The Secret Art of Boabom
When The Students Speak:
Extended Student Comments
In this section:
Content
Page 1
Amidst the rush, below the ground, before the crush, the sign I found was echo to a thought I'd often known: to shape a skill of limb and will, to sharpen mind and strengthen flesh and bone. So I marked the address where I'd find more confessed, and that evening I read where it rooted, feeling the fitting well-suited: a motive meditation from an ancient, fading nation, feeding notions of devotion as expanses of [e]motion.
Charged by this coursing carecurrent's conduction, I came to the intro/induction. Drawn in by the details of spiraling skin--the eyes trained to circle, the fist's final spin--before the breath slowed I was sure I'd found kin, and I spoke up and set out to start to begin. Two stretches of time in the week were defined--not named hours, but ours, and curved in, not outlined.
And so a far-thrown net served as anchor in the new, as we started with the simplest of the steps these dancers do. From fi[r]st to next and next to last, we started slow and came to fast[en] force to form, as quick to warm we raised our ways from sole to swarm, from line to curve, from strike to string; we brought to bare all we could bear to bring. From then to when and when to now, from what to where and where to how, we've learned now how to what when where, and then who we will be while there.
Ryan Midura
MA, USA
Although all legitimate martial arts schools hope to improve the health and security of their students, from my personal experience with many teachings, I feel that Boabom offers something completely unique. The simplest way to express this is to say that I actually feel healthier, more energetic, and HAPPIER after each class.
The various styles I have participated in usually make sudden demands on the body. Although they claim to allow a gradual progression to more and more physically demanding or complicated forms, they can throw the student into exhaustion and sometimes injury. Although a student may have a feeling of accomplishment after a class, he or she will usually be tired and often sore. Boabom, allows anyone, in any condition to have a sense of progress while having FUN! There is a continuous feeling in your Boabom classes that the training can make you strong and have you smile at what you discover you can do, rather than grimace your way toward some hoped for skill.
Most people in our society are working hard enough already and most people who work out hard are actually overtraining. The wisdom of the progression of Boabom teachings and forms, is that the student is on a track to healthier breathing, movement, vitality, muscle strength and balance without the negative sense of "working hard". But do not misunderstand because these teachings have tremendous depth. This is not "Martial Arts Lite" where you are going through the motions but not learning skills that might benefit you if you find yourself in that moment of confrontation you never wish to face. In the same way that Boabom is subliminally teaching your body to be healthier, it is programming your mind and body to move in ways no attacker would ever expect, giving you just the edge you would hope a well-learned martial art would give you.
As a physician, I know people need to breathe and move in healthy ways to maximize their functions. How wonderful to find a well developed and time tested system of movements that create this health, a sense of joy, and the ability to protect oneself while the student is actually relaxing throughout the class!
Larry Wolfe
MD, Pediatric Hematology / Oncology
Associate Professor
Tufts University School of Medicine
USA
Seamm-Jasani and Boabom Training Experience and Reflections
Before I discuss the treasure that I have found in Seamm Jasani and Boabom, let me provide some minimal personal background. I have been training in energy and movement systems since age twelve. The systems I have explored in depth, with formal training from acknowledged masters, include: Chinese nei gong, qi gong, and Taoist orbital internal mediations; Chinese Shaolin, Praying Mantis, chin-na (seizing) and weapons - all the classical martial arts; Japanese Iaido formal sword handling; Japanese Soto Zen meditation; Indian kundalini yoga meditation, chanting and energy cultivation regimens; Chinese Yang and Chen style Taijiquan internal martial art; Chinese Baguazhang internal martial art; Chinese xingyiquan internal martial art; and a number of other ancient and modern breath and combative training systems.
The systems I have worked in previously are all erected on the theoretical foundation of the human body's envelope of bio-electric, quasi-spiritual energy. Through the above listed practices, I had learned to experience and perceive the flow and flux of this field within myself. Furthermore, most of the traditional practices speak of special vortices of energy accumulation and generation located along the energy flow lines of the body, like occasional gas stations on a highway. In traditional Chinese terminology (the ancient systems all have their own special vocabularies), the vortices or special energy accumulation points are called "xue" though more commonly the Indian Yogic terminology of "chakra" is used. While there are numerous differences among the traditional systems in their details, most systems hypothesize fundamental chakra at consistent locations in the body, including the crown of the head, the throat, the heart, the solar plexus, the naval and/or sub-naval area, the base of the sex organs, and so on.
With the above introduction, I will now give my experience with Seamm-Jasani and Boabom, which I have not spoken or written of before. Just as many yoga, meditation, and martial arts students have done, I too had experienced both the "flow" aspect of the internal bio-electric energy (warmth, tingling, electric feeling along the limbs) and the accumulation sensations in the various chakra as described above. These sensations are nothing mysterious at all, they are absolutely typical for any ordinary practitioner of yoga, meditation, or martial arts who picks up a practice discipline for even a short period of weeks or months.
