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Posts Tagged ‘yuan ming’

Today I made my way to the Sports Center to borrow a few silks from Xiao Yu (just helping some friends out with something).  I had to get there before they left for the train station since today was the day they were going to catch the train to Hangzhou for the competition which starts on Monday.

I made my way to her dorm room and hung out with her and Zhang Yang as they finished up their packing.  She was nice enough to give me a copy of the schedule for the competition events so I thought I would share it here with all of you.  One interesting thing is that they moved Changquan to the 3rd day.  Usually they have it on the morning of the first.  Anyway, here it is:

DATE	TIME	CARPET 1	CARPET 2
April 5 (Monday)	08:00	Women’s Daoshu (38) Women’s Qiangshu (34)	Men’s Daoshu (69)
	14:00	Men’s TaijiJian (43)
	19:30	Women’s Nanquan (30) Men’s Nanquan (41)	Men’s Jianshu (43)
April 6 (Tuesday)	08:00	Women’s Jianshu (35) Women’s Gunshu (38)	Men’s Gunshu (66)
	14:00	Women’s Taijiquan (42)
	19:30	Women’s Nandao (26) Men’s Nangun (37)	Men’s Qiangshu (43)
April 7 (Wednesday)	08:00	Women’s CQ (48) Men’s CQ (58)
	19:30	Women’s Taijijian (43)
April 8 (Thursday)	08:00	Men’s Taijiquan (43)
	14:00	Women’s Duilian (15) Men’s Duilian (16)

I’ve highlighted the events I definitely want to attend with red.  The ones in blue are ones that I would like to see, but may not get much footage of, either because they are concurrent with a preferred event on another carpet, or because I might not be there.  (Those 8 AM sessions are brutal).

Also, there is a slight chance that I might not get there until Monday afternoon, in which case I would be missing the Monday morning events.  I’ll have a better idea once the weekend is here what my status will be.

Anyway, I hung out with Xiao Yu and Zhang Yang for a bit.  Pretty soon Xiao Yu’s best friend (who’s name I forget) come in the room to help them bring their luggage downstairs.  She’s super nice and also from Shandong, Dong Ming.  A Sanda athlete who is apparently pretty good because she has her picture up as one of the athletes who were “celebrated” upon her return from the All China Games.  Don’t know if she medaled, but she probably got at least top 8 in her division.

She mentioned that she has a Sanda competition coming up in Anhui on April 8, so she will be preparing for that.  If any of you are in Anhui you can be sure to check it out. (She also mentioned that I’ve lost weight, so what she says MAY be subject to interpretation.   )

Wu Ya Nan met us at the bottom of the stairs and then we walked over to the bus.  As we were walking he said “I haven’t seen you in training much lately” and I mentioned that I had been in Hong Kong for a week for work.  But he’s right and I’ve been reflecting lately about my lack of attendance in the wushu guan.  Once I get back from the competition (hopefully rared up and motivated from watching lots of good wushu) I really want to revamp my commitment to my training.  I need to get in the gym more.

After a while the rest of the taolu athletes came and loaded themselves on the bus.  I took video of the whole thing so you don’t need too many details from me here.  Sufficeth to say it was neat to see them get the send-off for competition.  Now I kind of wish I had been able to go with them on the train, but it is good that I have a few days in Xi’an still since I have a lot to do.

Here is the video for you to enjoy!

 

One good thing about today was that I went running in the morning.  I was meeting James and Adam at their place so I decided to make it a run and hoofed it over.  Here is the map and distance:

So, not a super long distance, just 2.1 km.  But it felt good to get out on the road again.  I walked back as well, so I guess that is another 2.1 km of walking I can add to that.  I’m going to really try to do more running during this week away in Hangzhou / Shanghai.  Actually, I have a commitment with James and Adam that we each will go running every day for 2 weeks, so that is extra motivation for me to do it as well. 

Thats all for today.  There is some wushu classes at the Sports Center, but mainly just a few straggling kids.  I think I would rather focus on getting some of my projects finished so that when I come back to wushu after the competition I can really go at it full steam ahead.  Until then … lots of running!!

Wyyc asked an interesting question on wushuzilla.com that got me thinking.  Here it is:

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

Jet’s Generation

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

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

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

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

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

Difference in Generations

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today’s Athletes

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

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

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

Asking Athletes in Shaanxi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No” he answered.

