Posts Tagged ‘wushu’

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! 

Well,  you can tell by the title that today was intense, but I’ll start at the beginning just to be thorough.

When class started I checked out the schedule for the week on the board.  According to what was originally written there today was supposed to be:

• Jibbengong x 1
• Nandu x 2
• 1/4 x 8
• 2/4 x 6

I saw that we were doing 6 half forms, and I thought that would be a good challenge, but looking later in the week I noticed that there were a couple days where the athletes were set to do 3/4 forms.  Ugh .. 3 sections.  At least we would have a few days before that happened.

But then at the beginning of class, before warm ups, Coach Zhang lined us up and told us that there would be a change in the schedule.  He was swapping today’s morning and afternoon workout schedules and also told us that he wanted us to do our running around 2 carpets instead of 1.  From what I understood, it was time for us to start increasing forms work.  The post-competition, off-season-training reprieve had ended!

We did our running, which pretty much winded me.  Couldn’t quite do all of it, but did as much as I could, catching my breath whenever I needed to.  During basics, instead of 1 line of each we did 2.  I was getting winded and breathing pretty heavy (as I usually do — its wushu, afterall) and Xiao Yu would pretend to call a doctor with her hand serving as an imaginary phone.  ”Hello?  Doctor?  We need you here!” and she would laugh.  (But in a nice way so it was hard to be offended.)

After basics and before we started sections I looked at the schedule again.  Before this point I hadn’t looked to see what the afternoon training was supposed to be.  I assumed it was similar to the morning but with more running and basics.  It turns out that instead of 8 single sections and 6 half sets we were going to be doing 8 single sections, 2 half sets and a 3/4 set!  Holy Lung Capacity, I was going to be tired by the end of class!

For the single sets I pumped out the following sections: 4, 3, 2, 2, 4, 3, 2, 2.  Then for half sets I did: 3-4, 2-3 and then I did 2 – 4 for the 3 section set.  It was pretty brutal, I must say.  The best part was watching Yuan Ming really go for it.  I think he’s finally turning up the juice on his practice and his stuff was looking pretty intense and impressive.  He has some pretty nice technique.

During class I also had a chance to thank Wu Ya Nan in person for his super nice birthday gift.  He wrote a very nice letter to me that he had Yuan Ming and Yue Xiao Yu deliver with the shoes.  I will admit that the color of the shoes (burgundy with pink highlights) is not necessarily the most flattering, but dude — these are brand new Nike Shaolinquan shoes given to me by the Taiji Champion (2008) of China!  Who cares about wearing them?  I might just get them bronzed and put on a plaque.  It is going in my collection with the 2005 All China Games competition straightsword that Wu Di gave me.  (I need to start a wushu collectibles museum …)

After class I did some stretching and then headed home.  Aside from a slight tweaking of my right inner thigh today (just a bit sore, and should be okay in a day or two) I actually felt pretty good after class.  My body is starting to adjust and having a day off between classes is helping it build up its strength and endurance.

I’m pretty sure there would have been no way I could have pushed out 3 sections (even sloppy ones like today) at a time a couple weeks ago.  So at least that is improvement.

It actually reminds me of the training back at Wushu Star in 2003 when we were preparing for the 2003 CMAT.  Nothing increases your lung capacity for forms like just doing a whole lot of back to back sections.  I’m guessing that on Wednesday I will have noticed a new increase in my endurance.  At least — I sure hope so!

Tomorrow stay tuned for ‘Ask the ‘Zilla’, where I attempt to answer some questions and pretend I know what I’m talking about.  It should be entertaining (and possibly painfully embarassing).

No .. I didn’t misspell T.G.I.F. (“Thank God Its Friday”).  I was utilizing the little-known acronym for “Tai Ji Is Fun”.  Which I’m using because today I was able to get some footage of a few athletes training in Taiji.

But first let me start at the beginning of class.

Today I took the bus and as I was walking up to the wushu guan I noticed that the girl from Zhejiang was walking to the wushu guan too.  That seemed strange since usually all of the athletes walk together in formation as a group when they go to training.  Maybe she was late?  Or early?

As I was unpacking my wushu shoes and knee braces I saw some more athletes walk in.  The Taiji group was there as usual.  And from my group only a few people came in.  I asked Xiao Yu where everyone was and she said that they had school.  This might be a regular thing. Since this is my first week coming in the (brrrrr) morning, I wouldn’t have known that they have Friday mornings off.

So, it turned out there were just five of us.  The girl, Xiao Yu, Yuan Ming, another guy (cq,dao,gun) and me.

“I’m scared”, I said.

“Don’t worry” she explained.  ”The practice won’t be too bad today”.

We pretty much followed the schedule that I posted up last time.  Two lines of each basic after a bunch of running around.  Then they did nandu while I worked on my horse stance (it is getting better, I’m happy to report) and then it was time for sections.

According to the schedule we were supposed to do 16.  I was planning on doing 3 of each section, starting with the last, and then following up with all of them in sequence.  So it would have been:

4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4

But after the 12th rotation we stopped and the class was over.  At least I was able to get in some good training.  And boy did I work hard.  I think I was trying to make up for being out of it on Monday and Wednesday, but I pulled out all the stops with my forms.  Well, except for the jump inside fall, which I didn’t do.  But aside from that I worked hard (for me, at least).

