Wu Di

So, I’m going to make an effort to bring some of that stuff to all of you.  I had a quasi-interview with Wu Di back in June, which I just posted up a few weeks ago.  Not really a proper interview, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Yue Xiao Yu

Then a week or two ago when Xiao Yu was in town I asked her to grant me an interview.  We got together for lunch the day before she headed back to her hometown and she answered my silly questions about wushu and life as an athlete.  I edited the video down to 9:57, and then found out that I had my youtube limit raised to 15 minutes.  Ah well, it takes an hour to upload the video from China to youtube so I don’t feel like waiting that long.

In the interview I should mention that Xiao Yu was rather tired from a lot of travel and taking care of various things in Xi’an and Dong Ming (her hometown in Shandong province).  Her mother wasn’t feeling well, she was taking care of final administrative tasks related to her retirement from competitive athletics, and had seen a lot of friends and colleagues during her trip.  It was very nice of her to take the time to meet up with me.  Many thanks to Xiao Yu.

Oh, and yes, the video quality and sound quality are rather poor.  I had forgotten my video camera so I was stuck with two HTC phone cameras with sub-par video capture capabilities.  It won’t happen again, I promise.

Future Interviews

In the future I plan to interview some other athletes and coaches.  Next up will probably be Yuan Min, a recently retired nanquan athlete from the Shaanxi Wushu Team who is now coaching youngsters here in Xi’an at the provincial sports center.

I also would like to interview Wu Ya Nan, Asian Games and Chinese National Champion (and soon-to-be World Champion?) who recently went to the U.S. to perform at the U.N. and other places.

After those two I will have to see where I am.  If I can do one interview a month I’ll be pretty happy, but we’ll see what my schedule (and their availability) turns up.

Hope you enjoy the offerings!  Thanks for watching.

No related posts.

Yuan Min, as I had mentioned last time, gave me some homework to do.  In hind sight I should have rested Tuesday, done the homework on Wednesday, rested Thursday and been ready to go on Friday for another practice.  But I did the homework on Tuesday and sort of wiped myself out and it took me a couple days to recover.

The other thing I am going to change is not to bike on the days I have wushu.  Instead I will ride my scooter on those days and then ride my bike on the off days so that I have a daily training system.  Biking 40 minutes home after a wushu class is like cutting myself shaving and then using a lemon juice after-shave cream.  Insult to injury, so to speak.

Xiao Yu during our upcoming interview

Anyway, back to the second workout of my newly started return to wushu.  I was able to leave early from work and went to attend the 3PM class which Yuan Min coached.  It turned out it was him and this other guy (he was a youth coach before, but I don’t know his name) jointly teaching the youth who used to be Chu Feng Ling’s students.  She was now coaching the main external taolu team (i.e. not taiji).

I had just biked to the wushu guan so I was already sweating, so Yuan Min just had me do my warm ups and then told me to run 5 times around the room (4 carpets in a block) and then do jump rope, 5 sets of 50.  Their jump rope is made from this cheap rubber tubing but it turned out to be the best jump rope I’ve ever used.  I’ve never jumped rope so well.  After that I stretched and then joined the nanquan kids for basics.

Yuan Min was in charge of coaching the nanquan youth group, which comprised about 8 or so kids.  There were a few older kids who trained with them too, but seemed to mostly work on their stuff on their own on one of the empty carpets.  Xin Rui was still there too, bigger than before of course.

We did basics — zheng ti tui, li he tui, wai bai tui, etc.  I haven’t done much kicking in a while so my abs started to cramp up after a while.  But I did as much as I could and when they started their jumping practice he told Qi Peng Hui (whom you might remember from this video) to teach me part of a form.

I recognized the choreography as being a variation of Yuan Min’s form.  It was actually a pretty cool form and I like the choreography so we worked through it.  I learned about a section’s worth or maybe a little less.  My body wasn’t able to go in to full stances or go “all out” but he was patient with me and focused on the small details of the combinations and techniques — just what I needed.  It felt good to be training again, even though I wasn’t in very good shape yet.

