Posts Tagged ‘ruhi zandra’

I realize that to the random observer (i.e. “you”) it might seem like I’ve fallen off the wagon with my wushu blogging and training.  I haven’t been training as much these days and haven’t been writing much about wushu either.

The truth is, there is a reason for this.  Maybe a couple reasons.

Focus and Work

The first is that I am trying to finish my tea before re-filling my cup.  Meaning, that I have a lot of things on my plate and I need to take care of them before I start focusing on my wushu again.  There are many projects that I’m in the process of clearing out of my work-load and in order to do that effectively I have to really spend some time and focus on them.

This also stems from my understanding that I am much more effective in my endeavors when I focus energy on just a few things (even just one thing) instead of trying to “multitask” my life into oblivion.  The truth is, multitasking is totally inefficient.  Just because you can do more than one thing at a time doesn’t mean you should.  In fact, I really think that one shouldn’t.

When you take the time to just focus on one important thing, doing it deliberately, with a concentrated effort and all your mindfulness, you are able to not only accomplish more in the long run, but you will get much more out of your task as well.

I used to write down a list of a dozen or so things that I had to do each day; a task list to end all task-lists.

Now?  I just write down the one or two things I really want to finish.  And I spend the necessary time to do each one.  It allows me to do better quality work and get the most vital tasks taken care of.

So often we distract ourselves with mundane tasks like checking social networking, organizing our to-do lists, cleaning our desks and keeping our e-mail inbox open at all time just in case something comes in.  Well, nothing is ever that important that you have to check e-mail on a constant basis.  I try to check only once or twice a day if I can.  And generally I just go through and answer them in batches once a day.  Facebook and the like, while a lot of fun, are actually a significant drain on my time and energy.  So I only check them once or twice a week.  I’m probably going to start reducing the “friends” list there too.

The idea is to spend less time doing the less important so that I have more time to focus on the truly vital.

I do mess up from time to time and get distracted, but I’m far from perfect.  and this is a skill that I’m developing, not an instant quick-fix.  It is a good practice though, and I think it relates to wushu too, since one of the distinctions I’ve made over the years with wushu training is that, unless you are totally focused on what you are doing in class, you won’t get the best benefit from your training.  You have to be totally present in mind and body with wushu, and that is the same with the rest of your life.

Why not treat your work or school like you do your wushu?  Focus on the basics at the start of every session, maintain your energy and create an optimal experience.  You actually end up needing to spend less time on tasks when you use more of your focus and energy.  As counter-intuitive as it might seem, not multi-tasking is actually more productive.

Anyway, so part of the reason I haven’t been focusing on my wushu training these days is because I want to focus on getting these work projects out the door, thereby allowing myself more focus on my wushu later on.  It is coming along and a few of my projects have started to get finished up.

Travel and Time

Another reason is the recent work-trips I’ve been taking to Hong Kong.  Traveling away from home means I have to cram a lot more of the things I do in Xi’an in much smaller time chunks.  So, I end up being much busier.  And while I’m home I feel it is most important to get my work done before I head off to the wushu guan.

That might just be an excuse, of course.  Maybe I’ve lost some of my motivation for training.  Since the athletes started training for competition I haven’t been able to get as good of a workout.  And I think I also have a fear of doing the “wushu start up” again, which is always quite painful.  (When you are away from wushu and start up, it is never easy — and gets harder and harder the older you are.)

I’ve even been thinking about switching from nanquan to taijiquan, as I think that might be a little easier on my body and something I could maintain for a longer period in my life.  Of course, if I just lost 50 pounds I would probably not have such a hard time training.  Again — I might just be making excuses.

In any case, a combination of a lot of travel with limited time and an increasing drop in motivation to train is probably the second reason I haven’t been as involved in my wushu these days.

Re-evaluation

I’ve also been going through a phase of re-evaluating my life.  Not in a major way, but at least Ruhi and I have been thinking about ways to create a life with less physical, emotional, social and professional “clutter”, so that we are able to have a lifestyle that is congruent with our belief that “less is more” and that you don’t need to inundate your life with “stuff” in order to be happy and fulfilled.

As you noticed from my packing system for trips, I try to be as efficient and uncluttered as I can.  I really don’t own all that much stuff to begin with.  But part of my personality is that I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient and uncluttered in my approach to various facets of my life; whether it is work, school, life or whatever.  There is always a better way to do something and always new distinctions we can make in doing more (things, work, happiness, fulfillment) with less (stuff, clutter, tasks, distractions).

