The Shaanxi Wushu Team is hard at work to put on some finishing touches on their forms.  I’m actually on the temporarily injured reserve list (my knee is acting up making walking, let alone training, rather uncomfortable) but I had to go talk to Xiao Yu about a few things so I headed out to the wushu guan to check out their form run-throughs during the evening practice.

The first thing I noticed is that Zhang Yang is back from her Guangzhou training with the National Youth Team.  Whatever they fed her down there sure did the trick because she was much stronger and her wushu had improved since the last time I saw her.  Unfortunately I didn’t get her footage on my camera.  Why?  Because the people I did manage to film would come up to me after their forms and ask to watch what they had done.  Coach Zhang used my camera to check out Xiao Yu’s nanquan form too, which was sort of neat.  I felt handy!

So there were maybe 3 or so athletes I wasn’t able to capture.  But I did get a few so I’ll show you those right now …

First up is Yue Xiao Yu sporting a nice new silk that she had ordered from Beijing.  i definitely like this one better than the one she wore during the All China Games.  Red is a better color on her.  This is her nanquan form:

Second we have Zhang Yuan Biao who performed his daoshu form.  He didn’t go full out on the nandu, but I still think he has some nice moves in his form.  He’s definitely the strongest non southern/taiji athlete on the team right now.  I hope he does well in competition.

And third was Yang Zhao, a young man who does changquan and who I don’t really show much on my blog.  He’s sort of one of the athletes that hang out in the background of my blogs and videos, but his stuff is actually pretty good, as you can see.  During the middle of his form my camera ran out of room so I had to quickly delete some older files and then start filming him again.

Next up was Ren Zhang Tao, the hardest working kid in the group.  He was practicing staff, and doing a pretty decent job of it. Not bad for a 15 year old.  (Or maybe he’s 14 … I forget … )

After that it was time for a quick break while 3 more athletes did their warm ups.  As they were trying to mirror the competition experience as much as possible, they next group was going to go at 8:00 PM and included two male nanquan athletes and one male jianshu athlete.  But first, here are the athletes hanging out / preparing to go:

The first is a young man who is one of the only 2 or so male jianshu / qiangshu athletes currently training on the team.  I really like some of his flavor, and his one slash with the sword at the beginning of his form can be felt through the whole wushu guan.  Very nice.

And then was Yuan Min.  He was the second person who got the “memory card full” message in the middle of their form.  So unfortunately you dont’ get to see his nandu, but you can trust me that it was pretty nice.  While he was warming up and would go full bore on some of his combinations, I have to say that it was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.  For the full form he tapers his energy just a little bit to last the full minute 20 +.  But when he is just going for it on a single section it is really something to behold.  Anyway, here is his nanquan form:

And last but not least was Tian Jing Fang.  He busted out his nanquan form and did a pretty nice job of it.  I’m not sure if I’m the biggest fan of his style, but I must say he has the craziest buffest legs of anyone on the team.  Dude is seriously maxed out.

The team is leaving for the competition on Thursday so that they can spend a few days acclimating to the environment.  I will most likely go on Saturday or Sunday.  If it is Sunday (i.e. arriving on Monday) then I might miss some of the first events.  Hopefully not, but I might not be able to help it.  From what I’ve been told it is in the same sports arena where the 2006 Women’s qualifiers were held.  I’ve finally been attending enough competitions to repeat attendance at a venue!  Time to get a life?

Who am I kidding.  This is my life.

Related posts:

1. Two-Week Wushu Recap (11/1-11/14)
2. I Was Scouted By The PLA Wushu Team! (12/16)
3. How To Take a Ton of Wushu Videos (12/14)

Anyway, I met a former [professional wushu athelte] recently who coached me on Nanquan. He was talking about the years he spent training and how he began to hate Wushu by his 16th year in it. He said training was extremely bitter and at the time they could train up to 4 times a day, which I think isn’t the case now from your posts about the Shanxi team’s schedule. What I wanna know is, are most of the Shanxi team members like that? Having done Wushu for so long and under such conditions, have they grown to hate it?

Jet’s Generation

The issue of Chinese athletes “hating” wushu is something that I’ve come across quite a bit in the past.  Especially when I was working for Jet.  I don’t think it is any huge mystery that Jet doesn’t actually care that much for wushu; he’s stated it publicly in the past so I’m not dropping any bombs. (That isn’t to say he doesn’t appreciate it and all it has provided for him in his life, or that he thinks it is “bad” in and of itself.  Just that he isn’t that fond of it anymore.)  And I think that, with athletes of his generation, this is a fairly common sentiment.

