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When you starting going back to China, how many times did you visit Master Hong
I also heard that there was times you would visit with him all night.
The first time I came back to China was in 1991.
From that time on till 1994, I came back every year.
At least once a year and sometimes 2, 3 times.
At that time I was a high school teacher (in Canada)
I could only come back during the summer and Christmas holidays
I came back whenever there was a chance.
You mentioned visiting all night, that was in 1994, the last time I saw him.
I came back with a Canadian delegation of 65 people.
Our group stayed in a new hotel in Jinan called "Minghu" hotel.
It was a hotel built by a farmer.
The travel agency thought it was a good idea to put us up in such a hotel.
We were the first group to stay there.
It was till 8:30pm that everybody had settled down in the hotel.
Then I took a taxi to see Master Hong.
It was late in the evening and Minghu hotel was in the country.
It took the taxi driver a long time to find Hong's place. It was 11:30 pm when I got there.
After knocking hard, my Master's wife is deaf and mute so Hong himself answered the door.
He was annoyed that someone would visit so late.
But when he saw it was me, he laughed loudly,
"What can I say! You came from so far away!"
We talked all night. In the morning, his wife made noodles for us.
I had to leave Jinan at 8:00 am. to go to Tai An.
So I spent the whole night there. No sleep. He told me many things.
What I remembered the most is that he told me what he was lacking.
After that I knew exactly how to practice this form (Practical Method).
What was it?
It was that there is a theory for the system,
but in real practice, we cannot do it.according to principle
We must compromise but this compromise causes the moves to be wrong.
The practitioner does not know what the mistakes are without being told by the teacher.
Student will never know by themselves
Therefore, he told me how every move should be.
I said to him but we did not move like that.
He said of course and that way is the wrong way!
I said, "Didn't you also move like that?"
He said, "Am I right or the theory is right?"
I said that the theory is more important than the teacher.
But I said that I believed that he was able to do everything he taught.
He told me that he was just like me, we are both humans.
Because of that we cannot do certain things.
We have to think of a method to approximate.
If we make a compromise, we make a mistake.
This one place he told me, cause my form to be slightly different from his and from his other students
Only because of this point.
You are also saying that Master Hong himself knew that he had shortcomings too.
And that you, relying on your realization...
not a realization of him, just what he said, I don't think he had shortcomings.
I think he was using it as a method to point me a way. on how to learn
That a principle is a principle, regardless of what others (brothers) say,
or what the teacher said, or what one thinks himself.
Principles are the overall guidelines.
He was not really evaluating himself. He was teaching me a method,
that whenever I ran into difficulties, I must rely on the principles, not other things.
Therefore, using the principles to re-do the form, I realized to adjust certain moves.