In case you didn't know where you were ...

Earlier in the week I was inundated with work at the office so I had to cancel my Monday and Wednesday practices with Yuan Min.  Just as well since it took me about a week to recover from that last training session at the track.  By the time I got back to the Sports Center on Friday I was really raring to go.

As I pulled in to the facility I called Yuan Min on the phone.  He said they were at the track so I putted over there (actually, my scooter is electric.  buzzed?  hummed?) and met up with them as they were finishing up their training.

That’s right.  5pm was my call time, which meant that I wasn’t able to train with the kids.  Such is life.

I did some quick warm up and stretching and then started jogging around the track.  I actually made it a lap and a half before I had to walk.  That is pretty good for a guy who could barely run a single lap just a week earlier.  Yuan Min told me that for the day I would do the following:

• 5 laps around the track
• 5 x 50 jump ropes (I did 100.  50 didn’t feel like enough)
• 5 x 10 pushups (I put my feet up at an incline to make them harder)
• 4 x 1 min. horse stance

Honestly that didn’t seem like that much.  Especially after a week off for recouperation.  I was ready for more.  But his reasoning was that, because I had a week away from training, I should take it easy.  Clearly he didn’t realize that it took me a week just to rebuild my body to be ready for a hard core training session.  Such is the way with young people who heal quickly.  For someone his age or younger, if you take a week off you start to slide downhill.  For someone like me, a week off means you are ready to work out again, harder than before.  That might not make sense to you youngin’s out there, but trust me.  Its the way my body works.

The long road to wushu progress ...

Before he took off (that’s right.  I was left to my own devices) I talked to him about a few things.

First, I asked him if the reason I was working out at 5pm was a problem with the coaches not wanting me to train with the kids.  He said it wasn’t anything like that, but he didn’t give me a specific reason why I had to come at 5pm now.  I told him that I didn’t mind making a formal training arrangement with the Team’s manager to train with the athletes, and that I had rearranged my work schedule a bit to accomodate the 3pm training slot.  I also mentioned that my intention was to train with the team and prepare myself to compete next summer.

I asked him if he thought I would be ready to compete.

“What is the competition?” he asked.

“I don’t have a competition in mind”, I more-or-less communicated in my broken Chinese, “I just want to be ready to compete.”

“What events?” he asked.

“Nanquan.” I said, adding “and maybe nangun.”

He seemed to think I could be ready by then.

But unfortunately for my training schedule he was going to leave for Cheng Du and a traditional wushu competition (fanzi, ditang, etc.) during the following week so there would be no training for me.  He told me to just train on my own and that he would contact me when he returned to figure out what to do next.

I have the feeling that there are things going on behind the scenes that I’m not aware of.  In fact, I sort of feel like that most of the time in China.  But more so with this situation.

And now that a new month is upon us, I have to reflect on the goals I’ve made and see where I am on my path towards my 5 year plan.  (Read this if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)  It is also time to post up another Monthly Ma, which I will try to do this week.

Someone on facebook had asked me to tell them a bit about the Sanda guan.  I have been meaning to post up video of the sanda guys training, but I’m never in their area and it is a little intimidating to just walk in to a room full of a bunch of people learning how to pummel each other.  So I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  But here is a quick picture from a year ago to give you a general idea of what it looks like.

Sanda Guan -- Ping Pong Optional

I also decided to make a video showing a bit of the area around the campus. I really need to do a proper tour of the place, but this will give you a general idea. Granted, it isn’t anything you haven’t really seen before, so you might not think this is very exciting. But here you go anyway.

Related posts:

1. WTV #12: Condition: Dead
2. WTV #5: Keeping in iTouch
3. WTV #6: 3pm Nanquan

Qi lai! Qi lai!

Yuan Min had contacted me on Tuesday with a message to let me know that I would have to come to practice at 5PM the next time around. I wasn’t sure if something happened with the other coaches, or maybe the team is preparing for something specific? Sometimes there are weird political things that happen. Hard to say. But at least he remembered to contact me so I sent him a message to let him know I would see him Wednesday at 5PM and he said “ok”.

Fast forward to Wednesday. Since he had contacted me the day before about training at 5PM and had also confirmed attendance I didn’t bother to send him a message. My mistake since he wasn’t there when I showed up at 5. When I walked in to the wushu guan the last group of long fist kids had just left and the whole place was empty.

Well, I didn’t worry too much about it so I went ahead and warmed up. I realized that he probably had forgotten. I decided to use this chance as an opportunity to do some self-training on my own. Plus it was kind of neat to have 4 whole professional carpets all to myself.