The coach gave me one or two suggestions for my form too, which was nice.  Baby steps … baby steps …

We also have a few visitors.  One girls was there on the side stretching.  She looked like a taiji athlete, based on body type.  And a guy came that Xiao Yu told me was really good at dao/gun, but had injured his knee so was out of commission for the time being.  He did his own thing on the side, working through some combinations.

Class was over pretty early — around 10:40 — so I took some taiji footage which I’ll show you here:

First is Wu Ya Nan walking through his Taiji Form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h9cW6jpl3I

Then I have a girl going through her form too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1jzcbnp8OQ

Here are a couple athletes working on their forms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AXbFOPqj6E

And finally a boy working on his taiji form:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W63H_HJ9BfA

I actually have a few other ones, but the connection where I am is a bit slow so I will add them later on and then edit this blog entry. So be sure to check back for that.

EDIT: all the videos have been added! (12/27)

Anyway, after some taiji I got tired of watching and headed out to catch the bus over to Wai Yuan and meet up with Ruhi.

Two days off, and then its back for more morning training.  Jiayou!

(The alternate title for this blog was “Add Oil, Not Gas”, but I liked the rhyme better …)

I’m going to keep this one relatively short since I don’t have videos of photos to share.  And also because I’m busy with work.

Today was my first morning class since training with the Shaanxi Team.  A few things about the morning class I noticed right away:

• Holy Mother of Darth Vader, it is COLD outside at 8:00 AM.  And it was cold in the wushu guan too.  After 30 minutes of warming up and starting basics I still hadn’t broken a sweat yet.  Getting your body temperature up in wushu class when you can see your breath steaming away is not all that easy.
• The wushu guan isn’t quite as crowded in the morning as it is in the afternoon.  I guess that a lot of the little kids who do wushu don’t train that early — most likely in school where they belong — so it was just Coach Zhang’s group and the taiji folks today.
• Way more emphasis on forms in the morning than the afternoon. Which is kind of nice.  Also, Monday morning is when Coach Zhang puts up the week’s training schedule on the wall so all the athletes clamor around it to see what hellacious tasks are in store for them in the coming 6 days.  It is kind of fun.

The other problem I had going for me today was a really bad case of gas.  No, I wasn’t passing gas.  I just felt very uncomfortable and it was not easy to focus on training.  After doing a couple combinations and sections I let the coach know that I wasn’t feeling well and sat out the rest of practice, watching the athletes do their thing.

Yue Xiao Yu asked me as we were leaving the wushu guan why I didn’t leave when I stopped training and I explained that I like to watch so that, even if I can’t train my body, I can at least train my mind and learn from what I see.  She admitted that she liked doing that too.  In fact, today her knee was acting up so she was sitting out pretty much most of the class, instead working out on the side thinking through her form.

I kept track of today’s schedule as well as what was on the schedule for Wednesday and thought I would share it with you guys here:

Monday:

• Jibbengong: All basics x 2
• Nandu: Each x 4
• 1/4 Forms: 16
• 1/2 Forms: 2

Wednesday:

• Jibbengong: x 1
• Nandu: x2
• 1/4 Forms: 40

So … everyone has to do 10 of each section on Wednesday?  I was keeping track today and I’m not sure we did a whole 20 single sections, and I only saw a few guys doing half sets.  But then, I was feeling gassy so I might not have noticed.  lol.

Also, since I wasn’t taking video of the class, I was able to actually watch and analyze the athletes a bit better.  There are a couple of them that are really quite amazing.  And a few of them that weren’t as good as I thought they would be.  hahaha.  I suppose I should pay better attention and stop trying to snap video and photos for you guys.  But then … I’m guessing you would prefer I take videos and photos, huh?

Next practice is on Wednesday.  I’ll see if I can’t actually keep up and get in a good workout this time around.  And maybe bring a bottle of hot water with me to keep myself warm.

Also, I think on Wednesday afternoon Yue Xiao Yu and Wu Ya Nan (and possibly Qi Peng Hui) are coming over to my place to practice some English, so I’ll try to snap a few photos of that, or maybe do a WYN interview video.

‘Till then ….

Before getting back in to the experience of learning wushu itself, I thought I would take some time to talk about something that had a huge impact on my experience with wushu over the years. In fact, besides my coach, I would say that this is one of the two factors that contributed the most to my development with wushu:

People.

More specifically, I’m talking about the people I have met through wushu over the years, and who have had a big influence on my views on both wushu and the world.

For the sake of this blog entry, I will limit this to just the people I met while training in the Bay Area before moving to Los Angeles in 2001. (I will tackle the rest of you people later.

Kaz and Tabala

The first two people I became close to through wushu were Kaz and Tabala. I mentioned them before, but I’ll explain a bit more about them here.

Kaz was half-Japanese like me. A friend of Green Day’s turned kung-fu enthusiast, he came to join Wushu West through an interest in Hong Kong movies. He eventually decided that he wanted a more traditional application-oriented path and went to the city to train at a different school, but even while doing that he kept in contact with Patti and I. We were roommate for a year or two as well, before I ended up getting an apartment with Brandon.  Has has since gotten married, had a kid, fell in love with soccer and moved to Malaysia.