We’re thinking about our work, about our living environment, our finances, and our involvement in activities to figure out what is the most important to us, the most ideal for our personal philosophies and figure out a way to integrate that with our lifestyle.

Some of the things we’ve been thinking about is eliminating some of the work we do.  Or changing where we live to a more efficient location for her school, our friend and our interests.

Anyway, it is a work in progress.

The gist of all of this verbose-ness is that, in order to find your way, you sometimes need to step off the path and think about your true destination.  The process of stepping back and thinking about your life is occasionally necessary and often times quite healthy, as it clarifies your mind, realigns your priorities and helps you step back on the path with a renewed sense of purpose and vitality.

So, here goes.  I am stepping off the path and taking a look at my life and what I am doing.

Feel free to join me.

Its been a while since I provided an update on my life in Xi’an.  There have been a whole lot of photos taken from the various activities that have happened since the beginning of the year.  As I recall the last time I blogged about the happenings in the Walled City was waaaay back around my birthday.  So here are some of the highlights since that time. (You can click on a thumbnail to view the full image).

January

January was a cold month.  I spent most of the time focusing on my wushu.  In fact, it would be one of the last time I really got a good amount of training in this year (so far!).  This was also the month Charisse was staying with us prior to our February trip to Hong Kong for the Family Reunion and Vision that Inspires Conference.  We had a visit from Mejdi and his son (he’s been in China for a loooong time), I got to visit the Sports University, get my health card and a bunch of other stuff.  We also went on a day-trip to YanLing to visit some Friends.  Here are some highlight photos for you to check out:

February

We were gone 3 out of the 4 weeks of this month.  Hong Kong was calling so we headed down.  I posted a ton of photos from this on my Facebook and Picasa albums, so you can check those out.  Click here for my favorites.

A few other highlights was getting to meet Kevin Spacey and having a waaaaay-in-the-distance-hard-to-see walk-on extra role in the film that Dayyan was making with Kevin and Daniel Wu (and Gong Beibi, of course).  Can’t wait to see if I’m actually visible or not.

February is also when Ayyam-i-ha, the annual Baha’i holiday, is held.  We had a nice little get together in our home to celebrate (nothing too big – just a few friends) which just happened to coincide with the Lantern Festival which brought a great fireworks display directly outside our window.

Also on the schedule was the celebratory dinner for the end of Carmel Consulting, the company that Ruhi was general manager of.  It only took half a year to close the company.  Welcome to China!

Some photos from February:

March

March was the Fast, which is the 19 day period from March 2 – 20 when Baha’i’s do not eat from sunrise to sunset.  Not too many photos from March due to my constant hunger (hahaha) but I did manage to get a few here and there.  I did take a quick 2 day trip to Hong Kong though around the 26th, but there isn’t too much to write about that.  Ruhi started school in March so she was pretty busy with her studies.

March in general was a low-media month for me and I didn’t really take that many photos. Actually a lot of my media was video, which is a pain to edit, so no pictures to share. Maybe next time.

April

Well, April is still going on, but it has already been pretty chock-full of stuff.  My friend Lisa paid a quick visit to Xi’an and I took her to my favorite noodle/dumpling place near our home.  I got to practice the arts with some calligraphy and sculpting, and I spent a week in Hong Kong (and am going for another trip on Monday!).  I didn’t make it to the Wushu competition in Hangzhou, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last one.  Since Xiao Yu qualified for the next round I have a feeling I’ll still be able to shout and scream for my friends and training mates in the coming months.

Here are some photos from this month so far:

NOTE: For those of you on Facebook, you will want to visit my YouTube Channel to view all of the videos, since Facebook’s lame importing functionality doesn’t allow for embeded videos.

As I mentioned before, I had gotten permission from Zhang Laoshi and Han Laoshi to have a couple of my 外国朋友 (foreign friends) visit the wushu guan to check out the professional athletes doing their thing.  James and Charisse, along with Ruhi, jumped on the bus with me at the crack of morning and we made our way to the morning class.

Of course, what you are really wanting to know about is whether or not Ruhi was able to take any videos of the practice.  Well, you had best throw some appreciation towards the wife because she got a ton of really good footage which I am still organizing and editing to put online for everyone to watch.  Of course, by the time you read this I should be done, but just pretend that you had to wait an unreasonable amount of time, okay?

James even brought his camera along and was nice enough to toss his photos my way for posting online.  So, you can also throw a few “谢谢”over to him as well.

