Archive for the ‘training’ Category

After a long break for Spring Festival (Chinese New Years, Lantern Festival, etc.) I was finally able to get back to training.  I knew that after almost a full month away from wushu I would be in for a good wushu beat-down and for the most part I wasn’t mistaken.

I only lasted through the basics – just barely – and when they did nandu I went on the side and worked on some of my nanquan choreography – mainly end of the 3rd section transitioning to the 4th. 

They did full forms today, competition style.  And by “competition style” I mean that they would do the salue, walk-on, etc.  The coach also had it filmed for reference and was timing them.  Their competition will be on April 5 (according to Xiao Yu) and I was told that I might be able to join them and go there, so hopefully that works out and I can post up videos and results via wushuzilla.  Keep your fingers crossed.

After their full forms they did some half-sets and so I joined in with that.  I got through most of my second half (3-4), but it was pretty brutal.  Definitely my lung endurance has suffered from my break, and my body is not quite as responsible or strong as it was last month, but I was expecting that to be the case so it isn’t too surprising.

And here is my video for today’s training.  Be sure to watch the part that talks about their competition preparation schedule.  I thought it was pretty interesting what they are doing.

Tuesday I didn’t make it to practice, so I went on Wednesday instead.  But it turns out I might as well not have gone since it was a pretty light day.  Here is my training vlog.  Enjoy!

As you can see from the title, I’m going to do a bit of an experiment this month and instead of writing out these super long blogs (which actually don’t take THAT much time) I’m going to try to use my small camera to record more in-the-wushu-guan vlogs (video blogs), which I can just put up quickly.   This one is actually a little long because I took a few different clips and had to string them together, but if I can get things working right it should make the process much faster in the future.

A few things that aren’t on the video …

1. My nanquan section run-down for today: 4 x 4, 3 x 4, 2 x 4, 1-2, 3-4.  So, 12 single sections and two half sets.  Considering that I felt like crap most of the class, thats not too bad.  I actually noticed my endurance and recovery was markedly improved from the previous week. 

2. Xiao Yu mentioned that their commissary (lunch room) has a card system for non-athletes.  You can buy a card and put money on it and then just use that to buy various ala carte items from their food offerings.  I might try that out some time and put up a vlog about it so that you guys can check it out. 

3. Today Zhang Laoshi wasn’t there so Han Laoshi coached us.  He gave me a few “Ma Ke! (Mark!)” which was nice.  He actually remembers my name now.

Enjoy the video, and let me know what you think.  Do you like this sort of thing or do you prefer to read the written word.  Leave a comment! (BTW, if you have been having problems logging in, it isn’t you. My site is a little wonky and I haven’t had time to fix it yet.  Until then you can go here to login.

 

For those on alivenotdead and facebook, be sure to visit wushuzilla.com to read this blog in its entirety, with the full glory of videos and media!

I entered the wushu guan a little late on Friday thinking that the athletes would already be running around and getting warmed up. But when I walked in only Xiao Yu was on the carpet rolling her ankles and wrists.  I looked at her inquisitively and she shrugged her shoulders.

“Its just me!” she offered.

Oh right.  Fridays were light because most of the athletes in my group had school (or something) going on so it was just the non-school-attending professional athletes that showed up.  Today that was just Xiao Yu, Yuan Min and myself (sans the “professional” part).

To warm up Zhang Laoshi and the three of us played a little game of keep-away soccer.  On the other carpets were the taiji group as well as the kids from up north.  I also noticed that a few very young kids were training on the far side.  3 new children that I hadn’t seen before, 2 boys and a girl, probably around 7 or 8 years old.

While they were stretching out I noticed that the three of them were pretty flexible, but I thought that wasn’t particularly unusual.  But when the little girl did her front stretch kicks I had to pick my jaw up off the ground.  They were really, really impressive.  Whoever has been training her is doing a bang-up job because her zheng ti tui was spot-on.  Her other kicks need a little work, but she has that unique combination of power and flexibility that eludes a lot of younger kids.  You will see kids that have a lot of one or the other, but it is hard to find someone who can use both effectively.

I was doing my own training so I didn’t get any footage of her front stretch kick, but I did manage to get some of their other basics training.  Here are some of their kicks for your viewing pleasure.

