lansdale, PA, is an author of martial arts books and publisher. Manny is a fellow Filipino who has studied Shaolin Choi Li Fut in the Philippines, Traditional Yang family Tai chi chuan in New York City and is now studying Wing Chun, another Shaolin system. We’re meeting at a Moroccan restaurant called Daddy’s Place (Mommy’s Kitchen). It’s one of the better restaurants in town, along with a couple of Indian and one Vietnamese. Mark and his partner Kellie sometimes drive up from Lansdale,, an hour away, to dine at Daddy’s and even leave with take-aways.
Friendship cultivated over decades, perhaps lifetimes. You meet at odd times and in odd places. Mark and I first met in Boston in the 1990s when he was editing martial arts books for a Japanese company and I was a student at the New England School of Acupuncture and the Gin Soon Tai chi Club in Chinatown. He moved to Maryland and worked for another publisher there. We used to meet in the Philadelphia area whenever I was in there. I had myself moved from city to city, from Boston to Hawaii to New Jersey to Pennsylvania. I lived alone in Lake Harmony in the Pocono mountains at the millennium: he visited me there too. Now I live in the foothills of the Appalachian along Bushkill Creek in Palmer Township. Mark recommended me to be inducted to the Society of Black Belts of America last year. We kept in touch wherever we were. We do not stand still, we are like migrant workers, moving from place to place as work and family require. You see each other go through changes in marital status, experience divorce and break-ups, loss of job, success and failure and life’s cycles, and even death.
A couple of friends have passed away. Ed Maranan and Nelson A. Navarro (not a relative) I’ve known almost forever when we were students at the University of the Philippines in the 1960s. They were both writers, one was in prison during the Marcos era, the other was an exile in the US. You can read out them in the Writings section of the website.
*** It was totally unexpected. There were no symptoms, no indications, no shortness of breath, no chest pain. I needed a refill on my medication last June before I left with family on 2-week Mediterranean tour, so I called my doctor for an appointment. His line did not answer. I decided to stop by. On the door was a sign that he had passed away. I had to find another doctor. A friend referred me to one. The new doctor required an EKG. That was when all the pulse anomalies showed up. My previous doctor had never given me an EKG for the 20 years I was his patient. I complained to my cardiologist Dr Gupta that the EKG could not have been right. Anyway, Dr Om Sharma, the internist, allowed me to leave on the Mediterranean Tour on June 20. He’ll take care of the problem when I get back. In Delphi, the Oracle of Apollo, where I had taken my granddaughters Ava, 19, and Isabel, 21, I had difficulty climbing Parnassus. Isabel had to help me up by holding to my elbow and allowing me to lean on her. In Barcelona, when my son Norman invited me to go with him to the Sagrada Familia Basilica I told him that I cannot do it because I could not even catch up with the rest of the group on the food tour. He volunteered to push me in a wheelchair inside Sagrada Familia. I realized then that the EKG was right, after all.
Followed a series of procedures — nuclear x-ray and stress test, Catscan, holter monitor, etc. — and consults with cardiologists on my return. At first I was told that I could have 2 or 3 stents installed to solve the occlusion but when the doctors realized there were 4 blocked arteries, they decided to do a by-pass, taking a length of the superficial saphenous vein from my left leg for the surgery.
I have never been a crispy pata fan or a pork adobo aficionado. I have often followed a health regimen … regular exercises, meditation, martial arts (Shaolin and Wudang) and for a period I was vegetarian. The thing is that the family has had a long history of cardiac problems. My mother died suddenly from it. She was presiding over her quorum of Fiipino colleagues in a nursing home when, in the middle of a sentence, she slumped on the table. My brother Flor died from a heart attack just when I was waiting for the final diagnosis and decision on the procedure on my problem in late July. So it was apparent that I was set up for an emergency surgery, It’s almost like a divine intervention. Who would have thought that the death of my doctor, most probably from a heart attack, would save my life.
I recall now that 15 year ago a doctor who removed fatty nodules from my arms said I do not metabolize fat well. Perhaps certain people and families suffer from this weakness just as some suffer from diabetes or breast cancer. I do not know. Seems like my martial arts training helped in my recovery. The rehab therapists were surprised that I could perform the exercises easily. I told them that it was just basic Tai chi stances: Walking up and down the stairs, stepping up and down a wooden box, catching and throwing a ball, walking forward and sideward. When I told them that I have done Tai chi for more than 50 years, they thought I was kidding. I brought a DVD of me doing Tai chi Chuan forms — fist, broadsword, straight sword, spear, etc. — to show them but they had no time to watch it.
