Posts Tagged ‘shahaub roudbari’

Now that I have left the Bay Area, my wushu training is, at least for the next month, on the back burner.  In the meantime I will focus more on other things and activities.  Once I’m in China I’ll get back on the bandwagon.

But since this is a temporary break from wushu, I wanted to go out the right way and write up my final Wushu Recap.  Enjoy!

Tuesday and Thursday

Tuesday’s class was the last time I would be teaching before Hao Zhi Hua returned from China. To be honest, I don’t remember the specifics of the class, so that must mean it was fairly run-of-the-mill. As I recall, on this particular day I focused a bit more on section combos. I spent some time teaching new nanquan to Pierre and Johnny too, as well as some more long fist for Kevin and Eddie.

On Thursday HZH was back in class. I suggested that she mostly observe so that she could see what sort of workouts we’ve been doing and what level everyone is at. So I ran the warmups, stretching and basics. We did sections as well.

After class she told everyone that we had improved quite a bit and that we all seemed much stronger.  Thats good to hear.  She also told me that I had lost weight and improved since China too, which is great since I was mostly worried about not building on all the stuff I had done in China.  Nothing worse than spending all that time and money in China and then just wasting it by not doing anything when you get back to the U.S. (*cough* Noah *cough*).

I was originally planning on going to Ding Wei’s on Saturday but it turned out that they cancelled the Saturday class so instead I spent the time at home working on the new Wushu West website.  You can check it out!  For a quick redeisgn I think it isn’t too bad.  At least it will be way easier to update now that it is on the WordPress CMS.

http://www.wushuwest.com

I spent a bunch of time updating the content and last weekend I trained Cary on how to update it so he at least can do things instead of me from now on.  I was going to train James as well, but time wasn’t permitting, I guess.  Anyway, Wordpress isn’t exactly rocket-science.  I’m sure things will be okay.

Sunday

Sunday’s class was fun, but probably because I didn’t have to teach at Wushu West for the first time since early June.  HZH had us focus a lot on basics and stretching and timed us for front stretch and continuous front slap kicks.  For front stretch (zheng ti tui) I did 15 in 11.28 seconds.  And for the continuous front slap kicks it was 15 in 8.82 seconds.  Not too bad, but I’m guessing I can improve if I keep at it.

One thing I noticed is that Lauren and Tyler have both improved quite a bit.  Lauren is way more stable and her basics are so much better than they were when I first saw her in the early spring.  And Tyler is much stronger and starting to show a bit more emotion in his wushu.  I can’t wait to see how they look the next time I’m in town.

Actually, everyone has been improving quite a bit.  And I’m afraid I can’t really take all the credit for that.  They have all been working pretty hard too, and that, more than me, is the reason for the growth.  I hope they can all keep it up.

Wushu Longevity and Mastery

After talking with Justin Ho online about longevity in wushu, I realize that the path I’m on and the way I’m training is a good one.  I am trying to develop my wushu not to accomodate the nandu rules or the acrobatics and new-age choreography, but in a way that allows me to continue enjoying wushu in the future without killing myself by doing things that aren’t suitable.  I can focus on certain aspects of wushu without worrying about others that aren’t going to help me out.  Training has become more cerebral or intellectual for me now, focusing more on specific ways to keep my foundation strong and my training long-lived, than on playing around with tricks and the latest fads.

I suppose that is probably true of any art form, when you think about it.

I can tell that I’m not as strong as I once was, but I’m definitely stronger than I was when I started this return to wushu in November.  And each month I will grow a bit more, improving and reclaiming a bit more of the ability that my lack of training has brought about.  I don’t want to become some super amazing athlete or anything, but I would like to at least know that I can improve my skill and increase my level.

After all, the real motivation for a student shouldn’t be whether or not they are learning lots of moves or learning new forms all the time, but should be whether or not they feel they have improvements yet to make.  I don’t mind not learning anything new, as long as I feel I can improve on what I have already learned.  Learning lots of things isn’t development.  It is just trying to stuff more food in the bowl than it needs to hold.  If you want a good meal of wushu, then quality, not quantity, is going to serve you better in the long run.

And when you focus on quality over quantity, then you are working towards mastery of the given subject.  You are developing gong fu.  When you prioritize quantity over quality, then you are fighting against it, and you will never have that high level skill in anything.

Just my two cents.