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

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

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

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

“Really?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

Thanks for the question and I hope this was helpful!

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

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

Next class: Monday morning

Tuesday I didn’t make it to practice, so I went on Wednesday instead.  But it turns out I might as well not have gone since it was a pretty light day.  Here is my training vlog.  Enjoy!

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! 

Today was just my second wushu practice this week.  Which meant two things:

1. I wouldn’t be too sore during practice since my body had been given some recovery time after Monday’s practice with the Hong Kong Team.

2. I would most likely be wiped out after class.

But when the athletes showed up there was just 3 other people in my group.  The taiji group was all there (and working hard as usual) but in Coach Zhang’s group it was just Yuan Ming, Zhang Yuan Biao and the young girl from Zhejiang who always wears a purple jacket.  It turned out that everyone was in school, and even Xiao Yu, who is usually there, was off taking a driving class. (Beware pedestrians of Xi’an!)

We started off with a light game of keep-away soccer, which actually helped me build up a suitable sweat.

But the class itself was pretty much a self-study class.  The Zhejiang girl went off with Coach Zhang’s assistant coach on the far side of the room to do a bunch of basics, but the rest (3) of us were told to just work on our forms and choregraphy.

I saw Yuan Ming pull out a nangun from the storage room so, remembering he told me he would teach me his form I asked him “When would you be able to teach me your nangun form?” to which he answered “Right now”.  I rushed in the storage room and grabbed a nangun for myself and then met him on the carpet.

He showed me 3 sections of his form (basically the form minus the nandu) in about 20 minutes or so and I spent the rest of the time working through the details on my own.  I incorporated some of my best/favorite moves from my previous nangun form and used them to fill in some of the gaps from his.  I spent the better part of an hour just working out my choreography.  It was, for me, a good class, because I needed to develop a decent nangun form and the one I had developed on my own wasn’t so hot.

From this point I can take what I have and slowly evaluate each area to find weaknesses and determine if I need to swap anything else out.  This is the part that is interesting, since I get to really work on the meat of the form and fine tune the details.

In case you forgot what his nangun looks like, here is a video:

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

Naturally it is going to take me a bajillion years to make it look half-way decent, but at least I have something besides nanquan to work on.

I think later in the spring I’m going to work on retooling my nandao form too.  But for now, this is plenty.

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.

Well,  you can tell by the title that today was intense, but I’ll start at the beginning just to be thorough.

When class started I checked out the schedule for the week on the board.  According to what was originally written there today was supposed to be:

• Jibbengong x 1
• Nandu x 2
• 1/4 x 8
• 2/4 x 6

I saw that we were doing 6 half forms, and I thought that would be a good challenge, but looking later in the week I noticed that there were a couple days where the athletes were set to do 3/4 forms.  Ugh .. 3 sections.  At least we would have a few days before that happened.

But then at the beginning of class, before warm ups, Coach Zhang lined us up and told us that there would be a change in the schedule.  He was swapping today’s morning and afternoon workout schedules and also told us that he wanted us to do our running around 2 carpets instead of 1.  From what I understood, it was time for us to start increasing forms work.  The post-competition, off-season-training reprieve had ended!

We did our running, which pretty much winded me.  Couldn’t quite do all of it, but did as much as I could, catching my breath whenever I needed to.  During basics, instead of 1 line of each we did 2.  I was getting winded and breathing pretty heavy (as I usually do — its wushu, afterall) and Xiao Yu would pretend to call a doctor with her hand serving as an imaginary phone.  ”Hello?  Doctor?  We need you here!” and she would laugh.  (But in a nice way so it was hard to be offended.)

After basics and before we started sections I looked at the schedule again.  Before this point I hadn’t looked to see what the afternoon training was supposed to be.  I assumed it was similar to the morning but with more running and basics.  It turns out that instead of 8 single sections and 6 half sets we were going to be doing 8 single sections, 2 half sets and a 3/4 set!  Holy Lung Capacity, I was going to be tired by the end of class!

For the single sets I pumped out the following sections: 4, 3, 2, 2, 4, 3, 2, 2.  Then for half sets I did: 3-4, 2-3 and then I did 2 – 4 for the 3 section set.  It was pretty brutal, I must say.  The best part was watching Yuan Ming really go for it.  I think he’s finally turning up the juice on his practice and his stuff was looking pretty intense and impressive.  He has some pretty nice technique.