After he taught me the section I ran through it several times on my own (half-speed, half-movements) to make sure I remembered it, and then Yuan Min brought me back to work with the kids, who had shopped their jumping and were not working just on nanquan basics — specifically gua gai.  I went through a combination from the form and Yuan Min gave me some good pointers but pretty soon I looked at the clock and 2 hours had passed.  It was time to go!  (It was my wedding anniversary so I had to head home and get cleaned up.)  I excused myself from the class and he said that he’ll let me know if they have training on Monday.

As you might know, Monday is a holiday here in China so I don’t have to go to work.  But they may or may not be training, in which case I would go and participate in the 3PM class again, as it really is one of the best situations I could ask for.  Just think of it — a dedicated group of young athletes working on nanquan fundamentals in a nice, professional wushu guan with one of the best (IMO) nanquan athletes in Shaanxi (or Western China, for that matter).  I started having ideas about figuring out if I could ask for afternoons off during the week from my work.  Something to mull over, I suppose.

Anyway, I got a bit of video after I finished training.  You can see the wushu guan and the endless nanquan basics the kids had to do.  By this point they had been doing basics for almost 2 hours so they were understandably tired.

I should also mention that on Thursday afternoon I had lunch with Xiao Yu and was able to interview her for wushuzilla, asking her questions about training, coaching and life as an athlete.  It will take some time to edit (and subtitle) the video, but you can look for that in the near future (or at least a trailer of it on youtube).  I plan to start doing more athlete interviews for wushuzilla so you can get a nice glimpse of life in China for wushu folks.  Next I’m going to ask either Yuan Min or Wu Ya Nan to interview with me.  Any preferences?  Let me know!

Related posts:

1. WTV #6: 3pm Nanquan
2. WTV #8: Nanquan Basics
3. WTV #4 – Yuan Min and I

“I’m in Xi’an, Mah Kuh!” she said her her high-pitched giggly voice, a sound completely foreign from her nan quan banshee fashang scream. She was in town! I would get to meet my old training partner from a year or so ago. But unfortunately she is only here until Wednesday.

Hard to believe Xiao Meng can beat you to a pulp

Ruhi spoke with her for a bit and it was decided that I would go to the sports training center where the Shaanxi Wushu Team trains during my lunch break on Monday to meet up with her. Apparently she had some food-stuffs from Dong Ming to give us as a gift.

Of course, I also had some questions for her. She had mentioned helping me figure out a coaching situation, and as I wrote previously, Wu Ya Nan had also mentioned some options. It turned out (after looking more carefully at the QQ profile for the coach) that I had met him before. His name is Ning Biao, and he was one of the Taiji guys on the Shaanxi Team. One of the pretty good ones too.

I recall having said that I was possibly interested in learning Taiji before. I think this was back when I was considering hanging up the nanquan hat in favor of some more gently-on-the-body style of wushu. I had since (ala “The Weekly Wu”) decided to try my luck with nanquan one more time.

A look at the entrance to Xiao Meng's dorm

In any case, I would be able to discuss things with Xiao Yu and come up with some options.

I scooted over to the athlete dorms and after a bit of confusion met up with Xiao Meng, whom I hadn’t seen since the year before when her and Xiao Yu came to our house for dinner.  If you recall, Xiao Meng is a Sanda athlete, also from Dong Ming, who was ranked top 5 (or was it 7?) in her division in China. It was good to see her again, and her friendly smile totally distracts you from the fact that her shoulders next to mine make me look like a 10 year old girl. She had definitely been working out because she looked about as strong as I had ever seen her.

As she brought me up to her dorm room to wait for Xiao Yu to get back from lunch she told me that she was leaving in 3 days for a Sanda competition in Yunnan Province. No wonder she looked so yoked. She was at the peak of her physical condition.

We chatted for a few minutes until Jiang Yang (whom I had previously called Zhang Yang) came by with another wushu girl and said hello. Her hair was back in a pony tail (it had been cut short the year before) and she could speak some English! She had met a girl from the U.S. earlier in the year and decided she wanted to go to the U.S. to visit, so she had started studying English. Compared to the zero English she spoke last year, I was pretty impressed.

