Posts Tagged ‘ruhi zandra’

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! 

Technically I’m writing this a few days late, but thats okay, since I come bearing gifts.  Specifically, wushu videos.

Ruhi had asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday on Friday.  My automatic answer was “Go to wushu”, so first thing Friday morning, January 1, 2010, we headed out to the wushu guan to get in a bit of wushu goodness.  She was also nice enough to film some of the practice for me, so you have her to thank for the footage.

Today seemed a little more serious than usual.  The head taolu coach (who’s name escapes me at the moment) was there and … well, actually he is always there.  But today he actually was coaching.  But fortunately for me he was coaching the group that I was not in, because he wasn’t taking any prisoners today.

At one point Ruhi heard him ask Xiao Yu, “Who are they?” (referring to Ruhi and I) and she answered “Oh, they’re always here”.  Which, I figured he should have known since he saw me there all the time.  But I guess today was the first day he bothered to ask someone who I was.  But its nice to know that I’ve become a fixture of the team.  Sort of like a mascot, I guess.

Basics were split up between the northern group and us southern folks.  Here is a video of some combination work.  You can sort of see me working on my horse stance in between the two carpets.  I try to do a few lines of these each class, usually while they are working on nandu.  But today they didn’t do specific nandu training, so I fit it in during lines of combinations.  For those of you who have trained with me in the U.S. you will notice that my horse stance is finally getting to a respectable depth.  Trust me, it took a lot of work just to get it where it is.  Got a lot more work left to get it just right … Especially during a form where I tend to come out of it more than I’d like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2U3bexOXKU

Anyway, after basics and combinations we split up and the southern folks, along with a few northerners (whom I like to call the “A Team”, for lack of a better designation) went to the NorthEast carpet (for lack of a better designation) while the “B Team” worked out on the NorthWest carpet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKX9VEMc3NE

I took a look at the schedule for today.  8 half sets!  Holy cow!  It was going to be quite the challenge … and as it turned out I was only able to squeeze out 4 of them before the end of class.  My sections were 3-4, 3-4, 2-3 and 1-2.

Before my last half-set, while I was sitting down and getting a drink, I noticed an older man in the wushu guan.  He didn’t look too familiar, so I walked over to Yuan Ming and asked him who he was.  It turns out he was the head coach for the entire wushu team.  Basically they guy that everyone else who does wushu or coaches wushu reports to.  The Wu Bin of the Shaanxi Team, if you will.

And of course he comes and stands next to Coach Zhang just as I’m about to go up and do my sections.  Ruhi heard him ask Coach Zhang who I was and asking him what was up with my stomach (i.e. “Why is he so big and what is he doing here?”)

Well, I guess he liked my wushu okay because after I went he walked over to Ruhi and started talking with her.  Then, after a while I went over too and he introduced himself to me.  Song Bin.  He was very friendly, actually, and spoke with us for a good 20 minutes while the rest of the athletes were doing some conditioning and stretching.  He talked about the phrases written on the walls, about using my waist more when I did wushu and he even exchanged phone numbers with Ruhi so that he could pass on some information about a traditional shadow puppet show for us to watch.

It was a little surreal.

After class I did a bit of stretching and then we headed off.  But like I said, Ruhi took a lot of video so I’m going to show a few of the highlights here.

She also took some footage of my wushu training, so I’m going to stick that in the “members” section of wushuzilla.com for anyone who is interested.

Zhang Yang – Spear: I like her long fist, but for some reason she was practicing spear today. But thats okay. You can still check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuyyPIdp4aA

Changquan: I feel bad because I can’t remember this guy’s name, even though I’ve been told it a couple times. I want to say his last name is Zhao or Zhang, but I’m just not sure. Anyway, he is definitely the best long fist guy currently training with the Shaanxi Team so I asked Ruhi to be sure and get some of his stuff on video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KsEP-aWoXE

Yuan Ming – Nanquan: I really like Yuan Ming’s nanquan. He is super quick and his fast twitch makes other people’s fast twitch look like cold syrup.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRJ_JHDX8L0

Long Weapons Practice: A few of the athletes practicing some long weapons. I just grouped these together since I wasn’t sure of their details and it wasn’t really long enough to make 3 individual videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg5Or0hu3TE

Yue Xiao Yu – Nanquan: She was actually really doing some serious damange with her nanquan on Friday, but we just got this one bit of footage of her. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB6P9gNuwXM

Don’t forget that Ruhi got some footage of my nanquan, so I put that in the Members section on wushuzilla.com. Registration is free and takes less time than it did to read this sentence.

Ruhi had been asking to come watch me train for a while, and since I’ve been at the wushu school for a little while, and Yue Xiao Yu had thought it would be okay, we both headed over to the Shaanxi Provincial Sports Training Center’s wushu guan for a bit of Monday afternoon forms training.