Tabala was an african american man with tight, short dreads. He had grown up with Bruce Lee as his primary father figure and, truth be told, he didn’t talk much about himself. He had been training in some form of Chinese martial arts for most of his life and was very dedicated to his martial arts education. He was really friendly, but at the same time, somewhat mysterious. After a few years he moved to L.A. to get some work and pretty much dropped off the radar. Finally, after years and years he resurfaced on Facebook.  Its nice to be back in contact with him.

From Kaz and Tabala I learned that even if you stop training with your teacher, it doesn’t mean you stop giving them your respect.

Gio and Rich

We called them the Nan Quan Brothers. Two big Philippino guys from San Leandro who started at wushu west about a year after me. I would hang out with them fairly often and we would commute back and forth to class pretty regularly.

I remember one time a bunch of us met at a park in Alameda to train at a park (just for fun, believe it or not) and we were talking about the mechanics of the twist. Of course, none of us could do it and most of us were afraid to try, but Gio decided to go for it. Right there on the grass he went for it. And he almost landed it! He kept trying, each time crashing to the ground, but getting closer. After a little while he stopped, but he had made good progress.

To be honest, I was a bit ashamed of myself, because I didn’t have the courage to try it out. Looking back, I think I could have done it, but I was just too afraid. Now-a-days, if I was in the same physical condition that I was back then, I’d try it in a heartbeat. But again .. hindsight is 20/20.

They eventually left Wushu West around 1999. I think Rich studied with Tony Chen for a while (it was cheaper) but last I heard neither of them train anymore. They’re on my facebook friends list though (isn’t everyone?) and I was able to see Gio during my last trip back home.

From Gio and Rich I learned that fear should never be a reason not to try something — it’s a signal that you’re in the midst of a great opportunity for self-development.

David Chang

I mentioned David before too. He was the one that helped bridge the abyss between Wushu West and Cal Wushu.

Back when he first started he took his training very seriously. He had started only 5 months before me but his hard work and dedication made him improve very quickly.

Truth be told, he had a few quirks of the body and some might have said that his physique wasn’t well-suited for wushu.  But admirably,  he never let that stop him.

He went to China in 1997. Then again in 1999 with me and some other friends. And then again in 2000 .. and 2001. He would train at multiple-schools — Cal Wushu, then Wushu West, then Omei Wushu and then with Liu Bo and others.

He never did it in a way that upset any of his instructors though, because they could see that he was working hard to develop his abilities and you can’t really fault someone for seeking out as much knowledge and understanding as they can.

He would see something he wanted and then pursue it with a single-minded determination until he had achieved it. That’s how he got his awesome drop stance. He saw Amy Chow’s drop stance in 1996 and told himself he wanted one like that. And he got it too.

Eventually he went on to start his own school, Wushu Central, after which I didn’t have too much contact with him.  As I understand it, there was a bit of drama here and there, but the David I knew best was the one before all of that happened. The one that was enthusiastic about and dedicated to wushu training. The one that pushed other people to work harder and pushed himself just as hard.  That is the David I remember most.  I’m pretty sure he’s still there anyway…

From David I learned the importance of training hard and embracing all of one’s wushu opportunities.

Cal Wushu

There have been a lot of friends I’ve met at Cal Wushu over the years. More than I could really list out in any adequate fashion. Some of them have been positive experiences, and some of them have been negative, but all in all my time hanging out and training with Cal Wushu has been one of enjoyable growth.

I’ve been at Cal Wushu as a student; training hard and gasping for air and water after a hard session of training. You develop close bonds with people when you’re in that sort of mutually-exhausting environment. After classes we would all go over to Durant Square, a food court just off campus, and bond together over some Korean BBQ or cheap Chinese take-out. Sifu Bryant Fong or Li Jing were coaching back then and it was great to get to know them better too.

I’ve also been at Cal Wushu as an instructor. Teaching beginners or the advanced class and putting them through their paces. You learn a lot about yourself when put in that sort of position — your strengths and weaknesses come to the forefront of your attention when you teach others. But, as they say, the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I learned a lot about wushu by helping others understand its fundamentals.

There have been generation after generation of students at Cal Wushu — too many to count over the years — but one thing remained the same. It is a great place to meet people who are as geeked out about wushu as you are.

For some strange reason .. all of the students stay the same age, but I keep getting older and older. I used to be just a few years older than the students. Now .. they’re all half my age. How depressing is that?

From Cal Wushu I learned the value of wushu fellowship, and the important responsibility you take on when you start to teach wushu.

Patrick Lee

I would be remiss here if I didn’t mention Pat. Out of all the people I’ve met in wushu, he’s probably had the singularly highest impact on my life. I first met Pat through wushu when he was at Cal, and eventually I went to work for him at Design Reactor. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 12 years since I first began working with him at our little web design firm. We’ve been co-workers, business partners, classmates, roommates and friends and I owe him a lot for some of the things he’s done for me over the years.

But, this isn’t about all of that. This is about wushu. And Pat’s wushu, believe it or not, was one of the best that had ever come around.  He originally trained with Zhang Gui Fung in Maryland before coming to Berkeley to go to school, and that early training paid off.

