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Sorry in advance if this is elsewhere on the site, I'm posting from my phone and it would take me all day to do a search. Anyway, I have been thinking of taking a 4 day weekend and taking a backpacking trip into the woods alone for a personal Meditation/Chi Kung/Kung Fu retreat. I have never done anything of the sort before, and I wanted to ask here if anybody had any insights into this kind of a thing. I'm a noob as far as actually doing Chi Kung goes but am a bit of a nerd and have read some on the topic. My sifu will also be willing to help me out with this. I have meditated before so I am not worried about that either. The thing that I'm not sure about is how to structure the whole thing as far as where to place my activities throughout the day. I want to include time for reading the Tao Te Ching and for hiking about and just keeping myself reminded that I am a natural beast. Like I said, I'm looking for some insights if anyone has them. Thanks

Thanks for the input, all. I am from New Jersey and will probably be going into the Catskills somewhere or if I feel like driving further maybe the Adirondacks. I really haven't put much thought into it yet. I just got the idea to do this a short while ago and if it works out well there will be a small handful of this type of thing strewn throughout the year for as long as they suit me.

I've been thinking lately about what it means to be a "real man" as opposed to a boy who has gained age but not maturity. I think that in this day and age the idea of manliness comes with too many negative connotations and few if any positive ones. Way back in the days before the industrial revolution every culture had specific rites that a boy had to go through in order to join the ranks of the men. Manhood was something to be revered. In our modern times we have none of this and I think it is the majority of the reason that men don't feel like men anymore. I am 33 years old and though I am happier and better adjusted than I was as a screwed up little kid I still do not know entirely what it means to be a man. I was wondering if anyone here has any thoughts on what traits separate boyhood from manhood. What needs to be added to the boy, what needs to be eliminated from him? Have any of you read any good books on these ideas?

This was obviously the wrong place to pose this question. It seems that most of you are answering a much deeper question than I am asking. I'm just looking for a way to feel more masculine energy in my life. I'm not looking for anybody's assessment of how mature or immature I am, and frankly I don't think that anybody here knows enough about me to make those assumptions. The second thing I want to address is the mistaken idea that some of you have about me being completely self serving. What I meant by writing this quote is that I think it is foolish to go about your life trying to please everybody but yourself. In my opinion it is important to take care of yourself first so that you CAN take better care of others. The more I do to improve my life, the better I am able to help people who are in situations that I have been in. In fact, I feel that helping people improve their lives is the primary reason that I am here to begin with. The selfishness and immaturity comes when someone either does not see, or loses sight of the part where they're supposed to extend that help to other people.

Howdy folks, I just wanted to say hello (yes, I actually SAID "hello". Unfortunately I have no voice recognition abilities on my computer, so nobody heard my "hello" except for me). I tend to think of myself as one of the most amiable people I've run into. I'm a crazy Gemini, so I have 170 billion different interests and not enough energy to devote to all of them. I remedy this by picking one and obsessing over it for a few months until a bigger, brighter, shinier thing comes across my proverbial line of sight. My goal in life is to become a personal coach so that I can facilitate my life's purpose which is to help people (myself and others) get loose of all their inner BS so that they can live happy fulfilling lives. I became a student of Kung Fu about a year ago. I have interests in Beer brewing, metaphysics, personal evolution, music, musical instruments, children's fantasy novels, The Legend of Zelda, blah blah blah. Like I said, I'm a very multi-faceted guy. I could go on and on about myself and my own interests but somebody told me once that remaining mysterious will attract people to you. Guess I'll have to try that some day. Peace, Love and Tacos