I did my warm ups and stretching. I tried to spend a bit more time on this because I was still extremely sore from Monday’s track workout.

Kids playing and warming up

After that I started in on my basics training. 4 lines of warm-up kicks and then I did 50 each of various kicks. Front stretch. Side stretch. Inside. Front Slap. I did 10 kicks per line, 5 lines of each, so a total of 200 kicks. But by the time I got to 200 I was extremely tired and my legs were jello-ized so I decided to move on to something else.

Horse stance. I knew the best way to work the lactic acid soreness out of my legs was to work the muscles and flush the stuff out. So I did a line of horse stances in one direction, then in the other. I did 40 mabu but after that it was time to stop as my legs were really feeling it.

I decided to use this time by myself to figure out some choreography for myself. I tried to figure out a new opening for my form. Didn’t really come up with anything I’m happy with, but at least thinking about it and playing around with some ideas gets me in that mode.

The Wushu guan at night

Around this time some kids started filtering in for the 7 PM practice groups. It was closing in on 6:30 so I thought it would be good to wrap things up. I sent a message to Yuan Min to let him know that I had trained on my own (just so he didn’t worry, in case he remembered that he was supposed to be there). Then I packed up my things and headed out.

I received a message from him later that night to say sorry and tell me to send him a message or call him the next time. No problem. I could do that.

When Friday came around I sent him a message earlier in the day to confirm if I should come to the 3PM training or not.

No answer.

Around 2:30 I sent another message: “hello?” Again no answer. Another message later “Are we not training tonight at 5PM?”. Again no answer.

So, I figured he decided not to meet up, or just didn’t get my messages. He had told me to contact him, which I tried to do, but since I didn’t get a reply I thought it would be a good chance to do some personal stuff.

Around 10:30 pm I got a message from him saying “did you get my message? I waited for you from 5PM to 6PM but you didn’t show up. Next time please let me know if you won’t come.” Whoops! I checked my messages again and I definitely received no reply from him.

I sent him a message back apologizing and saying that i would definitely call him next time to confirm the details. It seems like the two classes were a couple of missed communications. It happens, although it was a little embarassing (for both of us, probably).

So, now I know what I’ve always known about living in China. Communication is key. You have to confirm and re-confirm things over and over here. Not just with wushu but with everything. It is one of the hardest parts to get used to when living in China. You can’t take anything for granted or make any assumptions.

So, Monday I will call him and talk to him in person to confirm my training for that day.

The day off was good though. My legs feel nice and rested (and bigger) today and I’m glad I was able to let them breathe. Two practices this week instead of 3, but that is okay. Next week is another week and I will take things one day at a time.

I need to write up a Weekly Wu one of these days too. Not so much for all of you, but to help me remember what I’m supposed to keep up with on my plan and goals.

Here is a little video of some kids doing warm ups before their 7PM practice as well as a couple girls in the gymastics hall doing a bit of conditioning. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. WTV #12: Condition: Dead
2. WTV #14: Alone at the track
3. WTV #10: A tumblin’ we will go

Qi Peng Hui on a nice sunny day

I’m becoming more familiar with the schedule with Yuan Min’s class so i knew without even checking that they would be at the track today. Luckily today’s weather was beautiful: blue skies, not too hot … not too cold … just right.

As I pulled up to the track the kids had already started jogging around. I waved to Yuan Min who was jogging around with the older nanquan girl and after parking my scooter and locking things up I walked to the track. He told me to warm up and then go 5 times around the track. There were quite a few groups out today, mostly sanda kids going through their conditioning (they must have the strongest lungs in the world) or doing drills of punching or kicking pads, or just getting brutalized by their coaches with endless amounts of body-breaking activities.

So I did my ligament stretching and joint warm-ups and got to jogging. I was able to jog for 200 meters to start, but after that I had to pace myself, so I would jog the straights (100m) and walk the curves (100m). So, 2 KM of that, which isn’t too bad. I haven’t run in a long time and it felt good to be back on the track.

Gratuitous shot of an athlete's six pack

In fact, I don’t think I’ve been on a track since sometime in the spring. At least 6 months ago.

By the time I had finished my 2 KM jog/walk, the rest of the kids were already neck deep in to their conditioning exercises. I did a bit of stretching to work out some stiffness in my calves. While I had been going around the track I noticed them doing calf raises along the fence, so I thought it good to do those as well. 4 sets of 50 for a total of 200 calf raises. After I finished with that Yuan Min told me to join the group.