Put yourself in their shoes.  You are going along you way at the age of 8 and suddenly someone tells you that you are going to spend all your spare time (and some of your school time) going to a hall with carpets and being forced to endure hard physical exercise for extended periods of time with no rest.  You weren’t asked.  You were ordered.

Maybe at first it is interesting, but that wears off pretty quickly once you realize that there is no end in sight.  Hard, hard manual labor and you start to develop a resentment towards it.  Even later on in life when you start to receive accolades or do well in competition, you don’t really enjoy it because you realize that doing well in wushu is only the natural result of having worked so incredibly hard for so long.  If anyone was forced to do what you had been forced to do, they would also be just as good.

After 15 years of hard, daily, excruciating work, you come out the other side never wanting to do or see wushu again.  The only problem is that now you are stuck since it is the only skill set you have developed over your entire life and it is what you are best at.  In fact, you are one of the best at it in the world.  So you get a job coaching or doing films and continue to have a dual resentment/reliance relationship with wushu.

But this is really just a generalization.  This experience isn’t true for all athletes.  In fact, for just as many athletes you have in China, you are going to have just as many perspectives on wushu.  No one’s feelings for wushu are exactly like anyone else’s.

Difference in Generations

But as a generalization, I think it is interesting that the athletes of the earlier generations compared with the athletes of the current generations have a somewhat different perspective on wushu.

Back when Jet was a kid, he wasn’t inspired to study wushu by watching “Shaolin Temple”.  There was no “World Wushu Competition” he could aspire towards.  No videos of great competitors to get inspired by.  Heck, back when he first started training there wasn’t even a Chinese Nationals Yet.

By comparison, when you ask a lot of the athletes from the 90′s or the 21st century what their motivation for wanting to do wushu is, they will tell you “Jet Li” or “Shaolin Temple”.  I remember Li Jing told me that she wanted to study wushu after watching “Shaolin Temple” and Wu Di told me that his motivation for learning wushu came from wanting to fly like the people in the movies.

When those athletes started training, there was already a system of regional, youth, national, provincial and international competitions in place that they could aspire towards.  There was a history of established wushu athletes that they could look at for inspiration and motivation.

One of the things that can inspire and motivate someone to endure hard circumstances is their personal “light at the end of the tunnel”.  If you are a kid and you see no “out” from your situation — no light, so to speak — then how much would you learn to dislike what you are doing?

There is a saying that too much of a good thing is not good for you.  Certainly too much training in wushu can wear a person down if they don’t have any other underlying motivation for being there other than “because I have no options” or “because I have to”.

Today’s Athletes

The current generation has a little more choice in the matter about their training.  There are some other options available if they chose them, but many who train feel that wushu is the best opportunity for them, so they stay with it.  They aren’t “forced” to train like previous generations, but there is still a very strong pressure for them to continue with what they are doing.  But at least, to some degree, they have a choice.

I’m not saying that the training isn’t hard or that they don’t have bouts of “this sucks” with their situation.  But at the end of the day they don’t feel as much of a  lack of freedom that previous generations felt, and that does a lot for lightening one’s mood with relationship to “hating” wushu.

But like I said — everyone is different.  No two people are going to deal with a situation the same way, and even thought I’m generalizing things about the state of Chinese athletes, I feel it is important to keep in mind that not all athletes fall in to a specific category of attitudes.

Asking Athletes in Shaanxi

During today’s class with the Shaanxi Wushu Team I thought I would make some inquiries and ask the athletes a few questions about why they started training and what they felt about wushu.  Here is what I learned:

Yue Xiao Yu said that she started doing wushu because her mother liked wushu and wanted her to do it.  It wasn’t something she was interested and during that first class she literally kicked and screamed not to be there.

When I asked her if she liked wushu today she said “no, I don’t like it” (which I thought was interesting since, as you will recall from our bike buying trip, she stated that she did like it).  She said that if she had a choice she would not train in wushu.  And when I asked her why she continues training if she doesn’t want to be there she answered “because my mother wants me to do wushu”.

