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🏮Had the most eventful Sunday @dsnightmarket !!! Big thank you to Oak for having us. Thank you to everyone who came and supported us, friends, family, new faces! We appreciate you guys bringing the good vibes and making our job easy, drawing you!! For those of you who missed us, look out for updates on our story. This is where we will post location, time, and dates of where we will be drawing portraits next. Stay tuned!! Thank you to all our wonderful friends for joining us at the table! @steph_z_d @seth_tavion @horse.98991794 @steven.mac.valle @saon.kashem @the.figdesignhouse

Super Excited! Super Happy! and Super Honored honestly to be part of @dsnightmarket This Sunday from ✨ 1pm to 9pm ✨ Come out and get yourself a plate of some really yummy food a drink some dessert and come just hangout. Let us draw you a portrait and enjoy the day together. Karaoke in the evening good vibes all day . Come through ✨

Made Fresh Daily 🐉

Just a lil clip of last nights edition of Paint and Cafecito over in S.E.L.A at Art Space Hp. It was a really chill event, lots of nice people came out, there were great refreshments and coffee. A calligraphy art show was up on the walls, there were lots of cute zines and books. The art session was led by an amazing artist and teacher. The vibe was perfect and I really enjoyed myself. We painted watercolor watermelons 🍉 which is my favorite summer fruit and also my favorite medium to work in rn. We also learned the history of the watermelon as a symbol of love and solidarity for the Palestinian people when they weren’t allowed to have a flag. Overall a really beautiful night. Thankyou ✨@nereidaarts for sharing your time and art knowledge with us ✨@notsoinstantcoffee for the excellent tasty lavender matcha ✨@artspacehp for hosting this wonderful evening ✨@rorocs for your heart energies and for inviting me ✨@joan_zeta for coming out the house to hang out and paint with me.

✨ So theres about a year gap on this page since I posted anything here. I was away for awhile living at a martial arts school in Berlin training full time and visiting with friends and when I got back I just didn’t get around to keeping up with this page probably out of not having the habit anymore. I should mention that when I say I was training full time I don’t mean kicking and punching yes there was that too but actually imagine more like meditation but not just sitting meditation it was really living meditation. Meditation flowing into every thing every task every moment. It was really special time and a lot of the training felt like filming it would break the conversation and container we were building now looking back I wish I had documented a bit more of that especially jian practice but this clip is more or less how it felt. I’ll try to make another reel with some photos.

✈️ Night Flight 🌙 Rando session, had a Saturday night feeling like dancing and didn’t want to go to the club so took to the hills and had some practice. ✨🙏🏼 #night #flight #meditation #heartcentered #wushu #wudang #shaolin #taichi #taiji #xingyi #baguazhang #bagua #kungfu #saturday #vibes #chill #city #life

🌞 Summer is over ✨ I was really pumped when Summer started I had very clear goals and I’m happy to say I met every single one. Not gonna lie though it was HARD. I had pains that I thought were injuries but turned out to be fatigue unreleased tension and tightness. When I found out I was like ohhh yea self care and recovery time “duh” I was so caught up in meeting my own expectations that I was ignoring things my body was telling me. That was interesting because I was telling myself that me staying committed to the practice was how I was showing up for myself but I wasn’t showing up for my self care so my routine wasn’t balanced I needed more yin energy then I was allowing for but I just would not give in to those voices that were telling me it’s too hard you can’t do it all that familiar stuff that the mind does. I mean no one can tell unless I share these insights but this clip is actually me in the middle of deep self doubt, I’m feeling down and questioning what I’m even trying to achieve. But all that didn’t matter the only thing I could do was keep going and I’m glad I did because that momentum would dig me out of those moments. I don’t know I guess what I wanted to share with you today is that you can do it whatever it is your dream might be. Your might not feel like you can or it’s too far away but it’s not it’s all literally happening inside all of us. It’s all inside of you too. It’s in you and you can do it. Believe that. 💕 #meditation #wushu #kungfu #shaolin #taichi #taiji #xingyi #bagua #baguazhang #self #selfcare #challenge #laugh #breathe #start #finish

✨ Making time for slow ✨ Earlier this summer I got to train Taiji ( Taichi ) with a really amazing group in Oregon. The training ground was a beautiful setting in the forest next to a river. The thing I heard the most from teacher during our time together was slow down. That’s what I hear in my head when I watch this clip. I noticed that it’s been hard for me to slow down. I feel behind in a lot of ways so maybe that’s one part of it. I feel like working hard or going in means going all out but I’m confronted with a funny situation with this practice in that to go all out means to slow waaaay down. What can that teach us? Well, going slow in an emotional sense gives us time to feel what’s happening inside ourselves. Going slow in a meditation sense helps us stay present to appreciate the blessings in our lives at the very moment we occupy. In a fitness sense we strengthen our muscles and tendons as well as protect our joints from injury. In a life sense we get to know what it is to appreciate something simple and everyday. In a somatic sense when we start out with these ideas our bodies don’t yet have the language to communicate our ideas so we need to allow our bodies to take in and absorb the movements we are learning by going slow. Maybe you’ve seen the clip of Andre De shields when he said “Slowly is the fastest way to get to we’re you want to be.” When I heard that it was very powerful reaffirming of what I’ve been learning from this Taiji practice and it was interesting to see how our bodies can teach us a lesson that has carryover over into so many other parts of life. Once again all I can do is humble myself and return to gratitude and make some time for slow.✨🙏🏼 #taichi #taiji #harmony #meditation #community #wushu #wudang #jian #slow #wellness #love #peace #watertribe #zen #chan #dao #tao #bagua #baguazhang #grateful