My alterior motive for doing this was to get some videos of my own training so that I could see what I looked like and figure out what I need to work on.  (my own wushu videos will only be available for those registered on wushuzilla.com, just because it is a little embarassing.  lol.)

For the rest of you who aren’t on wushuzilla, you can still enjoy the ton of footage that Ruhi was able to take for me.  I discovered that the best way to get a lot of wushu footage is to just ask someone to take it for you.  Trying to train and get media for you guys to watch was a little problematic, but having my wife the film director there made it a breeze.  Thanks Ruhi!

As a result, I don’t actually have to talk too much about what happened.  I can just show you!  First off, here is some wushu tag and warm-up videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-y4pRQDQiE

For some reason the wushu hall was a bit chilly today.  Probably due to the snow falling outside (I finally get to see snow falling in Xi’an!) and the sub-zero temperatures coming in through the super drafty windows, but it took us a while to warm up.

After warming up we did basics.  Here are those …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_RjFrj9I8Q

And then it was time for forms.  I asked Ruhi to focus on capturing the nanquan athletes.  So for your viewing pleasure you can see Ting Jing Fan, Yuan Ming and Yue Xiao Yu practicing some southern wushu weapons.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPFQAfz8fKs

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f5i8GYAEBI

Over on the other carpet with Chu Feng Ling’s group I noticed that the kids were working on some cha quan combinations.  Pretty neat and a great way to really drill some good long fist technique.  Here is a short video of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cson11K_1A8

And, of course, Wu Ya Nan and his Taiji posse were hard at work on their Monday power training workout.  Ruhi was able to get a bit of them using the hurdles for some plyometrics and jumping practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PBC0j4SEz8

During class an interesting thing happened.  As I was practicing my form, Coach Zhang asked me to show him a combination from my 3rd section.  It was actually a combination I had learned back in 2006 from Zhu Wen Jun and worked in to my choreography.  I ended up showing him, as well as Yuan Ming and Yue Xiao Yu.  I have it on wushuzilla as a bonus video.

Also, After class I got to sit and talk with a few of Chu Feng Ling’s kids and introduce some of them to Ruhi.  It is fun to meet these kids and get to know more and more of the athletes.  I think they are slowly acclimating to me being there.  it has been about 2 months now so I suppose I’m becoming more and more of a familiar face.  Should be fun to see what the coming months will bring.  Another bonus video of the kids is also on wushuzilla.com

Finally, if you want to see my nanquan video, just go to wushuzilla, login (or register — it’s free and way easy) and then go to the “members” area where I have it posted.

After a very quick trip (around 48 hours) to the south of China I am back in Xi’an. Nothing major to post up, but just wanted to let everyone know that I am back and should be blogging regularly again soon.

I went down south to renew my visa. I flew down on Thursday afternoon to Guangzhou, took a bus to the Futian border crossing in Shenzhen, and then took another bus from Lok Ma Chau to Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong where I stayed with Jack, actually not sleeping at all the whole night.

I left off at 9:30 AM and took a bus to Sheng Shui, the MTR train to Lo Wu (Luo Hu) and then the express train up to Guangzhou where I met up with Ruhi and caught an overnight train to Xi’an. I slept a solid 12 – 14 hours during the trip and we just arrived this afternoon.

Since spouting out names of locations don’t mean much if you aren’t familiar with them, I made a few maps to demonstrate the route …

From Home to the Airport in Xi'an

Flying from Xian to Guangzhou (about 2 - 3 hours)

Bus from Guangzhou to Shenzhen

Cross the border at Futian/Lok Ma Chau and then a bus to Tin Shui Wai

Bus from Tin Shui Wai to Sheng Shui and then the MTR to Luo Hu

Train ride from Guangzhou to Xi'an via Wuhan and Zhengzhou

All in all it was a pretty good trip.  Mainly because I didn’t get any illnesses or get snowed in anywhere.  But also because it all went according to plan.  Yay for plans! (Mark likes plans)

Tomorrow morning Ruhi and I are meeting Yue Xiao Yu to go shopping for a bicycle.  I am going to see about doing some video-ing of our excursion too so you can enjoy that. After that I am meeting my tutor, Ada, for an hour of Chinese learnin’ and then I believe Ruhi and I are meeting some new friends in the evening.  A jam-packed day to be sure.  Yay for Sundays!  (Mark likes Sundays)

Just to keep you all in the loop with my bloging habits, I have set up the following schedule for the topics of my blogs (at least for the time being). On Monday – Friday I will blog about wushu, specifically about the training I have on each day, posting up any photos or videos that I might take. On Saturday I will blog a week-in-review of my non-wushu related activities (i.e. the other 22 hours of my day), and then on Sunday I will post up another chapter of my ongoing Wushu Retrospective.