I asked her if this was a common sentiment of the people in our group and she said that out of 10 athletes, probably 7 of them don’t like training.  So I asked her who the ones in our group that liked wushu were and she said Yuan Min and pointed to another kid who trained with us (you can see him in this video at 0:40).

I thought it might be good to ask someone even younger, since they might not have the same perspective, so I went to go talk to Xin Rui, the little nanquan kid, and the young chang quan girl that trains with us (you can see her at 0:56 in the middle row in this video).  Xin Rui started training from his own interest.  He was a huge fan of Bruce Lee and wanted to learn real “gong fu”.  The girl said that her father was a wushu teacher and so she had to go in to the “family business”, so to speak.  Both of them said that they found training in wushu very tiring, but that for the most part they were okay with the experience.

I asked them that, if they really didn’t want to be there would they be able to leave, but I think they might have misunderstood me.  They said that, if they didn’t do well they would be told to go home.  That makes me think that, perhaps they don’t even consider quitting their training as an option.  Certainly, they must receive a lot of pressure from both their coaches, teachers and the other athletes to persevere.

Next I wandered over to Yuan Min.  Since Xiao Yu mentioned him as one of the athletes that like wushu I thought he might have a different perspective.

“Do you like training in wushu?” I asked.

“No” he answered.

“Really?  But Xiao Yu said you like wushu.” I asked.

“I like wushu.  But I don’t like training.  It is too tiring.” he replied.

Ah.  That is an interesting distinction that I hadn’t thought about.  Back in the U.S., if someone likes wushu, that probably means they like training in wushu.  But in China those two aspects of your relationship with wushu can be different.

I asked him why he started training in wushu and he said that it was because he wasn’t any good in school.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, but after training for one year I was at the top of my class in school (3rd grade).” he clarified.  ”From training in wushu I learned what it meant to eat bitter (persevere through difficulties) and I was able to focus in school.”

Well, there is an argument for putting your kids in wushu if I ever heard one.  (Or any sports for that matter.)

He went on to explain that the reason he keeps training is because it is his job.  He needs to make a living and this is what he does.  But, he explained, if he could have a job where he got paid to just watch wushu, that would be ideal.  Because it isn’t that he doesn’t like wushu.  It is just that he doesn’t like the difficult training.

Some pretty interesting information.  A little bit later as I was sitting and stretching next to a few other young male athletes I asked a 14 year old (the one sitting next to us in this video at :05) the same questions.  He also stated a general dislike of wushu training, but that he doesn’t mind wushu itself. (Of course, he had just gotten back from a 55 minute run, so that might have been part of it.)  He had been training for 3 years and was also from Dong Ming, Shandong.  (Apparently 5 or 6 atheltes who were training at the facility are from Dong Ming.)

So, it wasn’t exactly formal research, but it was interesting to hear their personal thoughts on wushu.

Final Thoughts

I’ve met other athletes that hate wushu.  And I’ve met current athletes that love wushu.  And I’ve met a ton of athletes that fall somewhere in between.  How a person deals with their situation is up to them, and whether or not you love to train, or hate to train, or whether you love wushu or late wushu, has more to do with who you are as an individual than it does about the state of wushu or the state of training in wushu.

Thanks for the question and I hope this was helpful!

On a training note, it was only an hour of self-training today so most of the athletes just sort of did their own thing (I did 80 mabu/gong bus, a bunch of pushups and walked through my nanquan and nangun forms to reinforce choreography).  The reason for the light practice  is that they have a big test tomorrow.  In the morning and in the afternoon they will have a wushu testing session and they need to be ready for that.

What does a wushu testing session entail?  I have no idea.  Unfortunately I will not be there so I can’t tell you what happens. But hopefully the next time one comes around I will be on hand to give you a report.

Next class: Monday morning

Related posts:

1. How To Take a Ton of Wushu Videos (12/14)
2. I Was Scouted By The PLA Wushu Team! (12/16)
3. New Athletes Arrive from Yan’an (1/20)

Wu Ya Nan Billboard

First up, well … okay.  This is sort of wushu-related.  I took some pictures of a billboard that they have outside of the wushu guan (武术馆) at the Shaanxi Provincial Sports Training Center (陕西神体育训练中心)  which features Wu Ya Nan and a Sanda athlete who both got medals at the recent All China Games in Binzhou, Shandong (山东滨州).  Check it out:

Dou Dou and Family

Waaaay back on December 17 Ruhi and I visited Xuixin (Susan), a local Chinese Friend who works/ed for Ruhi’s consulting company.  Her and her husband asked us over to help with some stuff and while there I got to meet her son, Dou Dou, who was super cute.  I took a bunch of photos of him, Susan and her husband which you can see here.