First up are some basics.  You might notice that I intentionally cut my own basics out of the videos.  I figured that (a) you don’t want me wasting precious bandwidth and resources with my sub-standard jibbengong and (b) it wasn’t something that you don’t probably see in your own wushu guan all the time anyway.  Not to worry, I will have a video of my own wushu later on in the blog …

It turned out that this particular day was a heavy nandu focus for training.  All the athletes had to do full nandu combinations many times.  So, of course that means we were able to get some pretty good nandu footage of the practice:

On the far carpet, as you can see from the previous two videos, there was a group of younger athletes training.  I mentioned them before – they are the ones from Northern Shaanxi.  It seems that they are here much in the same way that schools from the U.S. come to China for a month in the summer to train in Wushu.  The main distinction is that these kids are from China so there is no language or cultural barrier, and they are all much better than kids their age in other countries.  But the idea is sort of similar, since they are currently on a break from school so their coaches brought them to train with the “professional” wushu athletes.  Here is some of them:

And, as I mentioned, James was nice enough to snap some pictures of the practice.  Here are a few from the basics and nandu training:

He managed to take some pretty nice shots, huh?

Anyway, after basics and nandu it was time for forms.  Yuan Min told me that we were going to do 16 sections, so I decided to run through 3 of each of my nanquan sections, for a total of 12, and then go through my first section of nan gun 4 more time to flesh out the full 16.  I actually ended up doing something a bit more like this:

1 x 3, 2 x 3, rest 1 rotation, 3 x 3, 4 x 3, ng x 3

I really needed to take a short break in the middle there.  I’m not quite up to the endurance required for 16 sections in a group of just 6 other people.  The turn around is about 2 – 3 minutes for your physical recovery so it is pretty intense.  Not quite as intense as that SCWA practice in 2001 where I had to do 8 full forms in a rotation with 3 other people … but it was almost like that.

Here is some of the athlete practice media.  First up is Yue Xiao Yu.  You can see some really good intensity in the video of her nanquan.  I also like some of the pictures James took of her:

After her we’ll watch Yuan Min’s video.  i really like how his nan gun form is shaping up.  As you might recall, 2 weeks ago he taught me his nangun form.  Then a week later he proceeded to rechoreograph almost the entire thing and make himself an even cooler form.  So I’m stuck with his outdated hchoreography and he gets to look bad ass.  I don’t really mind though.  Even his outdated choreography is better than what I could have come up with on my own.

He was giving me a few pointers in that last picture, although the suggestions he gave me during class were way out of my ability level.  Some day though …. some.day.

Here are two more southern athletes.  One is a younger man who’s name I don’t know (practicing nan gun) and the other is Tian Jing Fang doing some nanquan.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a wushu practice if someone wasn’t doing a bit of chang quan in the room.  Here are two athletes demonstrating a bit of that. The younger man in the first video is actually practicing with a wrapped ankle, so that is why he is sort of taking it a bit easy on some of the moves.

While we were doing our wushu thing, the taiji group was practicing over on the left side of the carpet.  Ruhi managed to get a bit of them doing some taiji.  So here is some of that.

Recently after practices the coach has had us do some stretching together in a circle.  A new development that I am actually rather enjoying. 

After class I asked James, Charisse and Ruhi what they thought of the class.  For James and Charisse this was the first time they had ever seen wushu, so it was nice to hear a fresh perspective on things.  I’ve been around wushu for so long that it is sometimes hard to remember how it felt to discover wushu for the first time.  As a bit of background on them, Charisse has around 10 years of dance/ballet experience and James did crew (rowing) at Stanford, so they both have an appreciation for physical sports and exercise.

And, as promised, here is a video of my nanquan practice from Thursday.  I will just say right now that my form needs work.  But it is at least better than it was before, and I am hopeful that it will continue to improve in to the future.

I realize this was a few days late but hopefully the abundance of wushu videos made it worth your while.  I have some more footage from Friday’s class too, which I will try to post up tomorrow if I have any time, including a pretty amazing little girl that has some pretty killer basics.  I don’t know who she is, but if she is up for adoption I might have to put in a bid.

Stay tuned for that in the next blog! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was a little surreal.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After warming up we did basics.  Here are those …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

[kaltura-widget wid="nbq52tadgg" width="512" height="449" addpermission="" editpermission="" /]

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

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

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

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

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

From Home to the Airport in Xi'an

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

Bus from Guangzhou to Shenzhen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Travel Plans

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

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

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

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

I feel like such a globetrotter!

Chinese Studies

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

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

With my tutors I generally focus on three things:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time ….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See?  Blue skies!

Anyway, back to the blog …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And for you folks in the mainland:

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