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Author and Contact > About the Author
About the Author
Derek Padula is a video game designer and owner of Young Forest Games, where he creates "Games with Meaning" for PC and consoles. He has also helped develop the following video games: "Tony Hawk Under Ground (T.H.U.G.)", "Pitfall: The Lost Expedition", "James Bond: 007: From Russia With Love", "The SIMS 2: Holiday Pack", "Puzzles of Life", and "The Soprano's". He is a board member of the Westwood College Student Advisory Board Game Design Curriculum of Los Angeles and a martial arts instructor in Shaolin Gong Fu. In addition he is an Adjunct Professor at ITT Technical Institute Torrance campus. Furthermore he is a full time apartment manager in Culver City and a part time freelance web developer. He is also a Falun Dafa cultivator, and believes strongly in it's Fa (Law).
Derek has been a fan of Dragonball since the first two seasons of Dragonball Z aired on television in America nearly a decade ago (1997), and has been watching the anime and reading the manga ever since. His field of study in school was East Asian Studies, and he saw a lot of correlations between Buddhism, Daoism, and Japanese culture within Dragonball and his daily life. This led him to write The Dao of Dragonball.
The author's journey tab elaborates on the process of personal development that began with Dragonball.
Author and Contact > Author's Journey of Cultivation
Derek Padula's Journey of Cultivation
My personal cultivation begins with Dragonball.
Around the age of 14 I began watching Dragonball, and I became obssessed with it. There was something about it I just fell in love with and I watched it every chance I had. I would even watch the repeats over and over simply because they were on TV. It was the same way with my friends.
At 16 a friend of mine decided it was about time to start living like Dragonball, and we both enrolled in Shaolin Gong Fu martial arts at a local kwoon. For some strange reason I didn't think I would like it. Instead I absolutely loved it and it became an enormous part of my life.
Soon I began taking the other classes at the kwoon, including Tai Ji and San Sau, in addition to the Gong Fu. In my free time I started to learn more about Qi Gong and energy manipulation techniques. My goal was to be like Goku. However unrealistic that may seem to some, in my mind it appeared to be not only a possibility, but a very likely one.
To reach that goal I practiced standing stance exercises daily and tried to learn martial arts based energy techniques. Unfortunately the techniques were very slow to cultivate, and I didn't get very far with them. Even the books that taught them said it could take 5 or 10 years of daily practice before the technique would be mastered, and I simply hadn't put in enough dedicated time. My interest didn't fade, but it was simply so time consuming, and I had difficulty making it a priority amongst the rest of life.
Around the age of 19 I stumbled across Falun Gong while searching the Internet for more Qi Gong styles. I downloaded the books for free, read them, and realized that it was something amazing. I didn't know why exactly, and some parts of it seemed strange, but I kept reading.
Then I downloaded the exercise videos and taught myself the exercises. Instantly I felt the power and energy that I had been trying to attain over the last few years, and I knew then and there that it was for real. I read the texts more earnestly and started to change and mature as a person... All for the better.
In my junior year of university I studied abroad in Beijing, China at the Beijing Language and Culture University. While there I trained with a Tai Ji master and Olympic Coach, as well as a Shaolin Monk who had recently started a school in Beijing after exiting the temple. I learned a great deal about Chinese culture and life, made a few friends, and thoroughly enjoyed my stay.
For the last 4 years I have practiced Falun Gong and studied the literature. In my mind it is a perfect combination of all my interests, and it helped my understanding of so many unexplained aspects of life. It also had the side benefit of enabling me to see the more subtle aspects of Dragonball, to which I am still a fan.
When I look back at the last 10 years of my life I realize just how incredibly profound the impact of Dragonball actually was. It completely changed my life. Without Dragonball I would not be the person I am today.
Of course I fully understand that Dragonball isn't real, and was created by a comic book artist thousands of miles away, but as a result of my interest in Dragonball I began walking the path of personal cultivation, and for that I am extremely grateful. It doesn't matter what brought me onto the path, what matters is that I walk it. Because of that I owe Akira Toriyama and the creators of Dragonball a sincere thank you.