 

For myself, I spent most of the class working on my choreography.  I worked through the rest of my nangun form, fine-tuning it and working out all the sections.  I now have something I can practice, which is nice.  I just have to be sure to keep it up so that I don’t forget it.

While I was training I also managed to get a bit more footage.  The benefit of it being a light day for me is that I can capture footage of other people training.  Here is a young woman practicing some taiji jian.

The wushu youths from up north were hard at work too.  Their coach (Coach Zhang’s assistant, who’s name I’m not sure of.  And for some reason he calls Xiao Yu and I “Garfield” –- ironically the same name that Han Jing called me back in 1999 in Beijing … Do I really look like Garfield?  No, wait – don’t answer that.) has really been giving them their money’s worth and they get tons of pointers.  Here is him giving them some pointers.

And here are the same youths running through some sections at the end of class.

And finally here is some footage of the wushu kids.  After their basics, but before they started conditioning they took a little break on the side of the room so I captured some of that.

And I also got some of their conditioning too. 

And that is pretty much it for Friday’s class.  I have already posted up my vlog and have prepared the blog for Monday’s class (2/1) so you get a double-dose of wushu blogginess today.  yay!

NOTE: For those of you on Facebook, you will want to visit my YouTube Channel to view all of the videos, since Facebook’s lame importing functionality doesn’t allow for embeded videos.

As I mentioned before, I had gotten permission from Zhang Laoshi and Han Laoshi to have a couple of my 外国朋友 (foreign friends) visit the wushu guan to check out the professional athletes doing their thing.  James and Charisse, along with Ruhi, jumped on the bus with me at the crack of morning and we made our way to the morning class.

Of course, what you are really wanting to know about is whether or not Ruhi was able to take any videos of the practice.  Well, you had best throw some appreciation towards the wife because she got a ton of really good footage which I am still organizing and editing to put online for everyone to watch.  Of course, by the time you read this I should be done, but just pretend that you had to wait an unreasonable amount of time, okay?

James even brought his camera along and was nice enough to toss his photos my way for posting online.  So, you can also throw a few “谢谢”over to him as well.

First up are some basics.  You might notice that I intentionally cut my own basics out of the videos.  I figured that (a) you don’t want me wasting precious bandwidth and resources with my sub-standard jibbengong and (b) it wasn’t something that you don’t probably see in your own wushu guan all the time anyway.  Not to worry, I will have a video of my own wushu later on in the blog …

It turned out that this particular day was a heavy nandu focus for training.  All the athletes had to do full nandu combinations many times.  So, of course that means we were able to get some pretty good nandu footage of the practice:

On the far carpet, as you can see from the previous two videos, there was a group of younger athletes training.  I mentioned them before – they are the ones from Northern Shaanxi.  It seems that they are here much in the same way that schools from the U.S. come to China for a month in the summer to train in Wushu.  The main distinction is that these kids are from China so there is no language or cultural barrier, and they are all much better than kids their age in other countries.  But the idea is sort of similar, since they are currently on a break from school so their coaches brought them to train with the “professional” wushu athletes.  Here is some of them:

And, as I mentioned, James was nice enough to snap some pictures of the practice.  Here are a few from the basics and nandu training:

 

 

 

He managed to take some pretty nice shots, huh?

Anyway, after basics and nandu it was time for forms.  Yuan Min told me that we were going to do 16 sections, so I decided to run through 3 of each of my nanquan sections, for a total of 12, and then go through my first section of nan gun 4 more time to flesh out the full 16.  I actually ended up doing something a bit more like this:

1 x 3, 2 x 3, rest 1 rotation, 3 x 3, 4 x 3, ng x 3

I really needed to take a short break in the middle there.  I’m not quite up to the endurance required for 16 sections in a group of just 6 other people.  The turn around is about 2 – 3 minutes for your physical recovery so it is pretty intense.  Not quite as intense as that SCWA practice in 2001 where I had to do 8 full forms in a rotation with 3 other people … but it was almost like that.