On any days that I don’t have wushu, like this past Thursday, I will either blog something random and interesting, or I will take a day off from the blogosphere and perhaps focus on less important things — like earning a living.

So, in keeping with this brand new tradition, I will bring you up to date with the last week of my non-wushu life here in China.

I actually blogged a bit about this on Tuesday so there isn’t really too much to talk about. But here are the updates:

Travel Plans

Ruhi suggested looking in to getting a plane ticket down to Guangzhou instead of taking the train and, after looking at the ticket prices, I realized that it would only be another 50 RMB to take a plane instead of the train. On Friday I called up CTrip and booked a ticket leaving next Thursday afternoon.

Unfortunately Ruhi had to go to Beijing first, so I bid her farewell after we grabbed something to eat at Subway Sandwiches on Ke Ji Lu. Here are a few pictures I took of her before saying goodbye.

I just spoke with her a few minutes ago and she is safe and sound in Beijing as of Saturday evening.  She will be train-ing down to Guangzhou on Sunday/Monday and then take a quick trip to Zhuhai and Macau.

Meanwhile, I will spend the week working and wushu-ing until Thursday afternoon when I will fly to Guangzhou and spend the night in Hong Kong with Jack.  Then right back to Guangzhou the next morning to catch the train to Xi’an with Ruhi.  Probably the quickest trip to Hong Kong I’ve ever taken.  I will be in Southern China a total of 20 hours before heading back, and in Hong Kong for only 10 or so.

I feel like such a globetrotter!

Chinese Studies

I wanted to write a little bit about my Chinese studies too, since that is one of the things besides work and wushu that I have been focusing on these days.

I have both of my Tutors (Grace and Ada) on a rotating 2-week schedule.  So I meet with each one on alternating Saturdays.  Unfortunately due to a miscommication I wasn’t able to meet with Grace today so this is my first week off of Chinese tutoring since starting.

With my tutors I generally focus on three things:

First, we go over a specific topic that I want to learn vocabulary for.

For example, last time I met with Ada I asked her to teach me vocabulary related to learning Chinese.  Words such as “noun” (名词), “verb” (动词) and the like, as well as a couple phrases related to learning language like 废寝忘食 (Lit. “Less Sleep, Forget Eat” meaning you are so busy studying you don’t have time to sleep or eat) and 临急抱佛脚 (Lit. “Grabbing Buddha’s Feet” meaning a last ditch effort to ask for divine assistance with a test).

Last time I met with Grace I asked her to teach me words related to religion and philosophy such as 精神 (Spirit), 灵魂 (Soul) and 人类 (humanity).  Also how to express some of my own thoughts in to Chinese such as 我觉得所有的宗教同宗同源一位神. (“I think that the purpose of religion is to unify people”).

Second, we review my study of flash cards and I have them test me on how well I’ve learned them.

And Third, I ask them to recite a page from a book or some passage for me so that I can listen and practice speaking in the right way.  Basically providing me with a pronounciation guide.

On thing I’ve learned is that I have to limit the amount of time we talk about new vocabulary.  With Grace we ended up doing a whole hour on new vocabulary, but since I listen to the lessons after we meet during the week (while walking, working, etc.) an hour of new words is a bit too much to absorb.  20 – 30 minutes is just about perfect so I will try to limit the time spent on that area in the future. Also, I need to ask them for more examples of useage so that I get a better idea of how to use the new words.

Besides meeting with Tutors I also am working on learning all the radicals (all 214 of them) through my flash-card study.  This week I am going to start incorporating some actual characters/words in to my flash card study too, since learning radicals doesn’t actually help improve my useable vocabulary very much and I really need to start learning words.

I found a list of the Chinese words based on frequency of use, so I’m going to use that as my base for learning.  I just have to learn 1,000 to have an 89% comprehension of most written texts. Thats not too bad and I think that is certainly do-able over the next year.  So far since starting this just under 2 months ago, I’ve memorized arond 70 radicals.  Based on that rate I should have them all memorized by the time Spring Festival rolls around.  And by the end of 2010 I hope to have all 1,000 of the most frequent characters memorized (fortunately I already know at least 100 or 200 of them so that gives me a head-start).

A few other things I do when learning Chinese (or am going to start doing shortly) are …

1. Learn Chinese Songs: There are several sites that list out the characters, pinyin and translation for popular, folk and patriotic Chinese songs.  I’m going to try to pick up a few so that I can sing along at KTV or just belt out the Chinese National Anthem while walking through U.S. Customs and Immigration.