Holiday Visitors

During this holiday break we also have a few guests visiting our home.  On Thursday, the 24th, Chana and Charise, two sisters who are also from Seattle, came up from Macau to visit. They live/work down there and decided to visit Chana’s old haunt for the break.  Chana and Ruhi used to be roommates and actually Chana used to live in our apartment, so she is very familiar with the area.  I also used to hang out a lot with her brother, Cameron, who lives in Shanghai.  Small world, huh?

The day after they arrived, we went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant (good food , good prices) just up TuanJie Nan Lu (团结南路) from our place (about a block away) and got some delicious food.  Here are some pictures from that evening.

L-R: Charise and Chana

That evening another friend, Adam, whom you might remember from this video/blog entry, came to stay with us too.  We were lucky because he brought his guitar.  For those of you who don’t know, Adam is from Scotland and an AMAZING guitar player.  He is also super fluent in Chinese, having graduated from a Chinese university a few years back.

The morning after he arrived he graced us with some morning guitar playing.  I got some photos of our leisurely Saturday morning socializing and tried to get some video of us doing a bit of “guitar talk” as well.

NOTE: The video is only viewable on wushuzilla.com

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Now, if you are reading my twitter feed or my facebook status messages, you already know that there was a big surprise birthday party that Ruhi put on for me on Saturday evening.  However, instead of adding it to this blog, I’m going to give it another entry, probably later in the week.  In fact, we took a LOT of video and I want to edit it a bit before posting it up.  A few highlights:

• Musical concert by Adam, including singing Shaanxi Style Opera for a surprised group of local Chinese
• Yuan Ming doing an aerial in my living room
• A surprise visit by Ruhi’s English students who went WAY out of their way to come to the party
• Amazing gift from Wu Ya Nan — Nike Shaolinquan shoes!
• Theater Sports and Musical Performances galore.
• Lots of great friends and lots of good times.

Stay tuned for that later in the week!

Also, I’m going to be starting a new regular feature, “Ask the ‘Zilla” where I answer some of the questions I get here on wushuzilla.com (or one of the other websites) related to wushu.  Quite a few have been coming in so I’m going to try and answer them (as best I can) here.  Stay tuned for that, probably on Tuesday.

No related posts.

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.

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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

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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.

Related posts:

1. Wushuzilla Bonus Video
2. Power Training and Demo Practice (12/8)
3. Foreigners Visit the Shaanxi Wushu Team (1/28)

The main issue was that my left knee was pretty sore from yesterday’s training.  It wasn’t a debilitating soreness, but it hurt enough for me to lay off it.  While they were playing tag I did wall sits and stretched my knee out.  And after stretching it was time for Power Training.

Power Training

This was the other reason I showed up today; because I knew we weren’t doing wushu so I wouldn’t be compromising my knee too much.

This time around, however, I was able to get a little bit of video of the training they do.  (You are welcome. )

First was the Pop Squats (as I like to call them).  I paid more attention to the weight this time.  Our group (smaller/weaker folks) did 30 kg (not including the bar), then increased by 10kg each set up to 70kg.  Each set they only do about 5 reps.  What I didn’t mention before that is very important is the quick sprint right after you do it, along with some hops to work the muscles.  The other group did much higher weights than us, but they’re also much stronger.

Here is an athlete doing his last rep and then a sprint:

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

The second exercise was the hops.  They brought the weight down to just 20kg and we did 3 sets of 15 reps.  Here is an athlete pumping some of these out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLhypXZ5BlQ

Then we went to the carpet.  I couldn’t do most of the following exercises except one or two, so for most of the time I did wall sits and taiji stance practice.  Their first exercise was the 3-jump.  It is the exercise where they jump up do high knees, jump up do butt kicks and jump up and do side splits.  Quick jumps, 10 sets of the rotating 3.  No video since I was doing my stuff on the side.