Here is some of the athlete practice media.  First up is Yue Xiao Yu.  You can see some really good intensity in the video of her nanquan.  I also like some of the pictures James took of her:

 

 

 

After her we’ll watch Yuan Min’s video.  i really like how his nan gun form is shaping up.  As you might recall, 2 weeks ago he taught me his nangun form.  Then a week later he proceeded to rechoreograph almost the entire thing and make himself an even cooler form.  So I’m stuck with his outdated hchoreography and he gets to look bad ass.  I don’t really mind though.  Even his outdated choreography is better than what I could have come up with on my own.

 

He was giving me a few pointers in that last picture, although the suggestions he gave me during class were way out of my ability level.  Some day though …. some.day.

Here are two more southern athletes.  One is a younger man who’s name I don’t know (practicing nan gun) and the other is Tian Jing Fang doing some nanquan.

 

 

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a wushu practice if someone wasn’t doing a bit of chang quan in the room.  Here are two athletes demonstrating a bit of that. The younger man in the first video is actually practicing with a wrapped ankle, so that is why he is sort of taking it a bit easy on some of the moves.

 

 

While we were doing our wushu thing, the taiji group was practicing over on the left side of the carpet.  Ruhi managed to get a bit of them doing some taiji.  So here is some of that.

Recently after practices the coach has had us do some stretching together in a circle.  A new development that I am actually rather enjoying. 

After class I asked James, Charisse and Ruhi what they thought of the class.  For James and Charisse this was the first time they had ever seen wushu, so it was nice to hear a fresh perspective on things.  I’ve been around wushu for so long that it is sometimes hard to remember how it felt to discover wushu for the first time.  As a bit of background on them, Charisse has around 10 years of dance/ballet experience and James did crew (rowing) at Stanford, so they both have an appreciation for physical sports and exercise.

And, as promised, here is a video of my nanquan practice from Thursday.  I will just say right now that my form needs work.  But it is at least better than it was before, and I am hopeful that it will continue to improve in to the future.

I realize this was a few days late but hopefully the abundance of wushu videos made it worth your while.  I have some more footage from Friday’s class too, which I will try to post up tomorrow if I have any time, including a pretty amazing little girl that has some pretty killer basics.  I don’t know who she is, but if she is up for adoption I might have to put in a bid.

Stay tuned for that in the next blog! 

I’ve been so busy with work and life that I have not had a chance to blog too much recently.  This might continue to be the case until the end of February when I return from Hong Kong and start school.

Anyway, my most recent training session with the Shaanxi Wushu Team was pretty good.  When I got there I noticed a whole new crop of young athletes walking in to the wushu guan.  I later found out that they were all from the northern part of Shaanxi Province – a smaller town called Yan’an (延安).  You can see it on the map here:

View Yan’an in a larger map

They were combined with some of our younger athletes and put on the SW carpet with Coach Zhang’s assistant who ran them through a whole lot of basics.  Pretty much most of their class was basics, with just a bit at the end working on sections.  Based on their wushu I would say they are a bit rough around the edges but have some potential.  Its all in the details, after all.

I was told they will be in Xi’an training with us for a month.  There are about 12 or 15 of them, ranging from the low to high teens.  About 70% boys.  Should be fun to see them progress over time.

For my own class there were 8 of us in Coach Zhang’s group.  I was in a line with 3 other nanquan folks and surprisingly I made it through basics without too many problems.  I’m chocking it up to a good workout game of keep-away that worked up a nice sweat.

After nandu we did combinations – about 16 lines of them – and then switched to sections.  I focused primarily on my 3rd section, as that is the one I’ve been reworking.  I’m happy to say that I just about have it figured out.  Well … almost.  We’ll see how long this lasts.  I never seem satisfied with my choreography – mainly because I’m never satisfied that what I have choreographed is the best possible combination for my particular style of wushu.  The coach seemed to like this new version so we’ll see if it sticks.

Sections went on for quite a while.  I probably did about 8 – 10 sections before I had to stop.  But the other folks just kept on going.  Very 努力.  I went over to visit with Xiao Yu who was working (i.e. chatting with someone) on the side.  She said she will go to the hospital in the afternoon to get an x-ray on her leg, along with one of the Taiji athletes.

She also said she is still waiting to hear from the coaches about the cost of training, so still waiting on that information as well … But one neat thing that happened is that I had asked her what the possibility of having some of my friends come to watch the Team train and she said I could bring them any time.  Pretty neat.  So I’m going to try and arrange an outing for some of my friends in Xi’an who have never seen wushu to check out what it is all about.  I’m sure it will blow their socks off.  Perhaps next Wednesday would be a good day, since I’m not training then.