After Sunday’s class we had a BBQ over at Lauren, Tyler and Travis’ home.  It was a lot of fun and I ate a ton of really good food. Thanks so much to them and their parents, Susan and Michael, for inviting us over.  I also got a wonderful framed picture with little notes from everyone at Wushu West wishing me a good time in China and thanking me for teaching.  It was very touching.  I’ll stick a picture of it up on my blog when  I get some time (and am unpacked).  In the meantime you can see these photos I took at the party:

Wushu West Changes

I should also mention that there are some changes afoot at Wushu West.

First, the schedule will be changing for the fall season.  I believe beg/int wushu is 5:30 – 7:00 and advanced is 7:00 – 9:00.  sunday is the same.  They are also going to start offering some incentives for people to sign up for class and from what I understand they are also reducing the tuition.

Whenever I talk to people about Wushu West the first thing I usually hear after “Yeah, it is a great school”, “you have china carpets!” or “hao zhi hua is a great teacher” is “but it is really expensive”.  Well, that is no longer a factor as prices will be slashed across the board by over 25%, if not more.

They are also implementing a discount for college students and this month they have a half-off-your-first-month special for new students.

In any case, you can get more information from the website, or you can drop by for a free trial class and ask questions for yourself.

Tuesday

And so my last day of wushu training had come.  Not a huge class on this day but that suited me just fine.  I wanted to really try to put everything I could into the class since I wouldn’t be able to do wushu for a while.

And boy did I.   I got really wiped out from the basics and after the first several lines I had to start taking short breaks.  If you were there you probably heard me huffing and puffing.  It wasn’t pretty.

We focused a lot on basics for this class, which is great.  But the best part of the class was that I got to finish two things:

First, I got to finish teaching the new nanquan stuff to Pierre.  We hurriedly got through the rest of the section. Sure, he’ll have some practicing and remembering to do.  But at least we got that finished up.

The second thing is that I also go to finish teaching Eddie the Youth Compulsory Long Fist form.  I was there his first day of class and taught him the first moves of this form.  So it was a nice bookend to be there to teach him the end of the form as well.

At the end of class I ran conditioning.  And it was brutal.  LOTS of frog leaps and wall sits.  Lots of ab work and V-Ups.  I really wanted to push myself.   I was pretty sore by the end of it.  And worse of all, I had to stay up all night packing and preparing for my train ride to Salt Lake City in the morning.

I ended up sleeping most of the train ride, but we arrive at SLC around 4:30 AM so I have to wait 3 hours for the shuttle up to Idaho Falls.  I slept on that too, of course.  Anyway, I was picked up by my mom, we did some shopping, ate some lunch and by the time I got home I was pretty beat and ended up crashing rather hard.  Now I have a ton of unpacking and organizing to do so that I can be the most productive possible during the next 10 days.

Thanks

I also wanted to give a big thanks to all the folks in Berkeley who have put me up over the past year.  Shahaub, my brother-man, has been a big help to me allowing me to crash in his home on multiple occasions.  It has been wonderful introducing him to the world of American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Fringe, Dollhouse and more.  Don’t forget Shahaub — get some Alias on the playlist.

And then to James and Myles for putting me up at their home in Albany for this past month.  And a big thanks to their house-mates too; Amanda, Scott and Adam, and of course Jesse, in who’s room I stayed while he was out of town.

Also to my teacher, Hao Zhi Hua (who will probably never read this) for letting me crash in her living room whenever I needed to.

And thanks to all my friends who I’ve been able to spend some time with here and there.  And to the students at Wushu West who made working out fun.  And .. well, to everyone. I am very grateful for my experiences here in the Bay Area and all the people who make those experiences possible.

See you all next year!

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Edit (7/28): Added video of athletes conditioning and swapped out others with youtube versions

Once again I have skipped a couple days in my blogging. Originally I thought Lauren was going to be writing a blog for me. Why did I think that? Probably by the way she asked me multiple times during Wednesday morning’s class “Can I write the blog for today? Pleeeeeease???” and I told her yes (naturally .. I would love it if they would write some blogs in here. Makes my life easier, right?)

Jump forward a day or so:

“Hey Lauren, don’t forget to write that blog for me” I reminded her.

“Do I have to?” she asked.

After a pause: “You asked me to. Multiple times. and I said yes. Multple times.” I replied.

“But I didn’t think you would say yes.” she said.

After considering the illogic of that statement I replied with “Why would you think that?”