They were doing lines of conditioning exercises. About 10 meters back and forth in an endless parade of motion. When I joined they were doing low walks — sort of like a duck walk but your legs don’t go below 90 degrees — quite brutal on the quads. They did 5 lines of that. Then 5 lines of bunny hops. They repeated that whole rotation about 5 times so a total of 25 laps (or 50 lines) of each (100 total lines). I joined them in on their 3rd pass so I only had to do 2 and a half rotations, but even so the bunny hops really did me in. Especially after 200 calf raises. By the end I was only able to do about 20 bunny hops before walking a bit and then continuing with another 20.

pushups at the track

A bouncy bunny, I am not.

After that it was time for a different routine. This time it was some fast high-knees and sprints. We would take turns standing next to Yuan Min doing high knees as fast as we could. After a few seconds he would clap his hands and we’d have to turn around and sprint as fast as we could for 25 meters. Then walk back and do it again. There were 9 of us so by the time you go back to where he was you only got about 15 seconds to rest before you had to go again.

We did about 10 or 12 of those. I paced myself again. Every 4 of so I had to take a break for 1. So I did 80% of them, which I felt was pretty good considering my physical condition.

After that it was time for more running. He split everyone up in to two groups of 4 (he told me to sit out this one) and had them do 400 meter sprints (one lap) around the track. After their first rotation I felt the need to participate so I ran along with the little kids group when it was their turn. Of course I was way in the back, but I actually ran the whole 400 meters, which surprised me. But y’know … a good surprise.

Two of the kids had to run a LOT

As a group they did about 4 of those, or about a mile of sprinting. While they were running around I spent the time walking through my choreography and cheering them on with a lot of jiayou‘s.

Two of the kids apparently weren’t doing too well, so he had them keep running 400 meter sprints for the rest of the class. He had the older nanquan girl monitor them. She would start them off on their run and when they got back she would give them about 5 minutes to rest and then have them run around the track again. This continued for about 40 minutes. It didn’t look very fun.

One of them, Xin Rui, (the nanquan girl who I embarrassingly thought was a boy for a long time) was running almost as slow as me, so I think it was meant to improve her endurance and stamina.

Meanwhile the rest of us got to do some work along the fence. First hand-stands, holding ourselves there for about 2 minutes. I couldn’t last that long but I did as many as I could. 5 sets of those. Then we did some pushups with our feet elevated. I opted for planks instead, but I was still shaking quite a bit with those. About 3 sets of them, while the rest of the kids did their pushups for 5 sets. Actually, after my 3rd set Yuan Min told me to take a break.

Little nanquan girl running sprints while another boy walks back to the starting point.

Then we were told to follow Yuan Min to the starting line for the 100 meter dash. He had Qi Peng Hui stand at the 30 meter mark. We were told to do frog leaps for 30 meters followed by a long step sprint (hard to describe) for the remaining 70 meters. Since the long-step sprint was hard on my ankles he said I could just do a normal running sprint.

Let me tell you … running a sprint after doing 30 meters of frog leaps is no picnic. (30 meters is about 30 frog leaps, in case you were wondering.) The first time I was spent, but still okay. The second time, however, I could barely walk back and my feet were dragging as I walked back to the start of the line. He told me to take a rest and I didn’t feel compelled to argue with his logic. Truth was I was sucking some major air so he probably realized I was close to the end of my rope.

The rest of the kids did 5 rounds of that in total.

Then he walked down to the end of the 100 meters and had Qi Peng Hui join us at the starting line. He was going to have us run 100 meter sprints. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, but I didn’t want to just stand around, so I joined in with the last little nanquan girl as she did her run. I was able to keep up with her, but probably only because she had been working waaaaay harder than I.

His body language says it all

When I made it to the end of the 100 meters Yuan Min told me it was 5PM and I could go. But he was also nice enough to say “You did good today”.

“I still have a ways to go, but I think it’s better than before.” I replied.

“Compared to the first workout” he added “you have improved a lot.” and then we both chuckled at the thought of how out of shape I was just 6 weeks ago.

As usual, I could only snap photos and videos when I was able to take a quick break, but you can see a bit of the scene here. Some of the pictures turned out nice since it was “magic hour” and the sun was about to set.

After I went back to my office I realized that my legs had really gotten worked hard. Harder than I think I’ve worked them in many many years. Walking required me to keep my legs straight, because if I bent them too much my quads didn’t have the strength to hold my body up and I would start to fall forward. Almost total muscle failure. Its really going to be sore on Wednesday!