In 1994 he went to China with Daniel Wu to train with the Beijing Wushu Team. When he came back he was a wushu machine. His front stretch kicks were the things of legend and his front jumping slap kick would freeze the room as they watched his technique. Technique that was, at that time, almost God-like compared to the rest of us.

He became disinterested in wushu though.  Work, life and other things took priority.  I also remember him once telling me that, after his experiences training in China he realized that there was no way he would ever get to the level of a Chinese athlete. And, as he put it at the time,  if he couldn’t become the best at something, then why spend so much time doing it?  That isn’t to say he doesn’t appreciate or enjoy wushu.  I think it is more about how the level of committment that wushu requires for you to improve past a certain point makes it prohibitive for some people.

He would return to it from time to time, but none of them were quite as grand as his initial wushu fervor back in the early 90’s, fueled by Cal Wushu friends and a healthy dose of Jet Li’s Wong Fei Hung.

Pat taught me that having natural ability isn’t worth anything if you don’t commit to what you are doing, and that often times hard work can make up the difference for those who might not have been born with the right genetic make-up; either in Wushu, Business or Life.

Wushu West

And, of course, besides the people I listed above, there have been countless students coming in and out of Wushu West over the years. Here are some of the highlights.  It might be a little cryptic to you, but these are my lessons, not yours, so they really only need to make sense to me.

Lindsay: Taught me that just because someone is ignorant, doesn’t mean they are stupid.

Mai: Taught me to never let someone else’s critism let me to doubt my own abilities.

Laura: Taught me that you can never judge a book by its cover.

Anthony: Taught me that you’re never too old to feel young.

Roger: Taught me that having responsibilities for others doesn’t mean you are no longer responsible for yourself.

Mike: Taught me that the only value fear has is when you use it to excuse yourself from living life.

Jennifer & Cheri: Taught me the value of specilizing in a specific area.

Inyork & Hansie: Taught me that the cooler a person thinks they are, the less cool they become. And vice versa.

Bryan and Yolanda: Taught me that life is nothing if you don’t have passion for what you love to do.

Karen: Taught me that putting your heart out on your sleeve doesn’t guarantee that it will be acknowledged.

There are others too, but I think that is probably enough for now. Not that many ofthese people read this blog anyway. And I will be addressing more people when I talk about my return to Wushu West in 2004.

But I’m getting ahead of myself …

Final Thoughts

Sometimes I wonder what my experiences with wushu would have been like had some people not been a part of it. I’m sure they would have been good too, but each person you meet and each interaction you have, colors your life in very specific ways.

And when you put them all together you end up with a very special tapestry for your life. Each thread weaving around in seemingly haphazzard fashion, but when viewed with perspective, its clear that each is as important to the whole as any other.

My wushu friends have been, as I said, one of the two biggest factors that influenced my experience with wushu during this period of my life.

What is the other? Well, that will be the subject of my next blog. It’s a little something we in the wushu community refer to as “sifu video”.

Continued Next Week …

I’m not feeling it too much right now, but I’m pretty sure that by tomorrow my legs will be jello-ized.

It was sunny and blue skies today so I thought I would take my new bike out on its maiden voyage to wushu class.  Of course, since it had been so long since I had riden a bike, my legs weren’t quite used that sort of motion and by the time I got there I was already feeling it in my quads.  In fact, the folding bikes in general aren’t really meant for long-distance travel, so biking the 6km to the wushu guan was not the most comfortable thing in the world.

But, I suppose that is a good thing, as it will force my body to adapt and get stronger.  This sort of thing happened when I got my bike in Berkeley too, so it should be okay in a week or so.

By the time I got to class I was already sweating.  Good thing too, since they ended up playing some really strange game for warm ups that I wasn’t familiar with.  I’m going to call it Palindrome Tag since the name Xin Rui told me was about 10 characters long.

After warm ups was stretching and after that we shuffled in to the weight room for some power training.  We did different exercises today.  Instead of the bar-behind-the-neck “pop up” squats, we did bar-in-front-of-the-neck deep squats.  Slow down, faster up, with our heels propped on the edge of a weight.  We did about 4 sets of these at around 40kg (not including the bar).

Then it was time for conditioning.  And it was pretty brutal.

First were calf raises up on a raised bar.  First we did 3 sets of 20 on each leg.  In between sets we would jump around.  I’m used to stretching out my muscles after doing strength training, but here they quickly use them with some plyometric exercises.  Then we did one more set of calf raises.  Starting with our heel below the bar, the coach would have us go up and down on each count.  Then after 10 we would do 5 quick ones and hold it on top.  Then the other leg.  Then both legs.  Then calves were done.

Then we did frog leaps.  He broke us in to two groups for rotations, one group right after the other.  We would go down and back the long side of the carpet and then switch.  3 laps, then a walk back and forth.  Then another 3 laps and a walk.  Then one more set of 3 laps.  So, 18 lengths of carpet for frog leaps.  I think I was able to do about 10 all together.  I would do squats if I couldn’t do frog leaps.

Then it was relays.  3 groups of 5 people each.  At one end of the carpet you would do a combination of movements, then run down and do another set of something on the other side, then back and another one, etc.  Here is the combinations:

1. 10 continuous slap kicks -> then run down the carpet
2. 10 continuous right side inside kicks -> then run back
3. 10 continuous right side outside kicks -> then run down the carpet again
4. 5 kip ups -> then come back.