To which she replied “Because you always say ‘no’.”

So, besides the fact that she had asked multple times and I had said yes multple times, she didn’t think she actually had to write the blog because she assumed I would say “no”? Well, I think what really happened is she realized that writing a blog requires writing a blog, so she decided it wasn’t how she wanted to spend her hard-earned personal time.

That being the case, you are still stuck with my personal rendition of this trip. Until someone else decides to chip in with some content, I’m left holding the ball (so to speak).

Thursday

Actually, Thursday I was anticipating Ruhi’s arrival to Beijing. (We’re engaged, in case you didn’t know, which is entirely possible since there are lots of people I didn’t tell and who don’t check my facebook status — consider this your notice )

She was flying in around 5AM and would make her way to Shi Cha Hai after dropping her things off at Grace’s house. She finally made it around noon-ish and we went downstairs to grab some food, running in to Patti and Cary in the process.

We went to go watch the afternoon training as well, since she had never seen professional wushu up close and personal. She also got to meet Shahaub and Wu Di. I also got to help Wu Di and Myles with some conditioning.

After class we went down to eat because we had requested 2 dishes from the manager. Unforunately they seem to had forgotten, so we just ate what was there (which was perfectly fine, of course) and spent time with some Wushu West folks.

After dinner she was tired, but we got sucked in to watching “Kiss of the Dragon” on Pierre’s laptop and then I took her to Dongzhimen Station and came back and fell asleep. zzzzzz.

Friday

The morning practice was good. It was the first time my calves weren’t hurting. It might have been because Ruhi brought me some requested supplements (vitamins, mostly), but I wasn’t complaining. The class wasn’t unusual in any way. Everyone is slowly improving and it is starting to show.

It is a little hard to see since we see each other do wushu everyday, but it is a little noticeable. When we get back to the U.S. everyone will have to let us know if we have gotten any stronger/faster/more flexible/better. But from my own estimation, I’m seeing some good growth in Tyler, Noah and Myles. Ashley is working really hard and improving too. And I even see Lauren overcoming some of her arm issues. Jonah is relaxing his shoulders and Jennifer is building up her endurance. Pierre is also getting some good corrections from Liu Hong.

During the morning training I walked over to Xie Zhen Hao (Shanghai nanquan guy) and asked him if he could teach me his form. He said yes! I would start learning it in the afternoon. Cooooool.

Ruhi came over in the afternoon again. We decided to go run an errand to change some of her (our?) money and then grab some lunch. We went to the same small place I took Myles and got the Tang Su Li Ji (sweet and sour pork — the real version, not the stuff you get in the U.S.) and Suan La Bai Cai (hot and sour cabbage — which wasn’t quite hot or soury enough). After eating we walked around Di’An Men Market for a bit and then walked back to the school for the afternoon practice.

I took a lot of photos and after class Xie Zhen Hao taught me his first section. It was probably one of the most complex nanquan forms I’ve ever learned. Whoever made this form was on some sort of nanquan crack. But it is cool to learn new techniques and movements, so I’m not complaining. If I can finish learning the whole thing I’m going to teach it to the Wushu West nanquan folks. Gotta get a video too …

But here is a quick video I took of the professionals doing some conditioning:

We also took a TON of photos during class. Here are some to enjoy …

And a few videos of Ashley’s wushu, per her request:

After class I went out for a dinner with Ruhi’s friend, Josie, and some of her friends. It was a nice restaurant which was 1/2 Sweenson’s (A Bay Area ice-cream and burger place) and 1/2 Singaporean food. It was actually very good. Awesome ice cream deserts and located close to Ya Xiu, so I think I will need to take some of the Wushu West foks.

After eating our fill it was time to head back by way of Dongzhimen station where we said goodbye. Then I came back and crashed hard again.

Saturday will be a half-wushu day with just the morning class. In the evening we are all going to chek out the Bird’s Nest stadium! Photos are definitely on the menu.

Forgot to put this on the blog entry, but here is a quick video Shahaub made of various fighting styles:

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Edit (7/28): Swapped video with youtube version

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last 2 days.  Not that much have happened to warrant a single entry for each day, but now two days have passed.  And since I’m waiting for the guest blog entries on the F0rbidd3n City and The Gr3at Wa11 (Pierre and Ashley?  Hellooooo?) I’ll fill some time by sharing what we’ve been up to the last two days.