2. Watch Chinese TV shows: I got Doreamon, one of my all-time favorite Japanese animation shows, on DVD.  They speak Chinese which is going to be helpful with my listening practice.  I don’t have to memorize all the words, but I want to get used to listening to simple (i.e. animation-style) Chinese expressions and vocabulary on a regular basis.  I just wish that the subtitles weren’t in traditional characters …

3. Read Chinese Children’s Books: I’ve picked up a couple simple texts to practice reading and understanding.  The best books have just Chinese with supporting pinyin and no English so that I have to figure out the meaning of what I’m reading.  Just like a Chinese kid would have to do when they were learning to read for themselves.  I figure the best way to learn a language is organically, just like a child does.  So thats what I’m trying to do.

4. Writing a Chinese Journal: I won’t be starting this one until I’ve learned more characters, but I plan (probably around Spring Festival or maybe a bit earlier) to write a small journal in Chinese and have my tutors read it over and correct my grammar and word-useage.  I think that besides reading Chinese, writing Chinese is probably one of the best ways to get a grasp of the written language.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll even start blogging in only Chinese next year.  Anything is possible!

In case you haven’t seen it, here are a couple pictures of me with Grace, one of my tutors.  Just to prove that I’m actually making an attempt to learn some Chinese while living in China.

Besides Work, Wushu, Chinese and upcoming Travel there isn’t a ton of other things to blog about.  I have started up on my novel again.  I got really far behind in November with my illness and Anhui adventures so I decided to do my nanowrimo in December instead.  I finished another chapter earlier today and hope to get more out the door in the near future.

Its also been nice slowly getting to meet Ruhi’s Friends, and even making a few of my own through Wushu or learning Chinese.  I hope to get that English class with the wushu athletes going soon so that I can get some wushu socializing on the calendar.

By the way, after blogging about the smoggy weather, EVERY day since then has been sunny, warm and pleasant.  Its hard to believe it is December in China, but go figure.  Maybe I need to complain about the weather more often in my blog.

Until next time ….

As I saw some wushu folks leave the wushu hall building I showed one of them the schedule I had on my camera and asked them what the slot for this afternoon said.  My inclination that it was running outside, just like last Wednesday, turned out to be true.  So I headed over to the track to wait for my comrades in arms.

Perhaps because the weather was so nice (blue skies and lots of sun!) or maybe it was already on the schedule, but there were quite a few groups out on the field today.  One large Sanda group was playing soccer and another smaller group was doing 800 meter sprints around the track (ugh!)  There were a few rhythmic gymnastics girls doing a few laps and about groups of wushu children playing tag and getting some exercise.

When my group got there some of them looked surprised to see me.  I think it was because they were impressed that I would show up for what was supposed to be a very hellacious workout.  After we warmed up our joints together they started off on their jog around the track.

For the first 600 meters (lap and a half), I stayed with them, but then I walked a bit and started my own progression of jogs and walks.  This was the final tally for myself:

Run 600 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 200
Run 400 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 200
Run 400 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 200
Run 200 / Walk 400

So, the total for me was 2.8 KM running and  2.2 KM walking.  5.0 KM total.  Each of my 400’s I did with the rest of the group, as it took them exactly two of my 200/200 rotations to catch back up with me.

Yue Xiao Yu was having knee issues so she stopped around the same time I did. We used the opportunity to practice some English.  It turns out she has an English test on the 19th of the month.  What I’ll usually do is say something in English and give her a moment to process it.  Then I’ll say it again in Chinese and then again in English to reinforce the sentence.  She seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to speak some English.

I found out from her that the other athletes were running much more than last time.  Before they ran 16 times around the track.  This time it was 25 times!  10,000 meters.  A 10K.

They weren’t running super fast (as you can see from the video down below) but they kept up a good clip the whole time.  It is impressive to me that they can just go off and run a 10K in the afternoon, but then I’m not much of a runner so my standards are lower.

After they finished they did some stretching on the side along the fence and then it was time to go.  Unlike last time there was no stretching in the wushu guan.  Class was finished and so I said goodbye and caught the bus home.

Coach Zhang wasn’t there again.  I heard from Xiao Yu that he was taking a class with another coach.  She wasn’t sure what they were learning, and wasn’t sure what his schedule was.  I guess athletes really don’t ask for information from their coach unless it is absolutely necessary.  Gotta keep those boundaries intact.

Tomorrow, according to the schedule, there is no training in the afternoon.  So that means I will have a day of rest before heading back to the Sports Center on Friday for some more strength training work with weights and conditioning.  Most likely I will be sore all weekend again.  Fortunately Ruhi found a back massager that is working wonders for me so I’m using that while I work and it has been helping immensely.  Thanks Ruhi!

