Beijing – Day 7 & 8: Training Next to the Pros

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 7/27: Swapped out videos with youtube embeds

First, sorry for the delay.  I haven’t had as much time to blog these days.  I’m going to recap Day 7 and 8 here.  But first, here are a few pictures from Day 6 that I didn’t have time to post earlier.

Here are some nice taro treats that they served during lunch.  Sifu Patti asked me to take some pictures of them:

Next, I was really surprised to run into an old friend of mine here.  Liu Qi used to be on the Shanghai Wushu Team and trained in the hall near mine.  We used to hang out quite often back in 2006, but she went back to Gansu with her coach and I haven’t seen her since then (or heard about her).  I was super surprised to run into her here and we had a nice time catching up.  Here is a Pepsi she gave me when we first ran in to each other.

In the evening I went to get a massage with Myles and we also got some Qian Bing and Tang Su Li Ji (just for you, Jenn! ) which he had never had either of before.  It was delicious!

Now, back to Day 7.

Since the quaratine is over, we are able to train in the wushu halls next to actual other human beings. A nice change of pace.

The morning practice was in the underground wushu hall. We started at 8:00 AM, which was rather early for us. At 9:00 AM some of the professional-type athletes came in. It was Mr. And Mrs. Zhang’s group (two old teammates of Patti’s who are coaches here).  The Mr. coaches taiji athletes and the Mrs. coaches kids around the teen-ish years. The kids were doing conditioning for their class, but the taiji folks were in full force so a bunch of stuck around after class to watch them.  Very amazing.  The Macau Team was also there training and we got to see them go as well.  Also very good.

Our workouts were no longer quaratined, but our meals still were.  We hadn’t moved to the big lunch room yet, but that was okay, because the small one is kind of nice.  We get all the same foods, without the same crowds.  Plus, Myles loves his Yogurt drinks.

The afternoon practice was in the main wushu hall.  It was our first time training there, and we were doing it next to the pro’s, no less.  Here, Tyler shares his thoughts on the training so far.

And just because we can, here is a picture of Wu Di’s abs …

The evening was spent hanging out in the hotel.  Not too much to report about that.

Day 8

Finally we could eat in the main cafeteria.  Here are some pictures of us, as well as Noah hiding his new haircut.

The morning training at 9:00 – 11:00 was in the main upstairs Wushu Hall again.  I think this is the best hall to train in, because you are next to lots of professionals doing wushu.  The downstairs hall just doesn’t have the same feeling of “awe” for me.  (Plus it kind of feels like a dungeon.)  Myles was kind enough to record a section of my nanquan for posterity.  Hopefully this is the last time it will suck quite so bad:

After lunch I went to Noah and Jonah’s room to record their messages for the folks back home (i.e. you).  Here is a video of them:

The afternoon training was, once again, in the upstairs wushu hall.  Since I don’t train in the afternoons, I just made sure that all the Wushu West students got to class on time (2 people were late — the same 2 that were late the other day…) and once I had done that I went to go pick up some shirts that I had ordered at Ya Xiu.  Yay for tailoring!  After that we came back and had dinner in the cafeteria.

In the evening my room became the social hub for Wushu West, with people playing games on one laptop and watching movies on the other.  Liu Qi and Wu Di both dropped by the room as well.  I got a bit over stimulated so I grabbed a book and went down to the lobby to read for a while.  Soon enough it was time for bed.

And thus ends Days 7 and 8.

Related posts:

1. Beijing – Day 13/14: Training and New Arrivals
2. Beijing – Day 3: A Look at Training
3. Beijing – Day 6: Last Day of Quarantine
4. Beijing – Day 9: More of the Same …
5. Beijing – Day 2: The Training Begins and Tyler’s Birthday