During class I also had a chance to thank Wu Ya Nan in person for his super nice birthday gift.  He wrote a very nice letter to me that he had Yuan Ming and Yue Xiao Yu deliver with the shoes.  I will admit that the color of the shoes (burgundy with pink highlights) is not necessarily the most flattering, but dude — these are brand new Nike Shaolinquan shoes given to me by the Taiji Champion (2008) of China!  Who cares about wearing them?  I might just get them bronzed and put on a plaque.  It is going in my collection with the 2005 All China Games competition straightsword that Wu Di gave me.  (I need to start a wushu collectibles museum …)

After class I did some stretching and then headed home.  Aside from a slight tweaking of my right inner thigh today (just a bit sore, and should be okay in a day or two) I actually felt pretty good after class.  My body is starting to adjust and having a day off between classes is helping it build up its strength and endurance.

I’m pretty sure there would have been no way I could have pushed out 3 sections (even sloppy ones like today) at a time a couple weeks ago.  So at least that is improvement.

It actually reminds me of the training back at Wushu Star in 2003 when we were preparing for the 2003 CMAT.  Nothing increases your lung capacity for forms like just doing a whole lot of back to back sections.  I’m guessing that on Wednesday I will have noticed a new increase in my endurance.  At least — I sure hope so!

Tomorrow stay tuned for ‘Ask the ‘Zilla’, where I attempt to answer some questions and pretend I know what I’m talking about.  It should be entertaining (and possibly painfully embarassing).

Well … sorta.

This week the schedule for training changed a bit.  They swapped a few days around, as well as a few of the activities.  This week’s afternoon schedule (the morning is always just wushu training) was supposed to be like this:

• Mon: Wushu
• Tue: Power
• Wed: Rest
• Thu: Running (Sprints)
• Fri: Power
• Sat: Running (Long)

But actually today (Wednesday) they swapped the morning and afternoon, so they didn’t train in the morning and we had wushu forms training in the afternoon.  That was good news for me, since I wanted to do forms training and not have another day off.  Later on I would find out why they switched it…

I also spoke with Coach Zhang about my training schedule.  Work is pretty busy right now so I let him know that I would only be able to come to class 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  He said that was fine.  My main concern is that if next week is the same schedule as this week, then Wednesday afternoon they might not have class.  I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Before class started I saw the familiar groups of little kids training.  Usually I just watch, but this time I saw one group of them practicing a beginning long fist form so I thought I would snag some video.  Keep in mind that they have only been training for a few months to maybe a year.  The starting point of every professional athlete out there today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q90jwG4dp1Y

The class was similar to Monday’s class.  The athletes seems to be in pretty good spirits today, and for some reason my legs felt really good.  Usually it takes me a good 15 minutes to get my horse stance stretch going, but today I was able to drop down in to it almost immediately.  Also, my endurance was improving so I was feeling pretty good during basics and even got a few low jumps in to the mix.

But I noticed that there was an older gentleman pacing around on one side of the room.  I asked Yuan Ming and he said that he was the head of the team.  ”Teacher.  Number One.” he said, which I took to mean that he was the team manager or head coach (or both).  I had never seen him before, but he might come to the morning class all the time for all I know.

Anyway, after we had been practicing combinations for a while one of the other coaches that I sometimes see in the wushu guan came in with some guy I hadn’t seen before.  He sat with a few of the coaches in front of the Taiji athletes, and then sat for a while in front of our group.  Then, after something was said by the head coach to Coach Zhang there was an immediate flurry of activity.  All of Chu Feng Lian’s kids grabbed their coats and headed in to the weight training room and shut the door.  Most of the older athletes in my group started getting ready for jumps and I was told by Yue Xiao Yu that I should train on my own on the side for the time being.

It turns out that the guy was a coach for the Army Team (解放军队).  For those of you who don’t know, the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) also has a wushu team, but unlike the other teams their athletes don’t train together at a central facility but are recruited from various regional and provincial teams where they live and train.  I suppose the host team gets some monetary compensation for training the Army team member, which might be good motivation for them to have some of their wushu athletes get recruited for competition by the Army.  (Thats just my speculation though.)

In any case, it looked like this guy was here to check out some athletes.  And here he had been watching me do combinations in front of him!  Yikes!