Here is the video I took today.  As you can see, the weather was beautiful.  Hard to believe all that smog and fog from the day before.  But weather in Xi’an is nothing if not unpredictable (except perhaps to someone who looks up the weather reports online).

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

Before I blog, I wanted to share something that I saw today.  You may recall that I mentioned that the winter smog from the coal burning and polution gets pretty bad here in Xi’an.  But we also get a bit of fog from time to time.  And when you combine the two things together, like we had today, it turns in to a pea soup the likes of which I never saw in my 14 years in the Bay Area.

Here are a few comparative shots from the morning and the afternoon so that you can get an idea of what it looked like from our living room window:

And just so you don’t think it looks like this all the time, here is a picture from just a month or so ago:

See?  Blue skies!

Anyway, back to the blog …

Three main things happened today in the World of Mark.  Well, okay … more than three things.  But three things that I’m going to blog about.

First, was figuring out what to do about our visa renewal.

We spent most of the early hours of the day (i.e. before lunch) going to the visa office and trying to get an extension on our tourist visas.  As we are in the process of closing down Ruhi’s company (after which we will probably start up a new one in 2010) we are technically in China as tourists.  As a result, I either have to leave the country every 30 days (60 for Ruhi) or get an extension.

As you will recall, last month I left the country and went to Hong Kong, only to end up spending a week in Anhui with the flu.  This time we decided to get a 30 day extension instead.

That is, until we found out that the cost of a 30 day extension for U.S. Citizens is 940 RMB ($140 USD), which is also the price of a full one-year multiple entry visa.  But only for 30 days!  Well, for less than 940 RMB we can just take the train down to Guangdong and hop across the border, so why spend all that extra money?

So, on Friday Ruhi will be traveling to Beijing for some meetings.  To save some money I will be going directly to Guangdong from Xi’an.  Sorry to Wu Di, Jenn, Chris, et al. for not being able to make it over to the capital this time around.  But Ruhi will be there in my stead for 2 days.

On Wednesday I’m going to catch a train down to Guangzhou and then hop across the border.  Ruhi will have already been staying in Guangzhou for a couple days and on Friday afternoon we will catch a train back up and get home on Saturday morning.  This time around I opted for the faster train, as the slower one is obviously not an option.  Who wants to go all the way to Anhui anyway?

Here is a map of Ruhi’s journey.  As I said, my route is just a straight back and forth from Xi’an to Guangzhou.

The second thing that happened today was a revamping of our home.

Yue A-yi was here to clean today so we took the opportunity to swap our bedroom and the second room around.  After several hours we have set up the place so that we’re both working in our “spare” room with all the natural light, and our sleeping room is the darker, more comfortable one that gets much warmer.  Plus we moved some furniture around in the main room.  I love optomizing my living space.  According to Ruhi I get a twinkle in my eye when I am in that mode.

And the third thing is (hopefully) a change to my training routine.

I called Yuan Ming earlier in the day and asked him for Coach Zhang’s phone number.  He didn’t have it, so I had to relay the message through him.  I told him that (1) I would not be able to make it today and that (2) I wanted to switch my workouts from the afternoon at 3:00 to the morning at 9:00.  He said he would talk to Coach Zhang for me.

In the evening I gave him a call but it turned out that Coach Zhang wasn’t there today.  Tomorrow morning they also don’t have training because there is a meeting, so I will just go in the afternoon as usual.  Then, assuming Coach Zhang is there, I can ask him about switching to the morning session.

Why switch to mornings?  Well, for one, it will make me more productive with my work.  I will have a bigger chunk of time to get things done during the afternoon and evening.  Also, I think it is better, physically, to exercise during the earlier hours of the day as it sets up your body’s metabolism and function better for the rest of your waking hours.

Plus, I just feel better when I train in the morning vs. the afternoon.

So, that is what happened today.  Tomorrow it is back to the wushu grind stone.  Today they had strength training, so tomorrow, I”m not really sure what is happening.  I’m hoping it is wushu, but it might be running too.  I’ll just play it by ear and make sure I am prepared for any contingency.

Until tomorrow …. here is a bonus picture that I swiped from Wu Di’s camera in Binzhou.  Enjoy!

On Thursday night Ruhi and I had trekked over to Shi Da Lu to meet up with Jamie for dinner at the Village Cafe.  While there Adam, a long-time resident of Xi’an now living in Shanghai, happened to call Ruhi and let her know that he was in town.  So we all made plans to meet up the next night and have dinner.

So Friday evening, after wushu class, I came home, cleaned up and then Ruhi and I took a cab over to the south gate to meet up with Adam and another friend, Jia Run.  (It turned out Jamie couldn’t make it.)  The four of us met up at the South Gate of the Xi’an City wall, just across from where I stayed with Wushu West only 4 months before.  My how time flies!