However, it was only when I began the practice of Seamm-Jasani and Boabom that I finally understood the real significance of the chakra. I began with Seamm-Jasani, buying the book out of simple curiosity. It was "yet another system" to explore for me. Frankly, having seen similarities in philosophy and details among so many "different" methods and styles, I didn't actually expect to harvest anything truly novel. But I began the practice with my usual exploratory spirit. Right away, within the first hour of my first self-training session, guided only by the first Seamm-Jasani book alone, I felt a harmonizing and smoothing of my energy field and body that I had never before experienced. It was a supremely soothing effect of gentle calming. From that first experience, my internal "ears" perked up, and I realized there must be a lot more to this system that is apparent from a superficial glance. That initial experience intrigued me so much that I immediately planned a trip to the Mmulargan headquarters school for personal training.
At the school, my intuition about the unique properties of the training system was completely confirmed. Immediately, in line with my trip's purpose, I began to receive a thorough grounding in the entire program of the gentler side of the Mmulargan art of Seamm-Jasani. But after all, when you are away from home, there are many hours outside of Seamm-Jasani class to fill. So the teachers invited me to watch or try a session of the more vigorous art of "Boabom" which is taught at the same location.
When I'd come to Chile, I had barely realized the existence of this more rigorous twin art. I had been laser-focused entirely on Seamm-Jasani. In my first few days, when arriving for my Seamm-Jasani classes, I had gotten peeks of people training in something that looked a bit like Seamm-Jasani but which seemed more athletically demanding. At a very superficial glance, when I observed the routines just in passing or while waiting for the Seamm-Jasani sessions to begin, it appeared not extremely different from some of the classical martial arts training that I'd received in the past. Frankly it did not much pique my curiosity. I persisted with my exclusive emphasis on learning as much Seamm-Jasani as I could, to the very best of my ability and time. But the Mmulargan teachers, very kindly concerned that I make the fullest use of my time at the somewhat remotely located Mmulargan headquarters school, continued to gently suggest - or even insist - that I at least try out a single Boabom class. So I agreed, frankly thinking of it as nothing more than a way to pass time between Seamm-Jasani training sessions, which I regarded as the real "meat" of my training expedition to Mmulargan headquarters.
Though the teachers offered me the option simply to observe from the sidelines, that first evening Boabom class looked like it could be fun, so I quickly "suited up" just in time to jump in with the other students and participate for the full session. Wiping the considerable sweat off myself in the changing room after class, I concluded that Boabom seemed like wonderful exercise, and that it was greatly enjoyable. Fine - game over as far as I was concerned. I was grateful to my teachers for suggesting it, and I walked back from the headquarters school to my lodgings that evening in a happy mood -but not expecting anything more from the experience. Boabom had already faded out of my mind, as I was still entirely focused on the pursuit of my Seamm-Jasani training.
Now I will write for the first time about my experience that evening, something I have never even described to my teachers. That night as I lay down to sleep, I had the most profound energetic-spiritual experience of my entire life, directly triggered by that evening's Boabom class. You will remember from the discussion of energy points (chakra) above that I already had knowledge and experience of both energy flow and its accumulations in the special centers. When I lay down to sleep that evening after that first Boabom class, I can't describe what happened any better than to say that my solar plexus center burst open for the first time. It jumped open like a fast-frame video forward of a thousand-petal flower blooming for the first time in an infinitely warm and sweet Springtime. The words may be flowery, but the experience was absolutely blissfully annihilating. It seemed that a huge high-voltage electric plug had been extended directly from the center of the universe and precisely custom-fit to an electric socket located exactly at my solar plexus center. The image makes sense, as traditionally the solar plexus center is said to be the raw power base for the entire body. I'd read that theory of course, but while I had often felt stirrings, it had pretty much been dry doctrine to me previously.
That night, an ocean of pure sweet energy of unspeakable pleasure poured into me relentlessly through the channel plugged in as described above. My mind was completely clear. I never take drugs, I don't even drink or smoke, and I'm a vegetarian. This was not caused by any material substance whatsoever. It was a high voltage line from the sweet, warm, spiritual sun at the center of the universe, piped directly into my body through my solar plexus. As soon as this experience began, I understood with absolute certainty that it was triggered by the Boabom. I suddenly saw exactly how the (even very elementary) Boabom movements had been precision-designed to bring about exactly this effect. But the sweetness and pleasure of that energy connection were simply beyond belief. Like other "mystical" experiences, the ecstasy and pure sweetness of it are beyond words. It can only be experienced. After several hours, it stabilized into a thinner but unbreakable connection of pleasure and light, going straight to my solar plexus always now, a background of "connection" that never leaves me. This is strengthened by every Boabom training session that I perform. I realized that this effect had been consciously created by the Boabom system. Boabom, undergirded by the physical and spiritual preparation of the Seamm-Jasani preliminaries, is a coded, non-obvious work of ancient genius. You could say it is a form of ancient secret "technology" - a fantastically sophisticated technology of safe access to the very highest voltages of the universal energies. I now see that every single apparently small or insignificant or decorative posture, movement, alignment or practice mode of Boabom is in fact a crucial, integrated element in an unspeakably effective discipline of energetic re-connection to the Source. And please remember that what I learned in just a few weeks at the Mmulargan headquarters school is no more than the most elementary, most rudimentary and simplistic beginner sequences and exercises of Boabom - nothing more. The full expanse of the art lies far beyond my mental and visual range even now.