Xiao Yu and a very relaxed Sanda athlete in the background

She gave me some current news on the training situation with the team. Zhang Laoshi (the taolu coach) had gone to the adjoining wushu school next to the track to teach kids. Chu Ling Feng, the former Fanzi Quan champion of the 80′s, was now the main taolu coach. Well … there went my guanxi with the team! LOL! It was a good thing I wasn’t in a rush to start working out with them.

Jiang Yang’s English name is now Hilda and we exchanged QQ numbers. I told her I would help her with her English if we ever train together again in the future. Maybe I can re-think my 2006 idea of starting up a curriculum of English training for wushu athletes in China. There’s some money in that idea somewhere …. maybe.

After a few more minutes Xiao Meng’s roommates came back, both Sanda athletes, one of which I had met before at the 4 Dream movie night event a loooooong time ago (Spring 2010!). They had brought back a bunch of food and force-fed me some Cai Jia Mo (Veggies in Bread) which was both spicy and delicious.

Eventually Xiao Yu showed up a bubbly as ever. We spent some time catching up where she told me more about her work as a coach (not much to talk about) and we discussed my training options. After a good amount of discussion she suggested that I have Yuan Min be my coach as he had also retired and was coaching kids at the Sports Center, he was a nanquan specialist, and we already knew each other so he was familiar with my strengths and weaknesses. In fact, he had taught me a few sections of his nangun at one point.

She said that Ning Biao would be good if I was going to study Taiji, but that for my purposes Yuan Min is probably a better option. It was hard to argue with that logic. (I was thinking to myself that it might be possible to bring Ning Biao to Active as a once-a-week Taiji coach, since a few of the employees there have asked about learning Taiji Quan. Something to look in to…)

She would talk to Yuan Min and see what his situation is and if he was interested. I wasn’t sure how much to pay for something like that, but I’m sure something can be figured out. I don’t mind paying a reasonable rate for good instruction. And it is just for the next 2 months until I’m up to speed to train with the team again.

Xiao Meng and Xiao Yu

The other suggestion was that I train with him 3 times a week in the evenings, instead of my previous idea of training with him twice a week in the evenings and then with the team on Saturday morning. That made sense since I had made that plan thinking Zhang Laoshi would be coaching me. Since it is Chu Laoshi, I don’t really know if that would be kosher or not. In any case, having just one coach is probaby better for consistency. Monday, Wednesday, Friday evenings would probalby work best so that is what I will propose and see what he says.

Xiao Yu was also nice enough to load me up with a big bag of food-stuffs from Dong Ming. Seeds, some packaged meats and other randomness that I will be able to enjoy at home.

“I didn’t know what you and Ruhi would like, so I got a little of everything.” she explained.

I probalby won’t see her again before she heads back to Shandong, but it was good to make contact with her, even if was for a brief moment. Hopefully one of these days I will be able to get back to Dong Ming and visit her (not to mention Wang Wei’s family!).

No related posts.

Their dinner was at a restaurant close to where I used to teach part time at the Sofitel Hotel.  I nibbled on a few things, but I saved myself because I wasn’t too hungry … yet.  I got to meet a dozen or so Italian folks which was great (and it made me wish I could speak Italian) and met Fabio their teacher.

Stefano and Claudia in the Pedicab

After dinner they went to their hotel near the South Gate and I met up with Stefano and Claudia after they checked in to their room.  We walked down past the Bell Tower through the underground passageway to the Drum Tower entrance of the Muslim Quarter.  From there we had a nice time walking around and seeing the sights, talking about wushu (what else) and learning a bit of Italian (“Che bono! Che Cassino!“).  I had them try some Chicken Ro Jia Mo and a Xinjiang style baked baozi with lamb meat.  And we took a couple pedicabs through the streets of Xi’an to a bar street and then walked back to their hotel.