We went to eat at a restaurant that had been an old haunt of theirs back in the day.  It turned out to be pretty delicious as we ordered some Gong Pao Ji (Kung Pao Chicken), some Suan La Bai Cai (Hot and Sour Cabbage), a bit of soup and plenty of tea, and got down to some serious conversatin’.

After getting our fill of food, we all headed back to the South Gate area where Jia Run caught the good old 600 bus to her home.  Then Adam, Ruhi and I went to the hostel where another friend of theirs was staying.  Adam was in town doing some work for a Scottish company called Pure Media, a group that works with poor and underpriveledged groups and provides training and education in the arts.  (Adam is actually a very good musician (guitar) who was even featured in Xi’an television for being the first foreigner to ever learn and perform Shaanxi style Chinese Opera.)  Unfortunately the guy we went to see wasn’t there, but we did manage to make our own little street party, which was pretty fun..

After that we hung out a little longer pulling a “parking lot wushu” (sans wushu) until it got late enough for Ruhi and I to catch a cab back home and rest.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  Here is a video of us enjoying ourselves, just for your entertainment.

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

And for you folks in the mainland:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMzODUyMjA4.html

My title looks like part of it is written in L337 5p34|{ (elite speak), but trust me it makes sense (sorta).

So, I arrived at the hotel, soaked in a tub and got on line to check my huge back-log of e-mails. While sitting there I noticed that my throat was feeling a little raw. At first I had attributed that to the fact I had been sitting in a train compartment with two smokers for the past 10 hours, but when my head started to feel that familiar fever tingle I knew something more serious was up.

Let me back up a little bit so that you have the full picture.

I kinda look sick here too ...

From the time I was a little kid (basically as early as I can remember) until I was 12 years old, I would get a monthly run-in with the flu.  Monthly.  As in, at least 12 times a year.  And not just a little flu.  These suckers would be in the 103 – 105 temperature range.  It was soak-your-kid-in-a-tub-of-cold-water-and-ice season in my home.

It turned out that it was due to a problem with my tonsils and when I had them removed in the 4th grade, the problem went away.  However, the one thing that it taught me was to be extremely sensitive to the physical signs of fever.  I get a very specific type of sensation in my head when I have a fever.  I never get it any other time and I’ve never had a fever without having that head tingling.

Its like those years and years of having my my head cooked from the inside out on a monthly basis gave me super powers.

Well, one super power.

The super power to tell when I’m sick with the flu.

Basically a really lame Spidey Sense.

And so, when I felt it come on around midnight as I sat in front of my computer I knew it was time to rest.  I crawled in to bed, but it had already started to work.  This sucker was QUICK.  Within an hour or two I was already in the shivering and sweating stage of sickness.  It laid me OUT.

Over the next 24 hours I would wander in and out of consciousness, trying to get as much sleep as humanly possible.  Whenever I woke up I would drink a bunch of water and swallow some homeopathic flu medicine that I carry with me in my emergency travel pouch (I was born to travel).  I had some melatonin with me which helps promote sleep and I pretty much spent most of the next day in bed.

Ruhi on the other hand was scrambling around our home like a mad woman.  She had e-mails out, travel contingencies worked out, calls to so-and-so, and had even contacted a friend in the town of Hefei, which is about 100 miles south of Fuyang.  He called me to offer his help, but to be honest, I could barely focus on any conversations I was having on the phone.  I could barely keep my dreams and reality straight.

It was a little surreal.

Worst. Surgical. Mask. Ever.

I knew from taking an 15 second online multiple-choice test (which is obiviously MUCH better than seeing an actual doctor) that I probably had the dreaded H1N1 virus.  The other possiblity was that I might have this flu that kids in China get.  When foreigners come and stay in China for a while they end up catching it and it really does a number on them (Ruhi had it a few years back herself), but I had all of the H1N1 symptoms and I knew how contageous it was so I didn’t want to get anyone else sick.

Besides, China can be a bit paranoid.  You can’t go around telling people you have H1N1 unless you want a quick trip to a quaranteen bunker somewhere.

Well, okay.  I’m exaggerating. But I knew from my extensive experience with a variety of flu’s that this wasn’t the worst one I’ve ever had and that, as the day progressed, it was getting slowly better.  Had it not improved at all by the late afternoon I would have asked the hotel to send a doctor up.

Fortunately, that was not the case and by the time the evening rolled around and I was rolling out of bed, I was able to put on a few layers and head across the street to pick up some of those stylish Chinese surgical masks and a bunch of fruit to cleanse out my system.

By the time 24 hours had passed I was feeling much better, although still not nearly 100%.  More like 50%.  But I was down to around 20% earlier so that was an improvement.  I crashed again for the night waking up periodically.