Oh, by the way, I got a message from Wu Ya Nan who is on his way back from his first place win in Taiji Jian at the World Wushu Games in Turkey. He’ll be back tomorrow and so I will hopefully see him around on Wednesday in the wushu guan. I haven’t seen that guy in over a year so it will be nice to reconnect.

Until then … jiayou.

Related posts:

1. WTV #13: Solo Practice
2. WTV #14: Alone at the track
3. WTV #10: A tumblin’ we will go

I sent Yuan Min a message around 2PM to let him know that I would be a little late to practice as I had a few things to finish up at work.  When I got there the kids had just finished their stretching so I quickly got my stretch on and warmed up.  When I was ready to join they had started working on so

Our youngest nanquan girl

me tumbling lines.  Mainly forward rolls, which I joined in on.

They would do 3 or 4 lines of each various type of tumbling basic.  Forward rolls.  Backwards rolls.  Dive rolls.  A few other things.  And then when it go to some ground falling stuff like the toss back on to the back of your shoulders — I guess we call it a “break fall”?  Then he had the kids bring some pads out to practice those.  We did a bunch of them, then moved on to the straight body back fall from ditang quan.  A bunch of those too.

Then we did the jump straight up to a double leg kick and land on your back.  I had never done it before but I was game.  It was actually not too bad.

After the cushion work we went back to the carpet to work on forward head-springs.  I was able to do some of those too.  Not very elegant, but I got myself over.

Resting between rounds of conditioning

Pretty much the whole practice was doing these sorts of ditan-esque techniques.  We did the black dragon roll-get-up thingee, a back hand spring and … well, a few other things I can’t remember

The whole time we were working on this the changquan group was also working on ditang stuff, but theirs was more related to long-fisty types of ditang stuff.  They even worked on some drunken techniques too.  I guess a coach needs to vary up the routine from time to time or else the class can get stale.

While the two youth groups were working on these the “A Team” was practicing their traditional forms.  Lots of fanzi, some baji quan, double hooks, double whips and lots more fanzi.  Well, Shaanxi is the home of fanzi and their coach is Chu Feng Ling, the 80′s Fanzi Quan champion of China, so they know what they’re doing.  Even some of their newbie fanzi kids are pretty good.

I was able to snap some footage of the practice and broke it in to three videos.  One is the end-of-class conditioning from my nanquan kids, the second is the chang quan group’s ditang tumbling practice along with one kid going through a section or so of his form, and finally a few people doing ditang, including a girl who you see close-up at the end of the video. She wanted to see her footage so i showed her.  The whole time she kepts saying under her breath how high her stances were and how poorly she had done.

Another of my nanquan compatriots

Sure, it wans’t amazing, but she’s only been doing fanzi for a little while.  It seems pretty good to me and my 1 month of fanzi quan with Li Jing back in L.A. 8 years ago.

After class and conditioning I headed out, but about an hour later I could feel soreness in my neck.  I was definitely going to feel some of those headsprings and kip-ups.  My neck muscles aren’t quite developed yet, but that will soon be remedied.

Oh, and since I didn’t have to run back to work right after practice I stayed a little while to figure out a beginning to my nanquan form.  I think I have a good one.  I’m trying to do some more traditional techniques in my form this time around.  Well, of course everything is “traditional” in some sense.  But when you watch my nanquan I want you to think “Ah .. Mark is going old school”.

One more practice and it is 3 for the week!  A new record!

Here are some videos.  First up, my Wushu Training Vlog for the day:

Second, you can see some of the changquan kids practicing tumbling and one of them going through his ditang quan form.

And finally, here are a few athletes doing their fanzi quan.

Related posts:

1. WTV #14: Alone at the track
2. WTV #12: Condition: Dead
3. WTV #5: Keeping in iTouch

By the way, if you dont know yet, I have set up a Facebook page for wushuzilla. Actually I set one up before but never made use of it so this time I hope to get more in gear with the “power of social networking”.

Of course, I have a twitter feed too. In fact I haven’t been posting on either if those too much in the past but from now in I hope to use them much more throughout my day and week to share things about my life in China. Photo microblogging galore!

Anyway, enough about that. On to today’s training. As you may have noticed there was no training on Friday last week. Yuan Min had messaged me and told me that it wasnt happening so that is why i only had training on the 5th.

But today is the 10th and this morning Yuan Min replied to my request for confirmation by letting me know that they would be training at the track. So even though it was foggy and misty, I headed over there to get my wushu on.

I mean, check it out. Doesn’t that look bleak?

When I got there a bunch of sanda kid were conditioning like maniacs. I figured the wushu kids would be there soon but it turns out wushu kids are wusses because after walking around the track they still had not shown up.