So instead of all that I would do 3-5 burpies at the ends of the carpet between my runs, but it was still pretty exhausting.

Then they did the same thing but along the short length of the carpet.

Then they did another short-length relay but this time with the following combinations:

1. 15 pushups -> run down
2. 25 v-ups -> run back
3. 10 whirling arms, slap the ground -> run down and back

I did the pushups and v-ups but instead of the wheeling arms I did burpies again.

Then we did about 6 runs across the room (2 carpets – short sides) with walks in between.

Then it was time for core training.  They brought out the big bouncy yoga balls and we did a bunch of exercises with those.  I can’t really explain them so I’m not going to try.  It wasn’t easy though, I’ll say that much.

Finally it was done.  And for some reason I even feel like I might have left something out.

And to top it all off, I had to ride my bike back home too.

So yeah … QuadZilla has attacked and the town of Thigh-ville is going to be paying some heavy taxes to the Bureau of Lactic Acid tomorrow.

Oh!  And one good thing that happened today was that I was able to talk with Zhang Laoshi about training next week in the mornings instead.  So, 9AM class, here I come.  Next week is Monday, Wednesday, Friday since I have a lot of work right to get done before the end of the year.  I’ll bump up my schedule to 4 or 5 times a week once my work load lightens up a bit.

Well … sorta.

This week the schedule for training changed a bit.  They swapped a few days around, as well as a few of the activities.  This week’s afternoon schedule (the morning is always just wushu training) was supposed to be like this:

• Mon: Wushu
• Tue: Power
• Wed: Rest
• Thu: Running (Sprints)
• Fri: Power
• Sat: Running (Long)

But actually today (Wednesday) they swapped the morning and afternoon, so they didn’t train in the morning and we had wushu forms training in the afternoon.  That was good news for me, since I wanted to do forms training and not have another day off.  Later on I would find out why they switched it…

I also spoke with Coach Zhang about my training schedule.  Work is pretty busy right now so I let him know that I would only be able to come to class 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  He said that was fine.  My main concern is that if next week is the same schedule as this week, then Wednesday afternoon they might not have class.  I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Before class started I saw the familiar groups of little kids training.  Usually I just watch, but this time I saw one group of them practicing a beginning long fist form so I thought I would snag some video.  Keep in mind that they have only been training for a few months to maybe a year.  The starting point of every professional athlete out there today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q90jwG4dp1Y

The class was similar to Monday’s class.  The athletes seems to be in pretty good spirits today, and for some reason my legs felt really good.  Usually it takes me a good 15 minutes to get my horse stance stretch going, but today I was able to drop down in to it almost immediately.  Also, my endurance was improving so I was feeling pretty good during basics and even got a few low jumps in to the mix.

But I noticed that there was an older gentleman pacing around on one side of the room.  I asked Yuan Ming and he said that he was the head of the team.  ”Teacher.  Number One.” he said, which I took to mean that he was the team manager or head coach (or both).  I had never seen him before, but he might come to the morning class all the time for all I know.

Anyway, after we had been practicing combinations for a while one of the other coaches that I sometimes see in the wushu guan came in with some guy I hadn’t seen before.  He sat with a few of the coaches in front of the Taiji athletes, and then sat for a while in front of our group.  Then, after something was said by the head coach to Coach Zhang there was an immediate flurry of activity.  All of Chu Feng Lian’s kids grabbed their coats and headed in to the weight training room and shut the door.  Most of the older athletes in my group started getting ready for jumps and I was told by Yue Xiao Yu that I should train on my own on the side for the time being.

It turns out that the guy was a coach for the Army Team (解放军队).  For those of you who don’t know, the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) also has a wushu team, but unlike the other teams their athletes don’t train together at a central facility but are recruited from various regional and provincial teams where they live and train.  I suppose the host team gets some monetary compensation for training the Army team member, which might be good motivation for them to have some of their wushu athletes get recruited for competition by the Army.  (Thats just my speculation though.)

In any case, it looked like this guy was here to check out some athletes.  And here he had been watching me do combinations in front of him!  Yikes!

The jumpers in our group started practicing their nandu combinations while a bunch of us went to the side to work on stretching or stances or whatever (basically looking busy on the side while watching the crazy jumps of these athletes).  After about 15 minutes of that we switched up and started doing sections cycling through using the two carpets on the east side of the room.

Yue Xiao Yue said it was okay to work in to the rotation as they were done with the nandu demonstration for the visiting coach, but I still felt like keeping myself a little more distant from him.  I rotated through the farther carpet and didn’t go to the carpet next to him so that he could pay more attention to the Shaanxi Team athletes, which is really the reason he was there; not to watch some foreigner pretend to do wushu.

I managed to get 3 sections out, which wasn’t too bad considering how long it had been since I had done any full sections.  I really like training like that: basics followed by form combinations followed by full sections.  It helps me build up a work on specific problem areas of my form.

After class I did some stretching to make sure I didn’t stiffen up too much.  Friday it is back to the wushu guan, this time for some more power training.  加油！

I received a message through my wushuzilla contact form today asking about training options in China, and more specifically about recommendations on someone who wants to spend an extended period of time training wushu and studying Chinese in China.  I thought I would post up my answer here, since it might help others who are looking to figure out the same stuff for themselves.