The jumpers in our group started practicing their nandu combinations while a bunch of us went to the side to work on stretching or stances or whatever (basically looking busy on the side while watching the crazy jumps of these athletes).  After about 15 minutes of that we switched up and started doing sections cycling through using the two carpets on the east side of the room.

Yue Xiao Yue said it was okay to work in to the rotation as they were done with the nandu demonstration for the visiting coach, but I still felt like keeping myself a little more distant from him.  I rotated through the farther carpet and didn’t go to the carpet next to him so that he could pay more attention to the Shaanxi Team athletes, which is really the reason he was there; not to watch some foreigner pretend to do wushu.

I managed to get 3 sections out, which wasn’t too bad considering how long it had been since I had done any full sections.  I really like training like that: basics followed by form combinations followed by full sections.  It helps me build up a work on specific problem areas of my form.

After class I did some stretching to make sure I didn’t stiffen up too much.  Friday it is back to the wushu guan, this time for some more power training.  加油！

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

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

As I mentioned yesterday, today was a day at the track.  And not only that but it was a day for the athletes to run sprints.

It turned out that the last couple days have gotten noticeably colder than previous weeks.  Highs around 8°C (46°F) and lows around 0°C (32°F).  Seeing one’s breath is not even difficult.

I showed up a little before 3:00 and took a little walk around the track to warm myself up.  I really bundled up today.  I had two pants on (my workout pants and some outer track pants) and 4 layers on top (long sleep running shirt, sweat shirt, wind breaker and huge adidas long,down jacket), plus my ear protectors, gloves and a hat.

When the class showed up and we had finished our joint warm ups and stretches I took off the big Adidas jacket and hat and turned on my iPod.  The athletes and I did a different run program today, so first I’ll mention what I did, and then I’ll talk about what they did.

First I jogged an 800 and then walked a 400, followed by another 400 jog.  Then I did 4 200/100/100 sequences where I would walk a 200, jog a 100 and then sprint the last 100.  I did this 4 times around the track.  After the last sprint (which was probably more like 50 meters since I was pretty tuckered) I walked a 400 and then rested a bit, got some water, and walked another 400.  Then I did two 200/200 jog/walk sequences.  By the time I finished that the athletes were about to start their 30 meter wind sprints so I joined in on that doing 30 meter wind sprints four times.

Over all, i covered more distance than last time, but not as much running, since I was incorporating some sprints this time.  Total distance:

Run/Jog: 2.52 KM
Walk: 2.92 KM

Total Distance: 5.44 KM

So, not too bad.  I have a feeling that if I wanted to I could probably run a 3K right now.  I’m very tempted to incorporate a bit more running in to my week.  Perhaps on Saturdays.

The main reason I tried to push myself a bit harder today was because of my upcoming 4 days off from training.  Tomorrow is a day off already, as is Saturday and Sunday.  But Friday I will be in Southern China so I can’t train on that day.  Perhaps Saturday, when I get back to Xi’an, I will go for a light jog or walk along the long park next to Tang Yuan Lu.

Perhaps …

Anyway, for the athletes, I tried to pay attention to what they were doing, so here is my best remembrance:

• 1 x 400 meter jog
• 10? x 30 meter combinations (i.e. high kenes, butt kickers, hops, jumps, etc.)
• 16 x (50 meter sprint / 150 meter jog)
• Cool down / stretch for 5 minutes
• 400 meter sprint
• Take their pulse
• 6 x 30 meter sprint
• Stretch

So, their workout was much more intense than mine, but that is to be expected.

After I had done the 30 meter sprints with them, Zhao Shao Dong told me that it wasn’t good for my body to do sprints in such cold weather.  ”What about you?” I asked.  I think his reply had something to do with his physical condition being better than mine, but I might have that wrong. He told me that it was better for me to just do a slow jog around the track.

To be honest, that is my preference too.

On Friday their schedule has them doing more power training and Saturday has them jogging another 10KM.

In any case, I took a little video today, which you can see here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5hPRnC-SYo

I’ve also noticed that I’ve gotten a few more site registrations lately, so thanks to all you new wushuzilla folks out there.  I have some cool content planned in a members section in the future, as well as some member-only blogs and videos, so keep your eyes peeled for that.  It takes a little while to get these things worked out, but sooner than later, I’m sure.

Until next time.  Jiayou!