wushuzilla

Posts Tagged ‘xu ming hu’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 embed and added another one of Zhao Qing Jian’s jump practice.

The day had finally arrived for two more members of Wushu West to join us in Beijing.  But first, we had to deal with some morning training in the upstairs wushu hall.

When we arrived in the wushu hall there were a few of the professional athletes stretching on the main blue carpet; Zhao Qing Jian, Wang Xie and Liu Xiao Lei.  Basically, three of the top athletes in the world.  On the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group (which included Liu Qi).  With the coaches and Patti in the room, I calculated that there were roughly 300 national and international medals worth of athletes sitting in the room.  Not too shabby.

We were going to start the class with some more Basket Brawl, which is basically a combination of basketball and soccer.  After we got the teams organized I asked Zhao Qing Jian (jokingly) if he wanted to join in.  He said sure and joined the game.  Wang Xie Liu Xiao Lei joined us too and pretty soon we had quite a game going.  I took some pictures and got a bit of video:

After warming up it was stretching and basics.  I continued working out choreography for my new nangun form. Across the room I saw Liu Qin Hua’s group working out.  There was one guy doing nanquan, which I naturally paid close attention to.  There was also a girl doing some nanquan.  Very cool.  I don’t really see enough nanquan up in Beijing so I try to pay attention whenever it is going on to see if I can pick anything up.  While they performed their forms I was trying to figure out some of their moves, even fantasizing that I might ask Tiger if I can learn their forms.

I continued with my training, focusing on the class.  After a while Xu Ming Hu (Tiger) called me over. There was one of Liu Qing Hua’s athletes with him  It was the nanquan girl!  I didn’t quite understand what he said, but it sounded like he wanted her to teach me some nanquan.  Wow!  Someone had read my mind.  I agreed and the two of us went to the side of the carpet.

I waited for her to tell me what to do.  She seemed to be waiting for me too.

Women kaishi ba? (Shall we start?) she said.

Hao (Okay) I replied.

Then she motioned for me to stand in front of her.  Wait a sec.  How would I see her form if I was in front?  Then it dawned on me that it wasn’t me who was learning from her, but her who wanted to learn from me!  “Wait … am I teaching you or are you teaching me?” I asked.

Ni jiao wo (you teach me), she answered.

Wow … totally weird moment.

So, it turns out they had seem me do my form 2 days earlier and had asked Tiger to have me teach it to them.  I suppose my choregraphy is not necessarily standard, or perhaps they just want to have more variety in their repertoire, but whatever the reason I was totally humbled and flattered that they were even watching me from way across the room, let alone her wanting to learn my form.  Especially since I was pretty much doing the same with them.

So, I proceeded to show her my form.  After a while I noticed someone else standing behind me.  It was the nanquan guy too!  He had come over to learn as well.  Goodness gracious…

I got to talk to them a bit after showing them my first section.  They had both trained at Shanghai University of Sports, so we knew a lot of the same people.  Her name was Xiao Lan and he was Xie Zhen Hao.  It was a very neat class.  Unfortunately, it meant that I couldn’t pay too much attention to what everyone else was doing, but I did look over and see Zhao Qing Jian and Wang Xie giving some pointers to the Wushu West students so it was nice that they were getting a few tips from the pros.  I was also asked by those two and Liu Xiao Lei to video their nandu (difficulty movements) practice, so I have that here to share too:

After lunch and a shower I had to go to the airport with Rita from the Foreginer’s Office to pick up Pierre and Jennifer.  They were finalliy arriving from the U.S.  Their flight was early and we were running late, but it just so happened that as soon as we walked up to the arrivals area they walked out the door.  Very good timing and pretty soon we were on the road back to Shi Cha Hai.

We helped them get checked in to their rooms and once Patti got back to the hotel we did a bit of roommate swapping.  I was now going to room with Pierre and Tyler was going to room with Cary, leaving Noah and Jonah to enjoy the peculiar smells that their room seemed to be developing.  Jennifer decided to get her own room which meant that Ashley and Lauren could keep it to the original 2.