Thanks for your e-mail.

You have a few options available to you. It sort of depends on your long-term plans and what sort of personality you have. Also, for the sake of this e-mail, and since I don’t know too many details about you, I’m going to assume that you do not currently speak any Chinese (or a limited amount — i.e. survival level) and that you have only been to China the one time. Your actual situation might be different.

There are essentially 4 primary factors that you need to consider when moving to China for an extended period of time: cost, training opportunities, location infrastructure and chinese language study methodology. Specifically …

Cost: Not just related to financial cost, but also related to the emotional and personal cost of traveling abroad for 2 years. There is a big difference between a 3 month stay and a 2 year stay. You go through a lot of stuff when you are on your own, studying, training and possibly working in a new country. It is important not to discount the amount of emotional and cultural shock you might experience. However, even having said that, the payoffs (in my opinion) are often quite worth it. Not just in terms of developing skill in wushu or Chinese, but in developing an understanding and appreciation for the diversity of humanity and the rich cultural heritage that we all share on this planet.

Your financial cost options basically boil down to the following, which coincidentally have an inverse relationship with personal cost:

Expensive Financial Cost = Lower Personal Cost
Moderate Financial Cost = Moderate Personal Cost
Like a Local = High Personal Cost

Training Opportunities: Finding a good coach who will nurture your interest in wushu can be challenging. But beyond that, you also have to consider the facilities you will train at, the quality of the other athletes, the number of Chinese vs. non-Chinese people training and whether or not they are accomodating to whatever particular needs you might have. Keep in mind that the foreigner who complains and asks for special consideration all the time is usually the foreigner they end up wishing would not be there. Often in China the squeaky wheel doesn’t just get the oil, it gets replaced with a better wheel.

Your training opportunities options are as follows:

Train at a Sports University/School
Train at a Sports Center
Train at a private school

Location Infrastructure: What sort of environment suits you best? And what location will give you the best training, living and learning opportunities. Not only that, but if you want to get really good at Putonghua, then does living in Urumuqi really make sense? Finding a location that balances the best training options with the best language study environment will narrow down your choices.

In China you have quite a few options on where to live. And I would say that a large part of it depends on where you already have guanxi (relationships). Sometimes that is ALL it comes down to, but I think that the following are the most important factors to consider with your location:

Training Options
Regional Dialect / Accent
City Size
Expat Population
Weather

Chinese Language Study Methodology: What type of learning suits you best. Are you good at learning through conversation? By reading a lot of texts? Do you need a structured environment or something more flexible? Are you a quick language learner or do you tend to take a while? Do you want complete immersion or do you prefer some other foreigners to keep you company? These questions and more should be answered in picking the best location for you to study Chinese. When learning Chinese you have the following options:

Directed Study (classroom)
Self-Study
A mix of both

Now, if I were a tour guide for students of wushu and chinese who wanted to come to China, I would probably break it down to the following three programs. Obviously there are a variety of possibilities, but these are the main themes that most people follow:

1. The Extended Tour

In this program you have everything taken care of for you and all you have to add is your hard work and curiosity. Usually available in the larger cities, you sign up for a study-abroad program through a University or large school where they provide food and lodging, as well as instruction in Chinese Language or Wushu (or both).

You are among a group of foreign students who are also participating in this program, and much of your time is spent studying, training and hanging out with your fellow students. In fact, it isn’t much different than the college experience back home, except that you are in a new culture and learning a new language.

In this program you aren’t necessarily “immersed”, but you are at least in the country itself, and it provides some good opportunities to learn more about China than you would have from daily visits to your local Chinatown.

At the end of two years, (assuming you studied and didn’t go clubbing every weekend with your foreign friends), your Chinese will have improved quite a bit and you will have developed some good wushu skill, (whenever your schooling didn’t interfere with your training).

Pros: Structured, secure environment with like-minded people that you can bond with.
Cons: Expensive and not very immersive. Slightly “watered down”.

This program can often be found at Sports Universities such as Beijing, Shanghai or Wuhan Sports Universities, which have specific foreign student programs.

2. Pursue a Degree

This program is for the student who doesn’t just want to come and “hang out” in China, but really wants to make something of their time here. After 6 months of rather intensive Chinese language study (probably through a school specializing in the HSK, the Chinese Profiency Exam) you take the HSK and get accepted to a Chinese University as a student. During this time you were also training at a local wushu school, primarily for kids, which is lower in cost than training with a professional team or a sports university, but good enough for most foreign athletes who didn’t grow up with 6 hours of wushu every day since they were 8 years old.

Once you have been matriculated in to a Univeristy program, you can evaluate your degree goals. If your university doesn’t have a wushu degree program (i.e. not a Sports University) you can focus on Chinese language studies and practice wushu on the side at a wushu school. if your university has a degree program in Wushu, then you can focus on this, supplementing your training with Chinese language instruction to understand your course materials.

After two years you are half-way to a degree in Wushu or Chinese and your language skill, having been forced to adapt to a Chinese-only curriculum in school with few foreigners enrolled, has developed to a good level. You are functionally fluent and are well on your way to finishing your degree in China.