They did several lines of frog leaps and small hops as well.  I got some footage of that here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR06TxkuMEQ

It was also a power training day for the taiji group.  They do a lot more balance and core strength training than we do.  Especially the balance stuff.  Here  you can see them on the squishy balance things (I don’t know what they are called), doing some core strength and balance training.  They would also do a lot of exercises with the big yoga balls too, but I didn’t get any of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOhN_MC9D5Y

I participated in a bit of core training exercises on the carpet.  Our group brought out the yoga balls too, and also did some balance and core training, which is nice to see.  I filed some of that stuff too:

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

And then suddenly class had ended.  I mentioned to Coach Zhang that I would be going to GZ/HK on Thursday and would be back after the weekend.  I also appologized for having knee problems today.  He said not to worry about it, adding “everyone here has knee problems”.

Zhang Yang

As people were leaving I also got the name of another athlete.  Zhang Yang is the other main female athlete in our group (there are two young girls too) and she was at the Binzhou All China Games competing in Duilian for the Shaanxi Wushu Team.  Her main events are Chang Quan and Jian Shu.  I assume she does Qiang Shu too, but I have yet to see her practice it.  Here is a picture of her, as well as her competition footage from All China Games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF16qTVUSzM

Demo Practice

After class had ended (a tad early, I might add), the flags came out again and some of the guys from the 1 – 3 class came in to the room for demo practice.  I tried to get some details on the demo from Coach Zhang but he said he didn’t really know the details and could only say that they didn’t have much time before they needed to perform.  Then he took off.  It turns out he isn’t actually in charge of the demo.  His assistant coach is.

I stuck around to get some footage of their practice.  The angle wasn’t so great, but you can get a general idea of what they are up to here.  Keep in mind that they are still learning it and most of them are just walking through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fp8KOyuZhw

Embarassing Moments in Wushu

As I was leaving class today I happened to be walking out as the same time as Chu Feng Ling.  I mentioned her a while back, but she is from Zhao Chang Jun’s generation (they used to train together) and is known for her Fanzi Quan.  I happened to have some footage of her competition so I stuck it on youtube, which you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL-dQK2nkVU

In any case, as we were walking out, it was one of those situations in which we were both going in the same direction at the same time so we ended up walking next to each other.  Truth be told, she is from the Golden Age of wushu in China and I find people from that generation a little intimidating so I was sort of nervous.

Overall we had a fairly pleasant conversation.  I learned that she lived near the West Gate and had a 17 year old kid who was about to start college.  But since I was a little nervous I started asking random questions to fill up the silence while we were walking (in hind sight I should have just been quiet and waited for her to talk).  I won’t repeat what I said, but by the end I think she ended up running to her bus a little quicker than was probably necessary.  I seemed to have scared her off.

Smooth move Mark.

it was one of those situations where you wished the conversation had ended about half-way through when you were still doing well.  lol.  Ah well, lesson learned.

Tomorrow they are running at the track.  My legs felt much better after practice so my light training seems to have paid off.  I’ll come to run and see how things go.  They are going to be running sprints (2×800 meters +  8×400 meters + 20×30 meters = holy cow!) but as Yue Xiao Yu said “You can just run on your own.  You don’t have to run quickly”.

Until next time …

wushuzilla.com bonus footage

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Related posts:

1. T.J.I.F. (12/25)
2. WTV: How to Build Power Like a Wushu Pro (3/16)
3. How To Take a Ton of Wushu Videos (12/14)

Of course, registration is free and takes less time than a front slap kick.  Just enter your info on the right side there and it is done.

And if you aren’t logged in or visiting wushuzilla.com, not to worry.  I’ll still be blogging and posting things up on youtube.com.  I am doing this mostly as a way to say “thanks” to those of you who are regular visitors to the website.

Here is a bonus video.  I originally took this video of Qi Peng Hui, but after he watched it he wanted to take another one.  So this is the Athlete Introduction to Qi Peng Hui – Take One.

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The other benefit of this is that those of you in China will be able to see the videos since they aren’t blocked like youtube. (Thats right Ruhi, I’m talkin’ to you. )

the disadvantage is that those of you on facebook or alivenotdead won’t be able to see it since the embedding isn’t transferred over to those sites.  But feel free to go visit wushuzilla.com to check them out (in a new browser tab, of course.  I don’t want to interrupt your alivenotdead/facebook viewing experience.)