Two things I should mention: first, the hospital food was predictably terrible. I could not eat it. One day I was given a plate of omelet and a couple of half and half for coffee. I complained that I should have been given catsup and mustard. The next day I was given oatmeal with catsup and mustard on the side. The omelet did not taste like it was made from eggs. It tasted artificial, almost like there was a trace of chemical in it. I suddenly had a craving for certain food as if my taste buds were dictating what I should eat. My family and friends started to smuggle food from the restaurants — Laura brought fresh green salad from Olive Garden, Guru and Suh goat curry from Aman Indian Restaurant, Lolit snuck in Pad Thai from Jasmine. Manny a Filipino friend and his wife Marivic brought me dim sum from Chengdu — chicken feet, tripe, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf. I just taste the food but I was in gustatory heaven. Second, I was given a teddy bear to hug when I coughed or sneezed to prevent my chest from expanding too much and hurting the sternum. It helped. I am still carrying it around whenever I go. I called it MooCow, after James Joyce’s novel “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”
I am not aware of when my problem started. Has it been there for 10 years or was it a recent development? I could have collapsed anywhere in my travels. So it’s good that it has been taken care of. I understand I have a new lease on life, perhaps another decade or so to continue my work. At the same time, a thousand things could have gone wrong, who knows. I am of the belief that life is uncertain, that one can never be sure that everything is solved with surgery, there is always the possibility of human error or accident by one of the medical team or even by me. How can we know the consequence of a movement or a cough or a medication on one’s life? I do not think about it. I just stay in each moment, focus on each breath when I can, as if every ticking of the clock is not a countdown but a glorious gift.
Johnny Chiuten, my Shaolin Kung-Fu master, had a by-pass in 1987 in Texas and despite his heart problems he lived until August of 2010. So there is probably another decade or so for me to pursue my passions and dreams. :) A month after the surgery I am doing cardio rehab.
If one thinks about it, a million things could go wrong in a surgery like mine. “It is the most difficult procedure in the world,” the nurse said, “second only to the brain.” Well, I am lucky to have been saved by the team of doctors and nurses. I cannot really thank them enough. When I told my son Al that I have been blessed with another lifetime, he asked me if I have any plans for the future. I said I have not thought of anything grand, that I am just living each moment, that I am more mindful of what I am doing and more aware of what is happening around me, that each day is a gift. I will continue my work in the Philippines – teaching Traditional Yang Family Tai chi chuan and Yang-Sheng/Nourishing Life regimen like Qigong, meditation and internal alchemy – as long as I have students interested and patient enough to forgive my moods and my idiosyncratic methods. I feel a great satisfaction whenever I can teach somebody, aware that it is what I share that is my legacy in life, that it is in leaving these pearls of knowledge that continues the chain of the lineage that probably began hundreds, even thousands, of years ago with the first masters who developed the theories and practices of which I am a recent practitioner and teacher.
*** The Universal Healing Tao initiated a re-certification procedure this year. It was, for me, a cumbersome process because I could not find the various certificates in my files. I had moved so many times I had lost track of my documents. But the committee that conducted the process was open and liberal and they did their own investigation. Finally, they put my certifications and my short bio on the UHT website.
Here is the list of certifications:
I have just been re-certified by the Universal Healing Tao as:
* Senior Inner Alchemy/Neidan Instructor
– Lesser Enlightenment of Kan and Li
– Greater Enlightenment of Kan and Li
– Greatest Enlightenment of Kan and Li
* Senior Chi Nei Tsang Instructor
-CNT 1 (Basics)
-CNT 2 (Advanced)
* Senior Instructor, Healing Tao
– Tai chi chi kung 1 (13 Movements, 5 Directions)
– Tai chi chi kung 2 (Fajing/Discharge Form)
– Inner Smile, 6HS, Microcosmic Orbit and Healing Love
– Fusion 1, 2 and 3
– Iron Shirt 1 (Zhan Zhuang Postures), 2 (Tendon Neikung) and 3 (Bone marrow Neikung)
The certifications will appear in the UHT Instructor Directory.
I was first certified as a regular instructor in 1986 and as a senior instructor (and Instructor of the Year) in 1989. The new certification process was initiated this year. You can get more information about me in my website. I wrote the original manuals on the Greater Enlightenment of Kan and Li and Greatest Enlightenment of Kan and Li.