🖤 Community vs Solitude 🤍 Is it even a good thing to put them at opposing ends? I mean , yes, I’m alone but I know I’m part of community. It’s hard for sure, I don’t have a local Wudang community to gather with so I practice by myself most days and kind of dream of what it’s like to be up in the mountains training and growing. That’s like having any dream though right? I’m m very grateful that I have friendly and amazing Wushu neighbors Taiji friends and traditional lion dance school that encourage me when I see them. That’s another part of community. There are really nice elders that come by and check in on me where I practice local families that play at the park everyday wave and say hi. That’s part of community. Yes I’m out here doing my own thing but I’m not in a vacuum and I recognize the people in my life that populate my dreams and spaces where I go to grow. A thousand miles away my Wudang family is cultivating and also here or wherever it is, I am right there with them cultivating so yes we are separated but we are connected in our practice that makes us always together so we can say we are community. I’m May be standing here by myself but I am not alone 💖🙏🏼 I guess that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. #wushu #wudang #community #taichi #taiji #bagua #xingyi #love #service #tender #fierce #harmony #balance #meditation #innerpeace #solitude #soul #jian #bostaff #kungfu #kungfuworld #wushustars #cultivation #shen

Honestly, I’m tired, injured, and aching ✨ But I’m also fired up, feeling stronger than yesterday and happy inside. Some days I don’t feel like practicing but it’s always those same days I’m the most grateful for another practice session. Im not sure how everything fits together like that but that’s what’s happening when I was filming this. I didn’t want to film anything at all but I made a promise to myself that I would use this page as an art diary to document this journey and that includes these kinds of days too. As a method during practice I’ll go slow and work on each piece again and again feeling it out till it feels smooth. Then, I’ll get bursts of fire and go all out to see if my body remembers the movements and whatever comes out is what comes out. Staff is probably my favorite but also my least developed form. Eyes first then hands and feet move together. With wushu like life you deal with what’s right in front of you but you gotta watch your back at the same time. All these things are going on all at once but I can only really process feel and think about one at a time. I feel like my body gets beat up but my spirit gets charged up and when I reflect on this practice that’s the kind of stuff that keeps me coming back day after day. It’s all part of the whole it’s not always perfect and that’s ok. That’s all part of the big picture. So the best thing I can do is work on making things balanced in myself so I can express that out in the world. #wushu #wudang #taichi #taiji #meditation #thoughtoftheday #zen #reflection #innerpeace #qigong #kungfu #bostaff #wushustars

✨About three weeks ago ✨I went to train with a Daoist Master in a small beach town called Beverly just outside of Boston. Being a good traditional teacher he had me start at the beginning and go over one sequence for the entirety of our session. After class he generously gave me a lift back to Boston and we talked along the way. I left NYC around 5am the class was around 5pm. This was meant to be a day trip but I missed the last train back to N.Y.C so it actually became a 24 hour Taichi adventure. This footage is of me stranded overnight in Boston. I slept on the bench in this park in Chinatown waiting for the 6 am train back to N.Y. Sitting there suddenly not having anywhere to go or anything to do I felt inspired to get another practice session in. However where I’m at is a park about two blocks from the train station but it’s full of old men gambling way past midnight and I’m also surrounded by restaurants that close at 4 am so it’s like I’m putting on a show, crowds are stopping filming me cheering as they go by. At one point the police check in on me and stop to watch me practice for over and hour. Afterwards I got hungry and had a great meal at one of the restaurants right behind me and as I sat there I thought about what teacher had said during our session and in the drive. Thinking about the long road ahead of me and how all these seemingly small things day by day add up to a lifetime. About how we make plans but ultimately who knows so it’s really just about going day by day. It was a lot but I was inspired energized and full of fire but also super exhausted sore and to ready to go to bed all mixed up all at once. I can’t explain it well but It was great ✨ So yea, here is me sharing my joy love tenderness passion frustration and gratitude all at once. Happy world Wushu Kung fu Day ✨🙏🏼 One Taiji Family ☯️ Thankyou @xuanyun_zhou ✨🙏🏼 @alfies_w0rld ✨🙏🏼 @daoistgatecenter Grateful for all your teaching kindness inspiration and support ✨ #worldwushukungfuday #iwuf #kungfuworld #usawkf #taiji #taichi #wudang #wushu #kungfu #peaceful #jian #bostaff #denzel #meditation #zen #chan #innerpeace #tao #compassion #chinatown #boston #newyork #losangeles

✨🗽N.Y.C 💖 ✨ Had to get a session at Columbus park, N.Y.C Chinatown is what I thought when I first arrived however this ended up being my daily practice spot for the two weeks or so that I was there so I really got to enjoy this area of Manhattan. It was nice getting to feel those energies there and practicing in that mix of everything all at once and all together. It’s that special sauce that happens in New York. Interestingly, it’s especially helpful while I’m working on the inner stillness and peaceful elements which are the central part of Taiji practice. Stillness in the storm. The city itself is a teacher in a way because of that. Feeling the Ancestors and the other the spirit elements in everything guiding me through the streets I was literally always not sure where I was but I was never lost I would walk down some block or miss my train exit and would run into exactly what I was looking for end up right where I needed to be. I even ran into a friend from Los Angeles just going the same direction in the dead of night 2 am on some random street and we hung out and danced out side the bodega and laughed and caught up ✋🏽 All in all New York is Amazing and I really felt the love and wildness out there from just like the day to day people and it was beautiful. Let me tell you ok It’s like New York is all the things you bring to it, it’s a magical place for real. Fughetabahtit 💖🤌🏽 Take care #taichi #taiji #wudang #wushu #kungfu #sanda #shaolin #ninesectionwhip #travel #train #practice #everyday #adventure ##newyork #chinatown #losangeles #love #art #philosophy #teacher #urbangarden