Related posts:

1. How To Take a Ton of Wushu Videos (12/14)
2. (Sm/F)og, Three Things and a Bonus (12/1)
3. Power Training and Demo Practice (12/8)

We did the group warm up and then they started with wushu tag for the “sweat inducer”. As I mentioned before, playing wushu tag with professional athletes half my age is no walk in the proverbial park, but this time I tried it out. There was one time where I was chasing after a whole sequence of athletes, but eventually I was able to tag someone and sub someone else in. We have about 20 athletes in our group and there are usually 3 pairs of tag runners going at the same time. And boy are they fast.

The running and conditioning training is definitely helping. In fact, at the beginning of class Yuan Ming asked me if I wanted to ask about changing to 9:00 classes and I told him that I wasn’t sure and decided that for now I will stay with the 3pm classes so that I can focus on building up my strength and physical condition.

After looking at the schedule on the wall I saw that today would be the only afternoon wushu workout for the week (they do it mostly in the morning) and it was a repeat of the previous two weeks. Tomorrow is strength conditioning and Wednesday is running. On Thursday they have a break, but I’m going to Hong Kong on that day, so no loss for me. I will miss out on Friday’s class, which is also strength training, but that is okay. I’m considering asking to come on Saturday afternoons and reschedule my tutors for earlier in the day, but its still just an idea at this point.

Wu Ya Nan was back today too. He was in Gansu Province last week at a performance which was, as he put it, “very fun”. Coach Zhang was back too, which was nice.

For today’s workout it was the standard routine of basics for about 40 minutes (including nandu). Today’s nandu was a focus on nailing their landings, which was very interesting to watch. Some have it pretty good and some are still working on it.

Then we did about 10 – 15 lines of weapon combinations (I borrowed a spare nangun) and that was followed by 8 full sections. He split our group up in to two carpets, most of the kids and younger athletes went to the other carpet and I got to train on the carpet with the “big boys and girls”.

I realized that my nangun wasn’t quite developed yet, so for sections I switched back to nanquan. I did 2 of each section and managed to get a really good workout, but I think the best part was that this was really the first time the coach had seen me do any wushu. Aside from 2 weeks ago when we just did small combinations practice, he’s never seen me go all out before.

Now, it isn’t that I’m super good or anything. My wushu has a nice long list of deficiencies that need work. But I think what happens is that, when people see me they don’t think that my particular physique is very well suited to wushu. I’m overweight and I look kind of slow. So, based on their expectations, I usually do much better than they would assume, and it usually ends up impressing them.

I got some good comments from the coach and each time I went he clapped, which he didn’t do for any of the other athletes. It might be the “you’re a foreigner trying to do wushu so I will clap to make you feel better” or it might be a “for someone your size you sure are putting in a good effort, so I will clap for you”. But either way it was a nice guesture. He was even trying to figure out some of my choreo, which was flattering too.

Some of the athletes shouted out some “jiayou!”s for me which was nice. But by the end I was pretty wiped. Class was over at 5:00 and the coach made a point of saying goodbye to me. Up until now he just leaves the room and doesn’t even look in my direction, so I suppose that is an improvement.

I stayed behind to do a lot of stretching since I knew that I would really feel it later on. I also managed to get some names of a few athletes, so i thought I would introduce you to them:

First up is the 2nd best nanquan guy in our class. I put up a video of him the other day practicing his nanquan in the mirror, but I’ll post it here again just for your reference. His name is Tian Jing Fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWDyFFT53iw

Next is the guy who was doing the chang quan walk-through last week. Again, this is a re-post of the video for your reference. i would say this guy has the best body for wushu and moves really naturally, but his power and jumps are not quite there yet. Fortunately, the power and jumps can be trained much easier than natural ability. His name is Yen Ming Song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtxHaZ5u6P0

And then there is an athlete who was practicing dao shu today. He was in the line right before me, but I don’t have any specific footage of him. You can see him at 0:14 – 0:22 on this video though. He is sitting on the ground talking to Yue Xiao Yu. His name is Zhao Shao Dong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSqC9x3u5M

And finally, I managed to find the memory card that I had recorded Qi Peng Hui‘s introduction on, so here it is. I added some footage of him doing wushu at the end so you can see which one he is from the previously uploaded footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3XSxTb-CmQ

I’m going to try to get some more athletes introducing themselves and possibly get an interview or two in the mix. But it might not be until later in the month or early January.

Related posts:

1. Back to Wushu Forms (11/30)
2. How To Take a Ton of Wushu Videos (12/14)
3. Back from the Break, Training with Kids (11/20)