Pros: Better immersion in the life of a Chinese student. Gets you half-way to a degree. Less expensive, especially if you get one of the scholarships that China has avilable for foreign students.
Cons: Less integration between Chinese and Wushu studies and you might have to pick one over the other after a couple years. Student housing is kind of “meh”.

This program can be available in almost any city of more than 4 million people (which is a LOT of cities). You can even find it in smaller cities, and the limiting factor becomes much more about whether or not wushu is avialable.

3. Live Like a Local

This program is not for the feint of heart, but for those with the committment and focus, it can offer the highest degree of education and training available.

You come to a smaller city in China, or to the smaller areas surrounding a larger city, and become completely immersed in the local culture and customs. When arriving, you get a small apartment far from the city center (but hopefully close to a local wushu guan). Your building has no elevators and only goes 6 stories high. You learn to wash your clothes by hand and buy all your groceries at the local market where you’ve established a relationship with your favorite meat and vegetable vendors. You know the local bus routes by heart and your 20 kg bike cost less than 100 RMB.

During the week you take the bus to your Chinese study program at a local university or language school where you got your student visa. Or/and you ride your bike to the wushu guan where you train once or twice a day constantly berated by a coach that doesn’t know how to coddle foreigners and treats you like the rest of their students; with strict discipline, loving guidance and tons of eating bitter. On the weekends you tutor Chinese students in English to make some extra money for groceries and the occasional train ride to the big city.

If you survive this program, in two years you will be so fluent that people on the phone think you are a local. Probably because you’ve developed such a strong regional dialect in your day-to-day speech. Your wushu will have gone through the roof because your coach didn’t know what it meant to not force you to be the best you can be. But you will probably have cried more than a few times out of lonliness and dispair during the first few months, but that only lasts until you have developed some good guanxi with a few local students, athletes and neighbors.

Pros: Assuming you didn’t run for the hills in month 2, you are essentially Chinese.
Cons: Your parents might not recognize you when you get home.

————

Obviously I’m exagerating a little bit, but you get the idea. The basic idea is, the more “local” you want to be, the cheaper and more authentic your experience, but also it will be more challenging. The more “foreign” you want to be, the more expensive and watered-down your experience, and probably more enjoyable. You just need to figure out where your personal proclivities lie.

To answer your other question, I don’t train at a university. Every city and province in China is a little different, but here in Xi’an, the Shaanxi Wushu Team trains at a decidated sports school called the Shaanxi Provincial Sports Training Center. It is where athletes of all ages live and train in a wide variety of sports. Sort of like a boarding school for athletes of all ages, except they don’t offer any classes that you can take. If you want to train at a school, then your best best in Xi’an is to attend the Xi’an University of Physical Education (XPEU), which has programs for foreigners in both Chinese and a variety of sports. It is also relatively cheap compared to similar programs at Beijing Sports University or Shanghai University of Sports. They have a website here:

http://www.xaipe.edu.cn/ (click on the link for their poorly designed English version)

Most cities in China have a sports-dedicated university or college that you can train at, so this isn’t a unique situation. The larger the city, the more expensive it will probably be. Almost all sports universities and colleges have the exact same type of schedule and situation. You live on campus in a dorm or apartment, you train twice a day and take classes (if that is an option) in Chinese. Twice a day training is pretty standard in China, even though I train just once a day. But then, I’m over 20 years older than you so my body doesn’t quite recover like it used to.

I hope this is helpful to you. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I’m happy to answer them.

Thanks!

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.

video management, video solution, video streaming

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

video management, video solution, video streaming

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.

The other day I received an e-mail from a friend back in the U.S.  They were discussing their increasing lack of motivation to train in wushu.  Some of it was related to feeling they had started too late, or a lack of involvement in the school by other students or some other things.  I wrote out some of my thoughts on the subject for them, but thought it might be something that a lot of wushu athletes out there are/have been/will be dealing with.

I have changed the specifics to protect the innocent.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. I know that it can

be difficult to discuss these things with the people you train with or
see regularly. I think that is why therapists exists. It is often
easier to talk to someone who is not directly involved in your
situation because they don’t have anything emotionally invested in
what you are saying and can be a little more objective about it. In
any case, I appreciate you feeling comfortable enough with me to tell
me what you are thinking and feeling.

What you are feeling is totally normal and natural. I’ve felt
it many times. Almost all the wushu athletes I know have felt it at
one time or another. You should never feel bad about feeling a lack
of motivation or some disinterest in training from time to time.
Because what defines you isn’t what you feel, so much as what you do
about those feelings. We can get that lack of motivation from a
variety of things and all of the things you mentioned are pretty
common situations.

Advanced student (or any students for that matter) leaving schools and
going off to do other things is pretty common. I can’t tell you how
many various iterations of students I have seen at Wushu West over the
years. The people who were there when I started left so long ago,
even the super old timers wouldn’t have a clue who they were.

By my count, the current “advanced” students are the 7th
generation of them since I started at Wushu West in 1995. I think
there is a turn-around every 2 – 4 years and this is pretty common
at most wushu schools, yours included. But what is important to
keep in mind is that your decision to train in wushu didn’t exist as a
result of those students being at the school. You decided to study
wushu because you found something in the sport itself worth pursuing.
As long as you keep that perspective in mind — that training wushu is
a personal decision not based on the actions of others — then that
can help you keep focused on your training.