After class I headed out and took the bus home.  Ruhi is sick at home right now so I made some soup and worked a bunch from home.

Today’s practice was brought to you by the number 3. As in the third section of my nanqan form, which is what I was spending most of my time working on today.

The first part of class started off like most others. Warm ups (led by Yuan Ming), stretching and basics. Then it was time for sections. I started with my 4th section and went through it 4 times (I guess today is also brought to you by the number 4) but when it was time for me to start on the 3rd section I realized I didn’t really have it fully figured out yet.

Some of the athletes, like Xiao Yu, were on the other carpet working through their stuff, so I joined them and spent most of the class trying to fix the things that didn’t feel right with my 3rd section. Part of what I was working on was utilizing some of the suggestions that Gao Song had made regarding my movements in Hong Kong. But utilizing that feedback requires me to really retool some of my form.

Actually, most of my form.  He sort of shifted my paradigm a bit so I need to go through each movement and re-evaluate how I do it and whether or not it fits in with my personal style of wushu and nanquan.  A daunting task to be sure.

Anyway, after class I needed to pick up a memory stick that Xiao Yu had borrowed, but since she had left it in her dorm room she said I could go with her to check out what the living conditions are like for the athletes.

Actually, I had a few surprises.  Which I suppose I shouldn’t have had since I’ve seen the dorms before, albeit a different building.  Back in 2008 during the China Nationals in Xi’an, Wu Di and Zhao Qing Jian were living on the same campus while training with the China National Team for a demo in Taiwan.  I got to visit their room then.  In fact, here is a picture from that:

Anyway, the dorms are pretty much as I expected them to be.  Think post-industrial concrete meets pre-modern industrial.  A little utilitarian, but still quite livable.  The one thing that I was really impressed with was that each room only housed two athletes (unlike the 6 person rooms back in Beijing or the 4 person rooms in Shanghai) and each room had its own bathroom.  Thats right!  No communal toilets.  Rather nice.

Yue Xiao Yu’s roommate was Zhang Yang, who you might remember from this blog entry.  Xiao Yu is also quite the entrepreneur.  I remember when she came to my house a few weeks back, she mentioned that she would take the bus (1 RMB each way) to the train station to buy candies and various 点心 and then bring them back and sell them in her room.

The store at the school sold them for a little more than she did, so the students would prefer to buy them from her since it was cheaper and she was closer than the store located in the next building over.  She made a small amount of money because her costs were lower than she sold them for.  Not a ton of money (we’re talking a few mao per sale) but it was still pretty industrious of her.

Fast forward to today and I got to see the operation in action.  Actually she stopped doing it, but she still has some stock left over from her last trip to the Train Station so until she sells out she can keep selling them.

One of the little kids (from this blog entry) came in while I was there, clenching a 20RMB note in her hand ready to buy some candies.  It was pretty cute.  One of the Taiji athletes came in as well and bought something to eat.  It was mostly candies, crackers, chips .. that sort of thing.

While we were there I tried to show her my alive.tom.com blog (since it is the only place my photos are viewable in China) but her connection was super slow so it didn’t load up.  In the meantime she showed me her QQ page and the little girl also used her computer to check something.  I got some pictures of them here:

One of the things we talked about was a few questions I had related to having foreigners come and train with the Shaanxi Team. I’ve had one or two requests for specific information related to training here (mainly for people wanting to come during the summer) so I was doing some investigating.

I have to say that, while I enjoy having a professional wushu team all to my self, I realize that this is a pretty nice situation and a decent facility and that some other folks out there might be interested in knowing more about what it would take to come train here too. Especially since planning for your summer China training trips are probably in the works.

The other nice thing about this location is that it is probably the only city in China that has a richer history than Beijing (or at least pretty darn close), and some of the greatest tourist sites in the country. Add that to the fact that it is sooo much cheaper than training at Shi Cha Hai (but also keeping in mind that it isn’t a fancy 5 star hotel either — in case that sort of thing is important to you), and I personally think that it is a nice option for those who might be interested.