I called Yuan Min and he said they were in the wushu guan due to the rain. Ah well … At least I wouldn’t have to regret wearing shorts.

When I got there the kids were all already finishing up their warm up games so I quickly changed, broke a sweat and joined them for some kicking basics.

We did the quick kicking combos again. Last time i could only do 5 of each kick and only 2 lines but this time I did 8 and did 4 rotations out of 5. Definitely progress and i can definitely feel myself getting stronger.

Then they did warm up jumps so I went kn the side and worked on horse stances. 10 each line holding each for 5 seconds. And I did 5 lines for a total of 50 mabu. Then I did the same for bow stance. By then the younger nanquan kids were done so I joined them on the small red carpet for nanquan combos.

Each combo was done 3 or 4 times down the carpet and we did about 8 lines of each combo. 6 different types of combos means a total of 120-180 nanquan combos. It lasted about an hour. I was pretty ready to leave by 5pm.

But I was also pretty happy that I am at least maintaining some semblance of regularity with my training. It isn’t the 3 times a week I bad planned, but it is more consistency with my workouts than I have had in a long time, and that is good news too.

Here is today’s wushu training vlog (or WTV) for short. Also done completely on my phone including the editing. Pretty wild…

Related posts:

1. WTV #6: 3pm Nanquan
2. WTV #8: Nanquan Basics
3. WTV #2

The wushu guan

Originally I went to the wushu guan on the 3rd to train, but when I got there I found out that the nanquan group wasn’t in the wushu guan.  Would have been nice to know that before going, but Yuan Min didn’t send me a text or call me so I didn’t know.

The whole week was a holiday here in China.  National Day.  The whole country gets a week off.  So it wasn’t like I was taking time off of work.  I scootered back home and mulled things over.  In hind-sight I should have had a back-up plan so that, if there is no one there or no training happens, I can follow my own training plan.  I will work on one of those this week so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.

And if you recall, the other time Yuan Min didn’t show up I was able to train on my own pretty effectively.  So i know I can do it.  Just have to have a non-wushuguan related plan.  The wushu guan on Monday was packed full of athletes so that is the main reason I wasn’t able to do anything.

More guan

Anyway … food for thought.

On Wednesday I went to the wushu guan and it was practice as usual.  I was training with the nanquan kids again and it was pretty basics-intensive.

First we did the standard warm-ups (I did my own on the side since I’m in no shape to play wushu tag) and then stretching.  Basics were kicks, but not too many.  Maybe 10 lines with 5 kicks each line.  But after that it got interesting.

At first Yuan Min said I could work on my own basics on the side, but then I asked him if I could join the smaller kids for their nanquan basics.  They were going through some warm-up combinations on the side, which I did along with them.  But then they did a lot of basics.

First was punching in horse stance, mabu.  About 50 punches while in horse stance.  five sets of that.  So, around 250 punches in horse stance.  Each 50 took around 120 seconds to do, so there were 2 minute horse stance sets or 10 minutes total.  I didn’t quite make it through the end, but when my legs gave out I just stood up and kept doing the punches until my arms felt like rubber.

Guan signage

After that it was blocking combinations.  You can see those in the video.  I took a break towards the end because my legs and arms got wiped out.  Same amount of those.  250 blocks and around 10 minutes of mabu.

There was another one too, but its been a few days and for some reason I can’t remember it.  But it was also brutal.

After that we took a short break and then started on line combos.  Mostly the intro to the compulsory form.  This time Yuan Min told them to work on their Fa Shang, or nanquan yell.  The girl in the group wasn’t very loud so he called her over for a minute.

Yuan Min: “Did you eat lunch?”

Girl: “Yeah”

Yuan Min: “Did you eat enough?  were you full?”

Girl: “Yeah.  I had enough.”

Yuan Min: “Then why don’t your yells have any power?”

She didn’t have an answer for that, but her yells got better by a margin.

The calm before the storm

Now, for myself, while I might not have any physical stamina or condition at the moment, the one thing I’m halfway decent at with nanquan is my yell.  I spent a good amount of time working on this particular aspect of nanquan.  And not to sound cocky, but when I do my yell people are usually surprised because they aren’t expecting it.

So, when I did my fa shang in the wushu guan I could feel the collective group of athletes look in my direction.  I tried not to think about it and focus on the particular techniques we were working on, but I could feel the stares.

After that the kids in my group started giving me thumbs ups and saying “li hai!” (“powerful!”)  I got a few thumbs up from Qi Peng Hui and a few other athletes too.