Monday morning was practice.  9:00 AM in the Wushu Hall.  Actually all practices this week are at 9:00 and 3:30 in the upstairs wushu hall, so at least it is consistent.   Everyone was working hard, and down on the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group.  Since it was just the two of us, we got to be on the blue carpet.  Yay!  For myself, I primarily focused on the first section of my nangun (Southern Staff) form.  I’m working on making a new one this week so each day I’m creating a new section.

After class was lunch and then I spent some time in the afternoon working in my room.  The afternoon class came and went as well, and I spent that time working on more nangun.

I’m not sure what everyone did in the evening, but I spent the whole time working on my computer, so this is why I didn’t end up writing much in the blog.

Tuesday was another morning training (of course). Unfortunately Myles hurt his ankle so had to sit out the rest of the day.  Jennifer said she tweaked her ankle as well.  Hopefully they’ll both be back in full form soon.

After the morning practice I spent 20 minutes or so working on my nangun form after everyone left.  However, Liu Qi and Zhang Ye Xin were still there so I talked to them for a while and had them record a video so they could greet everyone in America.

In the afternoon I went to the airport with Lauren to pick up her mom, Susan and younger brother, Travis.  Once again we were blessed by the airport gods and they came out of the terminal just as we walked up to the door.

We got back to Shi Cha Hai just in time to go watch most of the training.  Lauren quickly changed and I spent some time either talking with Susan and Travis, helping Wu Di with some conditioning, or working on my nangun.  It was Tiger’s last time teaching us, as he would be leaving the next day for a competition in ZhengZhou, Henan.  Actually, we will see him there since he will still be in town when we go to check out the Shaolin Temple.  We grabbed a group photo for posterity.

After class I was asked to go to a Japanese restaurant with Wu Di, who had also invited Shahaub, Patti, Cary and Jennifer.  It happened to be the same restaurant I ate at last November, also with Wu Di.  We had a good amount of food and naturally I took some photos:

After that Patti and Cary went back to Shi Cha Hai, and the rest of us walked down the street to digest our food.  We also grabbed a quick cone at McDonald’s before catching a cab back to the school.

Tomorrow we have two different coaches training us.  I’ll be sure to snap a few photos and post them up.

Edit (7/28): Swapped video with youtube embed

This blog doesn’t really have to do that much with the Wushu West summer trip so I’m going to just post it on narom.net. The school all went to the Great Wall on Sunday. I slept in and spent the morning cleaning up my stuff and chatting with folks back home. But the time I was done Pierre had gotten back from the Wall and I decided to go do some shopping.

I went to the Di’An Men Market, which is sort of like Ya Xiu, but for things you actually need.  I got some hangers, hooks and various necessities.  I also grabbed a quick bite at KFC for lunch.  When I got back home and had taken a shower, Shahaub came over.

Originally we were going to go out to sushi with Wu Di, but they had gone there the night before (originally my plan too, but I had to go to Hutong Pizza instead) so they weren’t really up for it.  But never ones to take an opportunity for granted, they posed for some photos.

We decided to go walk down the street and get some food.  We ended up at a hot pot place around the corner.  The food was good and we enjoyed spending time with each other.  Here are some photos:

After hot pot we walked down the street towards the Hou Hai bars.  As you may recall (all 1 of you) I spent my 36th birthday in Hou Hai at a bar owned by a friend of Wu Di. You can see a youtube video of it here.

Since then the friend has seriously expanded the size of his club.  We chilled out in some nice cushy couches enjoying some soda water and cappucino.  We also took a LOT of photos.  Here are some of the best ones:

After that Wu Di had arranged to meet up with Peggy and Chris.  However, my stomach and the hot pot had other plans so I rushed back ahead of them to the hotel to pay a visit with Mother Nature (yay for adapting back to China food).  When I was going through the lobby I saw Liu Qi and some other athletes playing cards so I said I would come back down and visit with them, which I did.

They were playing a variation on Big 2.  Shahaub, Wu Di, Peggy and Chris soon joined in the lobby hang-out and of course I took some more photos, and even a video:

After that Wu Di, Shahaub and I decided to go hang out in Jennifer’s room to talk about script stuff, so I went up there.  We ended up ordering some Lamb Stick delivery while learning interesting things about each other’s lives.  Here are some photos.

By the end of that I was pretty tired so I headed to bed and tried to get a good night’s sleep for the next day’s practice at 9:00 AM.