I’ll be honest with you.  Most of Friday and Saturday is a blur to me.  I remember bits and pieces of it, but it is like a dream that you are trying to remember but can’t quite get back to.  I remember talking to the hotel staff about stuff on the phone.  I even remember going go buy the fruit and extending my hotel stay by another day.  But I can’t remember on which day I did which thing.

But either way, by Saturday night I was feeling almost human again.  Unfortunately since I had pretty much slept for most of the previous 48 hours I was not the least bit tired.  So I just stayed up and puttered around, doing a few things online, writing a blog or two, but mainly just trying to keep my sick self relatively immobile.

I'm keeping my hot side hot

I got a few more hours of sleep in the early morning hours, but couldn’t take on much more than that.  I’m going to listen to my body on this one.  When it is tired, I’m going to sleep.  When it wants to move around, I will move around.  When it wants a McDLT I’m going to hop in my flying Delorean and see if I can find the beef.

In the land of the sick, the body is king, and I am its humble servant.

But aside from this battling with the flu, my first time in Anhui has been rather boring.  You don’t get much of a sense of things sitting in a hotel room all day long.  I can’t really be online for toooo long or else my head gets a case o’ the vapors.  So I putter around my room, read a book or two, meditate a bit, study my chinese flash cards, write up plans in my plan-writing notebook, set some wushu videos to upload, and maybe watch some Daily Show when I feel like it.

Due to the snow issues and travel problems I had to figure out a different way to get home.  With Ruhi’s suggestion, I booked a ticket out of Hefei to Xi’an for Monday evening.  I’m going to stay in Fuyang until Monday morning when I will catch a 3 hour train (hard seat, I’m afraid, but I can deal with that for 3 hours) and then pick up my ticket in downtown Hefei.  Then after a 2 hour flight I’m home-sweet-home again.  Yay!

But the real question is, will things actually work out the way they are planned?  So far planning has been the best way to make sure that I have no idea what is going to happen, so there is a good chance weird things might happen again.  You will just have to stay tuned to find out…

One thing is for sure though … This is one Friday the 13th I will not soon forget.

Except … y’know … for the parts I can’t remember ….

So, it has been a week since we arrived in Xi’an.  Here are the highlights:

The first day we slept in as much as possible, but there was a lot to do on our first day so we couldn’t oversleep too much.  After getting ready we headed out, first to get some breakfast and check out the local market for groceries.  The best discovery we made is that there is a small stand where a lady makes my favorite type of bing.  And right next to her is my second favorite type of bing.  Just 2 – 3 RMB each.  Heaven.

The market is pretty nice in that there is an endless supply of fresh vegetables, fruits, meats and what not for very cheap prices.  I bought a huge sack of groceries there for about $6 USD, including meat, freshly made ready to cook noodles and really good tofu.

After that we took a taxi to the Muslim Quarter.  Ever since I had been here last year with Shahaub, Zane and X2, I’d been dreaming about these lamb dumplings we ate.  They were so good we ate there 3 times in 5 days.  It was my first order of business for food consumption.  While we were there I made some small videos of us walking around which you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC78RrD8uYQ

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKonjmRajN4

After eating we grabbed a motorized pedicab and got a ride to the train station.  The trip was just 5 RMB and we had a nice conversation with the driver too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWJYVFh5Y6w

At the train station we thought we would be able to pick up the 3 big suitcases we had shipped up from Shenzhen, but it turns out they were at a different facility in the North East of Xi’an.  So we grabbed a taxi and went there.  The taxi driver accidentally forgot to start the meter (this has happened to me twice in the last week, for some reason) and so we asked him to wait for us and take us and our luggage back to Xi Gao Xin, which would be a good fare for him.  He was pretty nice and even helped us get the luggage organized in the car.  Soon enough we were back home, with a ton of my stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh3Ek51WhlA

The next day we went to the electronics market to get a router and a few other things for the home.  Unfortunately the problem wasn’t the router, but our lack of an access login for our internet, so we would have to use the internet at the local coffee shops (Starbucks and S.I.T.) which was actually kind of nice.  Ruhi has spent most of the week working on her Mona Foundation documentary project while I’ve been getting the lay of the land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtzmHxJFvl0

I spent some time going through my things, re-arranging furniture with Ruhi, cleaning up the second room and figuring out what the neighborhood is like.  I also went to Metro to buy a soup pot.

On Monday and the two of us went to the McDonald’s by RenRenLe to meet with Susan and Vivian, who work in Ruhi’s company.  After that we took another pedicab to the S.I.T. Cafe near the University to use their internet and do some work.  We got some delicious street food over there too.  Really cheap too.  I can tell I’m going to like eating in Xi’an.