I spent some time helping Pierre and Jennifer acclimate and we went downstairs to get some dinner as well.  Lots of reuinion-izing going on (yes, I just made that word up).

After dinner was the evening practice.  For this particular practice Tiger had arranged for us to practice jumping in the gymnastics room.  After running, stretching and basics, he had us all practice our twists and butterflies into the foam pit.  Then we went to the spring floor and folks worked on their twists (such as they were) and Loren even got pretty good rotation towards his 720.  Here are some photos and a video:

Towards the end of class I took Pierre and Jennifer upstairs to watch the professional wushu athletes training.  They were both quite impressed.  Then it was back to the hotel so I could finish moving the rest of my stuff to Pierre’s room.  After that I hung out a bit with Wu Di and Shahaub in the lounge downstairs and then it was time to sleep for an early morning practice the next day!

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

It was another early morning for us today.  The first training session was at 8:00 AM in the lower wushu hall.  Today also marked 1/3 of our trip completed.  Just 18 more days until most of us head back to the U.S.  I’m sure it will go by quickly (and yet, ironically, the training seems to last forever).

Everyone was a little out of it this morning, or that might just be my perception since I was having a bit of calf cramping.  I took the opportunity to start choreographing a new nangun set while the rest of the kids worked through their various weapon forms.  After class we stayed to watch some of the professionals train again.  Here is a video of the hall:

After lunch most of the kids stayed at the hotel.  I ran to Ya Xiu for an hour to pick up some things with James and Myles and got back just in time to head up to the wushu hall at 3:30 for the afternoon training.  I also grabbed my nangun and worked some more on my choreography before going back to my room to put up the Day 7-8 blog.  The class seemed like a good one since we had use of one of the nice blue carpets and were training right next to the Men’s A-Team.  Nothing quite like doing spear at the same time Wu Di is doing it on the carpet next to you.  Or Long Fist while Liu Yan is doing his thing as well.  Both intimidating and inspiring.

Wu Di asked me to take a quick video of a jump so he could see what he needed to work on.  Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

After I finished uploading the blog from Day 7-8 I went down to grab something to eat.  Then, back in my room, while I was answering work e-mails, I was asked by Lauren and Ashley to take them to the Hypermarket so the three of us, along with Loren and Ryan, headed out around Hou Hai to do some shopping.

While they shopped for stuff, I went next door to the appliance and electronics store and bought a cheap version of my Magic Bullet blender.  Since I can’t use the MB due to wattage/voltage issues, I thought I would get this and then bring it to Xi’an with me to leave there for when I eventually return to China in the fall.  Now I can make smoothies again!

After we walked back I spent the evening relaxing in my room and writing in this blog.

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.

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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Today was the last day of quarantine.  Other than that it was more or less business as usual.

After breakfast was morning practice.  Some of the students are a bit on the tired side, and it started to show in their initiative during class.  After class Xu Ming Hu (Tiger) told us to focus more on our training.  I was also told to make sure that people get some “tough love” during training.

Lunch was uneventful and most people hung out in the hotel during the afternoon.  Myself, I got a massage with Myles.  Then it was dinner and finally the evening training.

It was fairly brutal.  Since I’m only training once a day, I was asked to take Noah, Jonah and Myles on the side and make sure they were doing their form correctly.  Since we’re in China, I decided to do it like a Chinese coach.  There were also two late students to class that I had do 50 burpies after the class ended (yes, that is five zero – fifty – burpies).  Let’s just say they didn’t look too happy afterwards, but I’m guessing they won’t be late again.

The class itself was more intense than the previous one.  He was harder on people, pushing them more in their stretching and getting more out of them during training.  They also got to see a bit of his form, but unfortunately I was working with those three guys so I didn’t get to see it.  I heard the applause though.

Tomorrow it is off to the underground wushu hall for an 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM practice.  Earlier than usual, but we’ll have a bit more time off before our 3:30 training up in the upstairs wushu hall.  I hope my ankle is feeling better by then…

Sorry, no pictures today.  But I’ll try to post some more up shortly.