In any case, I’m not a travel agent, but if you want some information feel free to contact me through my website’s contact form and I will keep you in the loop with whatever I find out regarding training options in Xi’an.

Next practice … Wednesday morning!

Today was just my second wushu practice this week.  Which meant two things:

1. I wouldn’t be too sore during practice since my body had been given some recovery time after Monday’s practice with the Hong Kong Team.

2. I would most likely be wiped out after class.

But when the athletes showed up there was just 3 other people in my group.  The taiji group was all there (and working hard as usual) but in Coach Zhang’s group it was just Yuan Ming, Zhang Yuan Biao and the young girl from Zhejiang who always wears a purple jacket.  It turned out that everyone was in school, and even Xiao Yu, who is usually there, was off taking a driving class. (Beware pedestrians of Xi’an!)

We started off with a light game of keep-away soccer, which actually helped me build up a suitable sweat.

But the class itself was pretty much a self-study class.  The Zhejiang girl went off with Coach Zhang’s assistant coach on the far side of the room to do a bunch of basics, but the rest (3) of us were told to just work on our forms and choregraphy.

I saw Yuan Ming pull out a nangun from the storage room so, remembering he told me he would teach me his form I asked him “When would you be able to teach me your nangun form?” to which he answered “Right now”.  I rushed in the storage room and grabbed a nangun for myself and then met him on the carpet.

He showed me 3 sections of his form (basically the form minus the nandu) in about 20 minutes or so and I spent the rest of the time working through the details on my own.  I incorporated some of my best/favorite moves from my previous nangun form and used them to fill in some of the gaps from his.  I spent the better part of an hour just working out my choreography.  It was, for me, a good class, because I needed to develop a decent nangun form and the one I had developed on my own wasn’t so hot.

From this point I can take what I have and slowly evaluate each area to find weaknesses and determine if I need to swap anything else out.  This is the part that is interesting, since I get to really work on the meat of the form and fine tune the details.

In case you forgot what his nangun looks like, here is a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbKVqStQQtE

Naturally it is going to take me a bajillion years to make it look half-way decent, but at least I have something besides nanquan to work on.

I think later in the spring I’m going to work on retooling my nandao form too.  But for now, this is plenty.

As you may have read on my facebook feed or my previous blogs, I’m in Hong Kong for a few days to renew my visa and meet with a few clients.  But while I was here I thought I would check out the Hong Kong Wushu Team’s training.  Gao Song, one of the HK team coaches, originally from the Liaoning Wushu Team, was kind enough to let me work out with them too.

If you have been in the “loop” you have probably seen the Hong Kong team’s training facility on various videos.  It is located in the Sports Complex out in Ma On Shan in the New Territories.  The practice was at 3pm so I headed out from Tin Shui Wai around 2pm via bus to Sheung Shui, Train to University Station and Taxi to Ma On Shan.  I made it just a few minutes after 3. Here is a map of the route:

View Hong Kong Wushu (1/11) in a larger map

Red Line = Bus from Tin Shui Wai to Sheung Shui
Blue Line = MTR from Sheung Shui to University Station
Green Line = Taxi from University Station to Ma On Shan

Gao Song was also nice enough to hook me up with a pair of shoes to train with.  A little tight to start with, but they stretched out quite nicely during class and now they are very comfortable.  Great slapping sound too.  I think these are the default shoes the HK team trains with.

The class was pretty good.  It started off with the team members playing soccer on one carpet and I did some jogging and my own warming up on another.  The head coach was there, along with Gao Song and another coach, as well as Hei Zhi Hong, formerly on the Beijing Team, but a coach/athlete with Hong Kong too.  No Colin, I’m afraid and He Jing De was back in the U.S., but I was able to see his wife, Ya Qing (Christine) after class, as she coaches the younger kids at 5:00.  Nice to see her again as it had been a year or two since we last met up.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself a bit.  Back to the class…

After warm ups and stretching it was time for basics.  Of the 9 or 10 athletes training, 2 of them were nanquan people.  I would follow along with whatever nanquan basics they did in the line.  After basics the rest of the class was all small combinations from forms, which turned out to be perfect.

