Practitioners in the Twin Cities of Minnesota shared the Fa with people in two very different, but very successful events one weekend in August. The first event was indoors and attended by a small number of people. It was well-planned and very in-depth. The second event was outdoors and spontaneous, but a few thousand people got a brief look at Falun Gong up close.
On Saturday, practitioners hosted an open presentation on Falun Gong with an audience of about eight non-practitioner guests. It was held entirely in Chinese language. The program included the Chinese version of "The Real Story: Part 2" video, a narrated slideshow about the practice and the situation in China compiled by local practitioners, some personal experiences from practitioners, including one former skeptic who has later on become a diligent practitioner since spring of this year, discussion and Q & A, demonstrations of the exercises, and teaching of exercises to the guests. All the guests seemed to gain a new understanding of Dafa, and two guests even came to group practice the next day.
On Sunday, group practice is normally held indoors at a health care center located in a busy, popular section of Minneapolis called "Uptown." When practitioners realized that the practice site was located less than 100 yards from the well-attended annual outdoor Uptown Art Fair, they decided to practice outdoors and hand out flyers as people passed by.
In spite of some loud rock music coming from the fair, the peaceful exercise practice music and the graceful movements of practitioners attracted a lot of attention from fairgoers who were going to or leaving the fair. On this beautiful sunny day, at least 600-700 Falun Dafa introduction flyers with local practice information were given out in about six hours. Some people stopped to chat with practitioners, asking what was going on.
One local couple had seen group practice at a lake and wanted to learn the second exercise. A shirtless young man who knew that Teacher lives in Brooklyn boisterously whooped out support and pumped his fist in the air as he took a flyer and told his companions about Falun Gong. People from Seattle and New York learned that they could look up local practitioners in their cities on the FALUNDAFA.ORG web site. One older couple who had practiced eight different styles of qigong couldn't believe that we would offer instruction for free, and said they would come and check Falun Gong out some time. People riding skateboards and bicycles, pushing baby strollers, holding dog leashes, and carrying cold drinks or newly purchased art objects -- all accepted flyers and turned their heads to watch the group exercises.
We were reminded that Teacher has told us to practice outdoors. During our unplanned outdoor practice, a few thousand people saw us. This steady stream of passersby were a more diverse and more "typical" American group of people than those at any other activity we have been involved in locally. We were happy to know that they had a chance to see the beauty of Dafa and see the words "Falun Dafa."
We learned from these events that promoting the Fa can take both prepared and spontaneous forms. As practitioners, we realize it is a good idea to carry some informational materials at all times, and to be always ready to introduce Falun Dafa to people, regardless of the situation.