I believe that the Mmulargan school's teachings are probably the "root" human system energy cultivation technologies from which the various others derived various fragments over time. It seems to me that those other adopters then modified their fragments of this material for their own special purposes and created the various better-known systems of Yoga and classical martial arts. In any case, that is simply historical speculation on my part. What I can assert definitely from my own experience, is that Boabom, supported by the preparatory Seamm-Jasani foundation, is the key to plugging into the almost unbearable pleasure and supreme sweetness of the hidden heart of the universal sun of energy that sustains all life.
And what I particularly love about the Mmulargan school's teachings is that they haven't been used to create a cult, a religion, a belief system or any other rigid orthodoxy. Rather than doctrine and belief, the Mmulargan school emphasizes a gently non-verbal kind of direct experience, that can be integrated into every individual student's life and value system entirely as he or she wishes. The unspoken message seems to be: Believe anything you want. Just train and experience the simple "re-connection".
Scott Meredith
PhD Theoretical and Computational Linguistics
Senior Researcher
WA. USA
I lack words when it comes to describing such an impressive thing as Boabom: so much can be said about it, yet there is not one single way to define it, for it combines many different factors which, when united, allow a person to reach an amazing level of fulfillment in their life.
This Art, which has accompanied me since my childhood, can be seen from various perspectives: as a physical activity, but not just any physical activity; one which is extremely complex, at the same time easy and possible for all different kinds of people, drastically improving any deficiency in their motor capacity, giving them precision and strength, since it works with all the different groups of muscles (and really, with all of them!); it can also be seen as a system of defense, but when defense is mentioned in this Art, it is from a totally unique perspective. Boabom is totally effective, precise, non-routine, and besides all of this it gives you confidence in every action in your life, whatever it may be.
When it comes to health, we can see an improvement in condition across different types of ailments. I have seen and experienced this personally: from simple digestive problems and ulcers to chronic asthma and more. If you want to relax, you will also have optimum results, and I can attest to how the body brings the mind to a state of quietness, making you forget all of your problems and feel like you are 'in the clouds', leaving your mind free to work positively towards whatever you want, especially in my personal experience within the stressful world of medical school.
Another astonishing element I have seen, related to this activity, is how sedentary people quickly recover their natural energy, sharpen their senses, increase their physical elasticity, and in general rejuvenate themselves. Without a doubt the breathing exercises increase the lung capacity, helping the person obtain an optimum intake of oxygen for each blood vessel, gaining as well a higher endurance in any activity which requires physical effort, preparing all the students for endless activities.
Parallel to this, the constantly new physical coordinations stimulate the nervous system, creating new neuronal connections, giving a new agility and speed to motor reactions. Inside your own head, these stimuli help to clear your thoughts, letting you think faster, and increasing many other sensory capacities, and like a string of lights, once you are able to plug them in, you begin to "see".
Boabom is a system that allows you to "be" for the first time, meaning to think, for the first time, without reference to another (or without needing to compare yourself); at the same time you overcome those barriers that society constantly forces on us, like prejudice, competition, mockery, etc. This Teaching is a path to individual perfection, and Art.
It is correct that we always call it "Art", for this word identifies it in a special way. Art is the expression of what each individual feels, no matter how it is emanated, and in this case it is done through movements that allow you to emphasize each characteristic of your own way. Once you begin the study of Boabom, you surprise yourself by being happier and more expressive, without any apparent reason, until after a while you realize that it is thanks to this system.
This vision represents a brief sample of someone who has studied this teaching since near the beginning of his existence, and has taken it primarily as a way of life and a continuous apprenticeship, being a fundamental foundation for everything I do and face in this odyssey we call life.
So if you are truly interested in what you have seen in this book (to which I am truly happy to be able to add my comments), and if you are one of those people who are looking for something, though you do not know what (even though it may sound like a cliché), look to make contact with this activity, and I can guarantee that you will have real results in a short time.
From a faithful student... and apprentice-Teacher of Boabom.
Saulo Díaz
Medical Student
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)
Brazil