Also, feeling disillusioned due to our age or circumstances in the
U.S. is quite common. None of us started as early as we would have
liked. Even some of the young athletes who started training as a
little kid occasionally lament at their situation of not having
access to wushu training at an early enough age. Sometimes I wish I
had started earlier too. i didnt’ start until I was 25 but I learned a long
time ago that it isn’t about not being given the chance to train at a
young ago or not being physically gifted in certain ways, so much as it
is about taking advantage of those opportunities that DO present
themselves to you.

I’ve had friends who went to China, saw the level that existed and
what it took the Chinese athletes to get there, and summarily gave up
wushu because they decided they would never be able to get to that
level. But is that the reason they took wushu in the first place? To
be as good as professional Chinese athletes? No, of course not. So
why compare ourselves to them? Why compare ourselves to anyone? It
doesn’t really accomplish anything except to bring up unecessary
comparisons that serve no purpose.

The only person we can compare ourselves to is ourselves. And the only
comparison we can make is between who we were and who we have become.
If who are you today is better at wushu than who you were yesterday,
or last year, or when you started wushu, then you are on the right
track. Wushu isn’t about fulfillling some abstract vision of the
perfect athlete. It is about self-improvement and personal
development.

Why did you take wushu? The answer is because you liked it. Plain
and simple. We can get caught up with various issues like age or
physical ability or resources all we like. But if you are doing
something you enjoy, then you can consider yourself extremely lucky,
because not everyone in the world has the opportunity to be doing what
they love.

Ironically, many of the professional wushu athletes I know in China
are not as lucky as you. Because they don’t take wushu because they
love wushu, but because it is their job and they HAVE to train. And I
suppose, just like in any job for any one in the world, they make the
best of it and try to enjoy what they can. But if they had their
druthers, a lot of them would rather be doing something else.

Whenever I have a lack of motivation (which happens every so often) I
go back to the core of why I train in wushu. I watch the videos that
inspired me. I think of the first time I took wushu and how geeked
out about it I was. I remember the joy I had when I figured out a new
move or got down a new technique. And I think of the subtle pleasure
I experienced in the zen of training — from lacing up my feiyue
shoes, to going through the routine of saluting and warming up, to
stretching out and watching the sweat drip off my nose and on to the
wooden floor in the Finnish Hall — those times when it was just me
and a few other dedicated students training in wushu.

I don’t remember the crazy competitions or the wushu parties or the
super full classes or hanging out with the Beijing Wushu Team or Jet
Li. What I remember most fondly are the cool fall evenings,or rainy
spring sundays, walking up the stairs to the training hall, stretching
my stiffness, breaking a sweat, working like a dog, struggling with
each motion, and still loving every minute of it.

You can feel frustrated about your training. Its perfectly normal.

You can feel disillusioned or distraught or dismayed at your situation
with wushu. It is a natural reaction.

You can feel a lack of motivation for training or wonder if wushu is
really where your energy should be spent. It is totally valid.

But as long as you can remember why you started wushu. As long as you
can work through the hump and think back to those times when it wasn’t
about someone else or an abstract idea or whether or not you were
suited perfectly for the sport — but it was about doing something for
yourself, and the reality of being able to train in this cool sport
called wushu, stretching your personal and physical boundaries in new
and exciting ways — then you will understand that all you really
need to be successful at wushu is to enjoy it.

It isn’t the results you get from wushu — medals, techniques,
accolades or otherwise — that are your true source of motivation to
train. In fact, as soon as you start focusing on the external
stimulation of wushu is when wushu stops being something you are
passionate about.

Wushu isn’t a destination. there isn’t a day when you can say “Okay,
I’ve finished learning wushu. Now what?” anymore than there is a day
when you can say “Okay, I’ve learned everything there is to know about
life. Now what?” Becuase there is ALWAYS more to learn — but more
importantly there is always more within yourself to develop; paths to
explore; virtues to cultivate; abilities to uncover.

And for myself, THAT is what keeps me motivated to keep training, even
after 15 years, 3 knee injuries, wushu politics, bad relationships and
a stock-pile of physical issues that most people would gladly steer
clear of. Those things don’t really matter in the long run as long as
training in wushu has ultimately taught me valuable lessons about who
I am as a person.

I’ve always thought that training in wushu (and I suppose any art form
or sport is similar) is a great magnifying class on one’s own life.
So many of the issues we go through in our day to day life come out
when we train in wushu. And the trials and tribulations that we
experience during our wushu training are often mirrors of the same
issues we deal with outside the wushu guan. When we push ourselves
beyond our comfort zone (whatever the medium we use to do that) it
provides us not only with an education about who we are, but also with
a valuable opportunity to learn, grow and develop our inner being.

Anyway … I probably wrote more than you were interested in reading.
But, I suppose that after all this time in wushu I can still get fired
up about these things. And I suppose if nothing else, that is
something of a testament to how much wushu (and life) has to offer you
in the years to come.

Let me know your thoughts! Do you agree with this e-mail? Do you think I’m off my rocker? I’m curious what other people’s thoughts are. I’m looking forward to reading your comments!