I guess watching me do nanquan isn’t very inspiring, but once I open my big mouth I get some kudos from the other athletes.    Ah well, at least I have something going for me.  If I ever lose my job I can start a new one as a fa shang coach.

After training I headed back home, happy with the hard workout and progress I was making.

Unfortunately there was no training on Friday.  I got a message from Yuan Min saying that they didn’t have any workouts that day.

Again, in hind-sight, i probably should have looked at this week off from work as an opportunity to get in more training.  Like, as if I was going to another city to train for a week.  I could have gone and trained with them every day if I had put my mind to it.  Of course, my body would be a heaping pile of muscle pulp, but still … the opportunity was there and I didn’t take it.

Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t think of it.

Which makes me realize that i need to put my training on more of a priority.  I have goals here.  I need to follow through on them.

Next training will be Monday the 10th.  I’m not thrilled about having so many days between training, but it is what it is.  Have to keep working at it and pursuing my plan.

Here is a video.  This time around I was experimenting with editing on iMovie on my iPhone, so you can see my iTraining at the iWushuguan here.  Enjoy.

Related posts:

1. WTV #6: 3pm Nanquan
2. WTV #9: Misty Colored Nanquan
3. WTV #2

Chang Quan group conditioning

So, even though I had forgotten my wushu gear at home my wife was nice enough to bring it over to Gao Xin on her way to ATK and I grabbed it on my way to the wushu guan.

I received a text message from Yuan Min that he was at the track, but when I got there all I saw was a large number of extremely HUGE sanda men and women running around the track, dripping in sweat, cheering each other on.  One of them was seriously ginormous.  Like pro-wrestler size.  I’d hate to be on the receiving side of that fist.

I saw Yuan Min’s girlfriend there and she mentioned that he had already left back to his dorm and gave him a call.  He told her to have me go to the wushu guan and warm up and prepare and that he would be there shortly.  So, I thanked her and then went on my way.

Qi Peng Hui in the house ... err .. I mean "in the guan"

The Jay Chou-looking coach was there with his long fist kids going through some conditioning.  Qi Peng Hui was there too and came over to say hi while I put on my wushu shoes and started my warm ups.  After a few more minutes Yuan Min showed up so I started my jogging and jump roping.  5 times around the room followed by 500 jump ropes.  I think I’m actually getting better at them … more or less.

Then I did my stretching and by the time I was ready to go I was already dripping in sweat.

We went to the Taiji carpet (as I like to call it) and he told me to do the four kicks as per usual.  Front stretch, side stretch, inside and outside.  But as not-per-usual, he told me to do 50 of each.  5 sets of 10.

Young wushu kid hanging out on the carpet

So, I did them.  Or rather, they did me.  I would do a line of kicks down, walk the other 3 sides of the carpet and then do another line.  So, 20 laps around the carpet in total.  200 kicks.  By the end I was really dragging my feet.

But I got through them.  And it was definitely getting easier than the first time.  In fact, the first time a couple weeks ago I almost pulled an ab muscle doing my kicks.  So it is some noticeable improvement.

That’s one of the cool things about wushu.  It is pretty brutal, but you really notice an increase in your physical fitness quite quickly.

After the basics he said that we were going to focus on strength training.  He brought out the big bouncy yoga ball and had me do a series of plank-type exercises.  first with my feet on the gound in push-up position with my hands on the ball, holding for 30 seconds.  4 sets of that.

Second was on my back, with only the back of my shoulder blades touching the ground, my hips pushing upwards, and my feet on the ball.  (Hmm … actually, it would have to be the back of my shoulder blades, wouldn’t it?  Hard to touch anything with the front of them.   )  4 sets of that.

Wushu teen talking with Yuan Min

Finally I had my hands on the ground in push-up position with my legs on the ball, and then I would roll the ball so that my body was in an inverted V (or a regular A?) shape.  2 sets of 5 of those.

So, today was core training day.  I felt it too.  My sides are going to be sore tomorrow.

After that I did my own training, but just 2 sets.  pushups, situps and horse stance work.  I also walked through my two sets (nanquan and nangun) to make sure I don’t forget them.

Total class time: 90 minutes.

Yuan Min -- coach for hire!

As you can see in the video, we had a bit of a chat at the end of class.  Yuan Min mentioned that he would like to go abroad to teach wushu — either the U.S. or wherever else.  Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, etc.  I also found out that the reason he stopped competing is because he hurt his knee.  I vaguely remember him being out a year ago when I dropped by the team and hearing he was injured, but I guess it was pretty serious.  Anyway, competition’s loss is coaching’s gain.  If you are interested in hiring him, let me know.