Rene
www.renenavarro.org
Here is my short bio as it appears in the UHT website:
RENE J. NAVARRO
US Address:
Dragon Ridge
163 Willow Drive
Easton, PA 18045
Philippine address:
82A Malakas Street
BRGY Pinyahan, Diliman
Quezon City, Philippines
website: www.renenavarro.org
CP: 484-896-0344
Rene is an acupuncturist, herbalist, alchemist, martial artist, healer, published writer and poet.
One of the early senior instructors of the Healing Tao and Chi Nei Tsang, he wrote or co-wrote and/or edited Mantak Chia’s “Greatest Enlightenment of Kan and Li” and “Sealing of the Five Senses,” manuals in high Taoist spiritual practice of internal alchemy, “Chi Nei Tsang Internal Organs Chi Massage,” the master guide on organ manipulation, and “Dao-In,” the book on meridian activation and tendino-muscular stretching .
His training in Chinese arts started more than 50 years ago with Shaolin Kung-Fu Hong Kuen system, one of the oldest Chinese martial arts styles, as a closed-door disciple of Grandmaster Johnny Chiuten and the legendary Grandmaster Lao Kim of the Philippines, studying such rare Buddhist forms as:
Cross Fist,
Plum Blossom Fist,
Dragon-Tiger Fist,
Offering Fist,
Kang Li Kuen,
Fairy Child Praying to the Goddess of Mercy Kuanyin,
Dragon-Tiger-Crane Fist,
Flower Broadsword,
Flower Staff,
Spear,
Guandao (big knife),
Sword,
and Hoe.
He also studied different styles of arnis de mano with Amante “Mat” Marinas, Felimon Caburnay and Johnny Chiuten.
In 1989 he was chosen Healing Tao Instructor of the Year. Although he has also studied Pa-Kua Chuan (in Binondo, Manila) and Hsing-I Chuan (in China), two of the 3 Wudang systems, and Monkey Fist and Cudgel (in China), Rene has focused on the study of the curriculum of Classical Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan, including Solo Form (108), Dao/Broadsword (2 sets), Jian/Straight sword (2 sets), Staff-Spear, 2-Man Sparring Set/Sanshou, Tai chi chuan Chang Chuan (the old form), Fast Tai chi, and Push hands under Masters Gin Soon Chu (second disciple of Yang Sau-Cheung) and Vincent Chu, lineage teachers of the system.
Among the teachers he has studied with are: Kiiko Matsumoto (Japanese acupuncture); Mantak Chia (Healing Tao, Kan and Li internal alchemy and CNT internal organs massage); Yao Zang (Chinese herbology and acupuncture); Taoist priest Jeffrey Yuen (Chinese medical classics and healing); Lao Cang Wen (qiqong); and Thunder Path and Longmenpai lineage disciple David Verdesi (Chinese qigong and Lei Shan Dao).
He attended the International Conference on Daoism and Ecology at Harvard University as a speaker in the Roundtable Discussion on Daoist practice in 1998. (Cf. “Daoism and Ecology” edited by Norman Girardot, et al.) His poetry and essays have been published in anthologies and journals in the US and Asia. He has written four books of poetry: “Du-Fu’s Cottage and Other Poems,” “Shaman” (chapbooks), “Ascension: Poetry of a Village Taoist” (forthcoming publication in 2019) and “The Weaver Girl and the Shepherd Boy” (unpublished). He has written more than 50 essays about martial arts and healing. He is featured in “Masters of Arnis, Kali and Escrima” by Edgar Sulite (Socorro Publications: 1994), a book on Philippine stickfighting. Rene holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science (MLQU), a Bachelor of Law/Juris doctor (University of the Philippines), a diploma in acupuncture and a certificate in classical Chinese herbs (New England School of Acupuncture). He was a faculty member of NESA where he pioneered a course in qigong. A certified teacher of TESL, he taught English in Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. Until his retirement, he was a diplomate in acupuncture certified by the National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) and a licensed acupuncturist in Hawaii and Massachusetts. He is a certified acupuncturist in the Philippines. In an earlier incarnation, he was a member of the NY bar and worked as a lawyer for indigent clients. He has traveled to China, Amsterdam, Indonesia, Turkey, Italy, UK, Cyprus, Egypt, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece, Spain, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Montenegro, France, Czech Republic. He has taught in four continents.