Tuesday was Ruhi’s birthday!  Happy Birthday Ruhi! It is also a Holy Day for Baha’i’s.  In the morning we went to the Starbucks on KeJiLu and then to the S.I.T. cafe just upstairs from it where we did lots of work during the day.  In the afternoon we also got a call that the internet technician was coming over to our place to help set things up.  So we rushed back and waited for him to show up.

During the week I had also been asking Wu Di to help introduce me to his friends on the Shaanxi Wushu Team so that I could figure out what the training options are.  My friends Lucianno and Angelica also were helping me with some information on other options.

The options I had for Xi’an were either to go to the Sports University (Xi’an Physical Education University or XPEU), train with a nanquan guy named Su Ke Feng who was teaching at a school in Xi’an, or train with the Shaanxi Wushu Team.

Each had their pro’s and cons, but first I had to make contact with someone who could help me make the best decision.  Wu Di was able to get me in touch with Wu Ya Nan, last year’s Chinese National Taiji Champion (he got silver this year) who said that he could help me out.

First he offered to take me to meet with Su Ke Feng.  We planned to meet in the evening around 4:30 or 5:00, so Ruhi and I hurridly got our internet hooked up and then headed out to meet up with WYN and his girlfriend, Bai Xue, who worked at the Sheraton and spoke some pretty good English.

They were really nice and got us some Pizza to eat, one for us and one for them.  However, the kitchen at the Sheraton had accidentally put ham on them and since they were Muslim they don’t eat any pork.  Also, on the way to Su Ke Feng’s school, we found out that (a) he would not be there during that particular evening and (b) it was REALLY far on the east side of town.  Like … REALLY far.  Here is a map for comparison:

So, we opted instead to go get some dinner together.  That turned out to be a good idea.

Why?  Because both of them live in the Muslim Quarter and they both really know the food there.  The conversation in the cab was basically like this:

WYN: What sort of food have you had here before?

US: Yang Ro Pa Muo, the lamb burger things, some lamb dumplings and stuff like that.

WYN: Ah.  You ate all the famous food.  But you haven’t had any of the best food.

US: ……….

So they took us to the part of the Muslim Quarter that foreigners never go to and fed us food that foreigners usually never get to eat.  It was quite delicious and we had a great time hanging out with them.

Afterwards we said farewell and took a taxi from the Bell Tower back home.  WYN had also said he would help me visit the Shaanxi Wushu Team’s training location, since it was so close to where we lived.  Score!

The next day I got a message from him that he would take me there on the following day (Thursday, October 22).  So I spent most of the day working on my computer while Ruhi worked on hers.

Then Thursday came.  I made my way to the Xi’an Sports Center located about 10km down the road from us (11 RMB in the taxi) and met WYN at the front gate.  He brought me in to the facility and took me to the wushu hall.  I had actually been here once before when Wu Di was staying here after last year’s nationals.  At that time he was training with the National Team and they had sequestered them prior to a wushu demonstration in Taiwan.

Here is a picture of the Wushu Hall that I took in 2008.  I also stuck in a few of Wu Di, Ma Ling Juan and Zhao Qing Jian for good measure.

Since the All China Games had just ended WYN and the rest of the professional team were on vacation.  So it was nice of him to take the time to bring me by.  He introduced me to Yuan Ming who was coaching a group of nanquan athletes and kids (about 7 of them).  I would be training with them.

On another carpet was a big group of changquan kids being coached by none other than Chu Feng Lian, the famous Fanzi Quan athlete from the 80’s and teammate with Zhao Chang Jun.  In fact several of them were learning Fanzi Quan and they had some pretty crazy techniques in the form that I hadn’t seen in the standard fanzi you see at most competitions.  Definitely the real deal.

The workout was pretty good.  I haven’t trained in almost 2 months, so I was a little out of sorts, but the good thing was that everyone was sort of on coasting mode because it was a break for the pro’s and their coaches.  It wasn’t quite as rigorous as it might have been, which was good for someone like me who was trying to get back in to the swing of wushu again.  I made it through the class and worked on some conditioning at the end (frog leaps, duck walks and wall sits).  When I left my legs were a bit on the wobbly side.

Here is a little video I took while there so you can see what the training hall looks like inside:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spu0gXU1vWU

WYN said that, until the professional team and coaches come back on the 1st, I could train with the nanquan group.  Then, when they got back we would figure out the cost and schedule for my training.  I was pretty happy to have found such a good facility so close to my home.  And after that he took me to show me which bus I would take to get there.  Just 1 RMB each way (about 12 cents).  Pretty nice.  Here is the bus route:

And so that was my first week in Xi’an.  I went from taking the train, getting my train-delivered bags, getting settled in my neighborhood, and finding a place to train (even though it is somewhat temporary).  I can’t wait to see how things develop next week!