Henning says :
I want to share my story that started around 30 years ago. As a boy, I was very dreamy and I am still that boy I guess.
I loved to make up stories for myself and put them into my reality about trolls, sorcerers, and the rest of the supernatural. I also was a very adventurous kid and a lot of things that I did I realize was not always something that my parents would appreciate ;)
If they only knew………….
You can say that I loved feeling the adrenalin. The only thing that seemed to calm me was all the time me and my family spent outdoors, in the mountains especially .Outdoors I could run around barefoot and feel the wind and weather touch my skin. I just loved the nature. It made me feel free and very much alive. Here I could talk to the animals and summon strong winds and thunder without anyone laughing at me. I could also be the hunter that fought off evil spirits like trolIs, ghosts and the undead.
Living in a small apartment in Oslo I was brought up in a family with Christian values and morale. Therefore, until I was 8 years old the Sunday church was something of a must and not something I really wanted to do. I just did not like the Church. Anyway I think it’s around this age I became more aware of an inner uneasiness that was difficult to handle and understand. Something I felt……..was missing.
My parents divorced when I was 8 years old so me and my brother moved to a new place and continued school. My period before high school was very up and down. There was always someone that wanted to bully me because I did well at school and always did what my teachers asked me to do.
Up to now I actually did not like to fight because I did not like to hurt people. Well, at least that was my excuse. But I loved martial arts and starting training Shotokan karate. Strange…loved martial arts and at the same time not liking to hit people. This was definitely going to become a problem ;) The karate period that lasted until I was almost 27 heavily influenced on how I confronted things. Around the age of 13 my karate teacher was fed up that I was not able to apply my techniques in fighting. I actually was pretty good but I had made myself to believe that I was some kind of make love and not war kind of person. Well, my teacher killed that vision of myself in about 30 minutes of beating at the dojo. Probably not the best or healthiest way to teach a kid to strike back, but something woke up in me that would not take crap from people anymore. Actually, at the age of 13 I knocked the air out of my teachers that were 10 years older than me. That moment felt really good !!!!!!! The downside to how I was taught in the dojo made me quite headstrong and from there on I confronted anything with force, even writing essays at school.
So high school started and here it’s where I started to struggle a lot with the language subjects making it very difficult for me to excel in courses of chemistry and biology that I really liked. It was not the easiest part of my younger days….but strong support from my mum and my share will of not wanting to give up I finished high school with just mediocre grades and lots of frustration. I started the university, but found out early that this was not something I should do right now and therefore I joined the military. I simply loved the military. I was back in something I felt was right. Being a part of a recon team that hunted for enemy tanks to destroy was just a lot of fun!!!! Even though I was very content in the military it did not settle the uneasiness that I felt for real the first time at the age around 6-8.
I went back to the university and continued my studies. I tried out several martial arts in addition to my karate training. Thought that I could learn real sword fighting at the kendo school but after I had almost wacked the head off a senior student and was told that I could not strike people that turned their head away from me I realized that kendo was not for me….how the hell can you say that you are practicing the art of the sword when the natural laws of battle are not allowed……go and figure.
Well, after been training karate for such a long time I was rather fed up with the politics in karate and started to train Brazilian jujutsu. This I loved. It was soft and strong and at the same time people there were interested to learn and gave the shit about politics. Yeah, politics in martial arts it’s just a sorry excuse for not using their energy on training how to fight…they are just very much scared of the reality…that people do get hit !!!!
After I finished my master degree in biochemistry I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to apply for the special forces…finally I thought that I could learn more about myself. Luckily my good friend Arne whispered something in my ear that changed my view on going into the special forces……It was truly a fun selection period, but I realized that my way was not in the special forces. It was somewhere else……
So instead a good friend of mine offered me to take a PhD in Chemistry and that I did. I do not regret that for a moment.
I started to read books about the internal arts….this started to catch my eye…a system with inner alchemy….the possibility to evolve just made want to find a teacher. Before this I had been very fortunate enough to visit China several times, but no teacher that I met had the fighting arts or the skills in inner alchemy. Finally, I came by the book, Esoteric Warriors, authored by Alex Kozma. In the introduction of the book he has a paragraph about a teacher that is lineage holder to the very old daoist system called Ziranmen. Just something about Ziranmen made me want to meet Serge Augier and see who he really was. I started to get an idea what I was really looking for. It was not only a fighting system but something that could balance ME. Something that could help me find myself……I was frustrated of not being able to tell myself….who am I and what do I really want in life? So off me and my brother went to meet Serge. We were greeted by Serge at his home and after a short introduction about ourselves we were given single man exercises and partner drills for two whole days. We were allowed to ask all kind of questions and a lot were quite stupid (sorry Serge…)…Lot of the questions we asked seemed very easy for Serge to answer and for us to understand…he simply just hit us from all kind of angles and distances and it was beautiful…Funny how pain can be such a liberating and pedagogical factor.
Finally we had met a person that could apply the internal arts for real (Well now you know the story behind the pandas that Arne me). Besides the obvious that we had found a person that knew the fighting arts there were something else that made us want to meet Serge again…..I just seemed right…sounds maybe a bit corny, but that’s what it felt. Still it took a couple of years under the tutelage of Serge Augier before you actually started to understand what the daoist system is all about………
Over the years with my teacher you realize that what you were looking for all those years is your Way. The way you want to live your life and evolve until you pass on. And after having searched and found the Way it’s a small thing that need to be solved…….you need to accept your Way and take the deep plunge. Now that I had found my way you believe that it is very easy to just jump into the practice…but it’s not. I have my demons of laziness and bewilderment that just removes your attention from your Way. Women, partying, fighting etc you name it it’s all a part of the confusion package.
Six years has gone by and I realize that it takes time for the Way to be accepted by you. Funny…..your own ego makes it difficult to accept change. You should think that changes that are for the better would be accepted by yourself quite easily. It’s like something deep inside of me is just afraid of going into to the unknown…….To accept the big changes. Well, for me the big changes came through the break up with my girlfriend and confrontations in my life that needed to be solved. The big changes forced upon my daily life have somehow released me and made me accept my Way…..it’s a voyage were I will experience new things all the time….It’s an adventure beyond what I have found anywhere else !!!!! The uneasiness has started to fade and I finally start to feel the sensation of freedom. Funny enough after been so many places to find the cool thing in life it’s always been with me. It’s actually just YOU nothing else. It is only about YOUR perception of the world and how you decide to be a part of it. There are actually no boundaries to what you can do, just YOU!!!! Ain’t that cool……
To my fellow brothers and sisters I can only give a most humble advice….Let Go and enjoy the wonders of your Way.
Henning