I suggested to him that he try to find a position at someone’s school for a couple years and then branch out on his own once he is more familiar with the culture and environment in whatever country he goes to.  万事开头难 (All things are difficult in the beginning) as they say.  He seems anxious for a new opportunity and challenge.

The other thing he mentioned is that there would be training next week.  That is great news for me because I don’t have work for the National Day holiday week so I can go and train with the athletes.  I told him I’d like to come train at 3PM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and he said that should be okay.  I’m pretty stoked, as this falls in line really well with my overall training plans for the month of October.

So, my second training of the week is over and next up is Monday.  I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow, but my recuperation is getting faster as I get in better shape so I feel like I’m on track with my goals.

I took a bunch of photos with my new iPhone as well as some videos, which you can see here.  Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. WTV #2
2. WTV #6: 3pm Nanquan
3. WTV #8: Nanquan Basics

You gotta wonder how much sweat has been soaked up by this carpet over the years ... (or maybe you don't gotta ... )

Yes, I’m a few days late.  I got busy with things this past weekend and didn’t have time to post anything up.  Although, to be honest, there wasn’t too much progress.

Last Week’s Recap

Anyway, first let’s look at last week’s goals:

1. Train two times with Yuan Min + Homework (W,Sa)
2. Sleep 8+ hours / night
3. No liquid calories, including coffee
4. Do not eat after 7 PM
5. Bike on non-wushu days

And, for the first time since I started this, I have a 0% success rate.

And while that might seem discouraging, I’m okay with it.  Because the truth is, I am still on a program.  And it isn’t a matter of whether or not you fall off the horse, but it matters whether or not you get back up again and try to finish the ride.  So, I’m still on task and even with a small set-back I feel okay about my progress.

Highlights from the week

My training with Yuan Min on Tuesday was pretty good.  Some focused time with just he and me.  But Friday I received a message from him that he had something to take care of so there wouldn’t be any training.  Too bad, but I rolled with it and used the extra few days to recuperate as best I could.  Since I trained Tuesday and this week I trained on Monday I only had 5 non-wushu days between workouts, which is okay with me.  After a month of training it gave my body a little time to build back up.

There was a lot of rain last week (and this week too) so no biking.  The one day I could have biked I needed the scooter to run some errands.  I really hope this rainy season comes to an end soon because otherwise my bike is just collecting dust (much like the first bike I got two years ago …).  I even have some new tires ready to put on it, but can’t until I’m able to ride it to work.  Ah well.

Yuan Min gives a coach-ful look of disapproval

I kept getting only 6 hours of sleep a night.  My wife and I have started to focus on just improving things by 30 minutes each night.  So instead of midnight we tried going to bed at 11:30.  Then the next day at 11:00, etc.  Baby steps, right?  We both have to get up at 6AM on weekdays so going to bed at midnight is not a good option for someone trying to get back in to wushu.  Sleep is vital.

I had some coffee, but I did limit myself to just one cup per day.  I get my sleepies at around 2 pm so that is when I usually have it.  My mid-day pick-me-up.

I also ate in the evening a few times.  But not every day and once or twice I was able to fulfill my obligation to not eat after 7 pm.

Cyclical Development

I suppose what it really boils down to is that I’m sort of “waiting” for October to really re-start the commitment.  I’ve found for myself that it works well to give myself periods of rest while creating a life change.  So, instead of just going all out everyday ad nauseum.  instead it is better for me to work hard for a period of time.  Rest.  Then work hard again.  It gives a mental recuperation along with a physical recuperation.

This cycle works on a small scale as well as a large scale.  So, during the week I can adhere to a specific program for 5 or 6 days, and then take a day or two off.  Likewise, I can do it on a monthly cycle where I work hard for 4 or 6 weeks and then take some time off to reanalyze my approach and plan for the next phase.  You can think of it as a modified agile/Scrum development process for wushu.   But, y’know … with longer development periods and less nerdiness.

September 26 – October 2: The Weekly Wu – Week 5

So, what is my plan this coming week (of which 3 days are almost over)?

1. Train twice with Yuan Min (Monday, Thursday)

As of this writing I have one down and one to go.  I mentioned to Ruhi (my wife, btw) that my goal is to get to two full workouts per week before adding in a third.  Right now I’m doing about 60% of a workout each class, but when I can hold my own then I will increase the frequency to three.  Probably mid-October sometime.