The one thing I have to say about the class is that Gao Song, who was the main coach for the practice, is a really, really good coach.  He is able to provide some really great feedback that gets to the heart of one’s wushu deficiencies.  The corrections he gave me were spot on and its going to give me things to work on for at least the next several weeks.  There are only a few coaches (I can count how many on one hand) that provide that level of helpful instruction, so if you ever get the chance to train with Gao Song, I totally recommend taking advantage of the opportunity.

I wish he lived in Shaanxi.  Because even though the coaches and athletes in Xi’an are wonderful and very helpful, it isn’t quite the same level and I feel like I would really improve very quickly if I had more opportunities to train with him.

Unfortunately while I’m in Hong Kong for 2 weeks next month he will be up in Liaoning visiting family for New Years.  Which is sort of a bummer, but can’t be helped.  It almost makes me want to head to Liaoning.  But … I’ve been to Liaoning in the winter and it ain’t for the faint of heart.

Since it was my first time training there and I didn’t want to make a bad impression I didn’t do any pictures or recording of the practice.  However, I was able to take a little video of Gao Song and his wife at dinner that you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RsgmFWUtRA

I hope that I have the opportunity to come down and train with them again in the future.  It was very educational and quite beneficial, both in terms of wushu, and also because I got to hang out with some good friends.

Monday work was super busy so I didn’t go to wushu. So my first day of wushu this week was Wednesday (today). And it was pretty brutal.

Not so much because it was super hard, but because the atmosphere was super intense. Coach Zhang wasn’t there today and so Coach Han, the head coach for the Taolu Athletes, was coaching us. And like I said before, he doesn’t take any prisoners.

If you can imagine the achetype of the Chinese wushu coach that barks out orders, has a constant scowl on his face and strikes fear into the hearts of young athletes, that would be Coach Han. I’m sure he’s a super nice guy outside of the wushu guan, but inside he’s 100% business.

The class started off with a lot of running. It was the usual set of running, but a bit more than usual. I had to stand out towards the end because my knee was twinging a bit, but it certainly helped me work up a sweat. Which is good because it was pretty cold in the wushu guan today.

Then we did basics. Again, not so many more than usual, but much more intense than usual. During nandu I worked on my horse stance basics — about 5 or 6 lines of them — and then worked on revamping some of my choreography. The “Ask the ‘Zilla” from yesterday got me thinking about my choreography so I tried to fix a few of the areas in my form that I wasn’t happy with.  I like the new stuff much better so I’m glad I spent the time doing that.

Tian Jin Fan and Yue Xiao Yu were also sitting out of nandu and working on their choreography on the side so at least I wasn’t alone.

But soon enough it was time for 分段 (sections).  We were supposed to do 12 sections so I decided to do 4 of each of my last 3 sections — which are the ones that I was trying to fix.  But after the 10th we switched to something else so I ended up doing the following: 4,4,4,4,3,3,3,3,2,2.

And what was it we switched to?  3/4 forms!  Thats right.  3 sections together.  I did 2-3-4, but I sure didn’t finish strong and was huffing and puffing afterwards.  I was happy that I was able to do it though.  My endurance is definitely improving because I would have never been able to do 10 sections plus a 3/4 set a month ago.

One nice thing during class was that one of the athletes gave me a compliment and a critique.  He said that my form looks good.  And he also said that I should work on my eyes.  And he was right.  My eyes have been a little lack-luster lately.  I used to focus on that quite a bit more so I think I need to start upping the eye-work and bringing the intensity back.

So, intensity was the theme for today. And it is something I need to work on for myself too.  While Coach Han is pretty brutal, I don’t mind too much and can really appreciate that level of focus during a class.

In any case, class ended and I headed home.  This afternoon Yue Xiao Yu is going to take Ruhi and I to meet a professor/teacher at the Xian Sports University (i.e. 西安体育学院) to talk about their programs for wushu and Chinese.  I’ve been wanting to find out more because I’m thinking about going there for a study program in the spring — mostly for Chinese, but it doesn’t hurt to get the lay of the land.  Also, it is a relatively close school to where I live.

Next class is Friday and then I am heading to Hong Kong for a few days again.  This time I’m going to try to go meet up with Gao Song and possibly get in a workout with the Hong Kong kids class which meets in the evenings out in Ma On Shan.  Wish me luck!