A picture from last year of Yuan Min coaching me about some nangun

This week I’m also going to have my second workout on Thursday since I have something going on Friday evening.  This is assuming that I can arrange the training time with Yuan Min, of course.  I was able to sneak out of work for a few hours in the afternoon on Monday (I went back and worked in the evening after training) but not sure I can do that again.  It depends on how busy work is.  Also, it helped that my supervisor was out of town for the day so my schedule was more flexible.  (Actually, it is pretty flexible as it is … )

2. Wushu homework (Wednesday, Saturday)

I did zero homework this past week.  So I really want to get it done this time around.  Tonight (Wednesday) I’ll do my routine and then on Saturday too.  As follows:

• Pushups (3×20)
• Crunches (3×20)
• Kettlebell Swings (3×20)
• Kettlebell Squats (3×20)

I changed the routine a bit, but I think it still works.

3. Create a plan for October

The month-end is here and so it is time to work on a plan for the coming 31 days.  I’ll post up the details of that in my “Monthly Mu” … or whatever I end up calling it.  Hmm .. it could be the “Monthly Mo”, which works since my Chinese name is 莫然 (mo ran).  Or even the “Monthly Ma” since I’m MArk and I do a lot of MA bu …

[ insert pun-induced groan here. ]

4. Gradually improve sleep times each night to 10:30 PM

Since I have to get up at 6 AM no matter what, the only thing I really have control over is when I go to bed.  Although, next week is going to be super awesome since it is a holiday week and I can sleep in EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.  Pure heaven!

(You know you’re getting old when sleeping in rates higher than playing video games or watching Doctor Who … )

5. Organize wushu videos

Okay, this isn’t really training-related, but I have a LOT of wushu videos on my computer and they aren’t organized very well (by my standards) so I would like to spend some time this week getting them under control and categorized so that I can easily refer to them.  I’d also like to specify a “best of” selection which I can install on my iPhone so that they are always handy and available whenever I need a bit of inspiration or motivation.

So, there you have it.  The week is half-over and I’m just now making plans.  Better late than never?

Related posts:

1. The Weekly Wu #3 (9/12-18)
2. The Weekly Wu #4 (9/19-25)
3. Welcome to the Weekly Wu

Athletes on the prowl

I’m going to keep this one short and sweet since it is late and I don’t have that much time these days to write a lot of content.  (Of course, I’m able to post videos, but c’mon!  Isn’t that why you really come here? )

So, I was able to make it to a 3pm practice this week.  As you may have noticed, I didn’t have a WTV entry last week for the 2nd practice.  And if you are subscribed to my twitter feed then you know that Yuan Min sent me a message that there would be no training on Friday.  So, I had a few more days to recuperate, which I really needed.

The training was pretty mild, but I’m still out of shape so it was brutal enough for me.  Yuan Min didn’t have me do everything the same as the kids, mainly because it would destroy my body, but also because … well, that’s basically the reason.  It would hurt.

Waiting their turn to go

I did my own warm ups — running, jump ropes, etc.  Stretching.  Then I joined them for some basics.  They did these really fast kicking basics.  Almost like a conditioning exercise.  10 fast slap kicks then run down the carpet, 10 quick insides, run back, 10 outsides, run back.  About 5 lines of that.

Not too many basics and the kids mostly focused on jumps.  Actually, not all of them.

The class is about 4 older kids (13 – 18) and 4 younger kids (8 – 12).  The younger kids did the opening combo from the compulsory nanquan form down the side of the carpet.

For 45 mintues.

Just the same combination of moves over and over and over.  On the video you can see how they didn’t seem very interested in it by the time class was almost over.

Meanwhile Yuan Min was working with the older kids on nandu.

Then after about 40 minutes he came to work with the kids (and me — I was on the side of the carpet with them working on the new form I was learning) to give feedback and corrections while the older kids worked on sections from forms.  Actually the same form I was learning.  Except for Xin Rui who was working on the compulsory.

Conditioning 101

At the end of class they did a bunch of conditioning, but you can see that in the video.  Each set of exercises was repeated 3 or 4 times per group. It was pretty brutal.  Yuan Min told me to do my own conditioning on the side.

After class I was pretty sore.  Today is the next day and I was limping a little bit due to some tenderness in my ankle.  But the pracitce itself felt pretty good.  I’m getting more strength and my legs are improving.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also did a bunch of horse stances during the class.  While the kids were jumping I went back and forth on the side of the carpet.  Maybe 100 horse stances in total.

It hurt.  But it was a good hurt.

Below you can see some more photos from the class.  I also have the video at the bottom of the page.

Related posts:

1. WTV #8: Nanquan Basics
2. WTV #9: Misty Colored Nanquan
3. WTV #4 – Yuan Min and I