It was only 3 hours in total, but it was great to finally meet them in person.  Stefano, if you didn’t know, was the one who translated a couple of my blog articles into Italian a while back.  They are considering spending more time in China in the future and it would be great to see them here again and maybe get a chance to train with them too.

And hopefully I can make my way to Florence someday and pay them a visit.

One thing that this visit made me think (more) about was my training.  In fact, recently a lot of things have been reminded me about my lack of training.  I recently spoke with Wu Ya Nan (he’s in America, by the way, in case you see him walking around New York or something) and Xiao Yu about my training.  Wu Ya Nan put me in touch with someone who might be able to coach me.  Xiao Yu is going to do the same when she’s here later in the month.

In the Pedicab

I think I mentioned before, but my general plan is to do some private coaching for a month or two (September, October) and then once my probationary period is finished at my job, move on to training with the team on a more permanent basis.  In fact, my work is quite flexible in this regard as long as I get my work finished, so I would be able to attend the team’s training (maybe in the morning) and then work during the afternoon and evening.  Basically a reverse of what most people do (work during the morning and afternoon, train in the evening).

Anyway, I’m pursuing it and getting the ball rolling, so that is a good step.  After my schedule lightens up (September 3) I will be able to really go full-bore in to getting my wushu back.  I just need to finish up a few schedule obligations first.  One more week … 10 more days … sooooon ….

Here are a few pictures I took from last night…

No related posts.

Xiao Yu

I’ve been texting with Xiao Yu recently and it seems she is coming to Xi’an for a visit at the end of the month.  That is great news since its been so long since I’ve hung out with her (almost a year!).  But the even better news is that she said she would help me find an athlete to set up private lessons.

Since I’m back to a 9-5 type of job, my thought was to go back to a Wushu West type of training schedule.  I’ll start off with 2 – 3 times a week and then increase over time.  So, my plan is Tuesday and Thursday evening from 6 – 7:30 pm to start, and maybe train with the team on Saturday mornings (if they have class) or have another session on the weekend.

Then, once I’m back up to speed with my exercise and abilities (and strength and flexibility) I can increase to M, W, F evenings — maybe in October or November.  4 – 5 times a week would be a good general maintenance and slow creep improvement regimen.

My office is on flex time and there is a possibility I might be able to re-integrate daily training in the afternoon or morning with the team, but I’m not going to approach that option until my 3 month probationary period is over and I’ve gotten in to the swing of things at work.  For now, evening training is probably a good solution to ease back in to training.

In order to do that I need to start preparing now.  If I start private lessons in September, that means August needs to be spent jogging, stretching and working on my stances.  I have 2 – 3 weeks for that and then it’s back to the wushu guan (or park, as the case might be).

Wish me luck!

Related posts:

1. Getting Back on the Horse … Again (Plus Angelica Cukon!)

You might remember Xiao Meng from such blog entries as this one or this one.  She is a Sanda athlete with the Shaanxi Team who placed 9th in this year’s qualifiers.  She recently recovered from a broken foot bone so wasn’t able to compete at the Nationals, but I’m sure she’ll be back in fine form next year.

Here is a picture of Xiao Yu (Right) and Xiao Meng (Left).

Anyway, Ruhi and I cooked up some food, ordered a dish from the restaurant next door and we all cozied in to the living room for some grub and friendly discussion.  it turns out that the young boy (he’s 14) who was here is very interested in studying Sanda, so it was a good chance for him and his mom to ask some questions from a professional in the field.

We also spent some time showing wushu videos of Xiao Yu’s training.  Everyone was quite impressed, of course.

Afterwards we snapped a picture in the parking lot and then Ruhi and I walked with Xiao Yu and Xiao Meng to the front gate of the University.

Xiao Yu and I also talked about my plans for training in the future.  She knows I will be back in the mix on November 16th after the Traditional tournament and I must admit that, with one week of my preparatory training done, I’m rather looking forward to it.

No related posts.

When I showed up the door was open and no one was there yet, but I was a little early.  I put on my budosagas and waited for the athletes, who showed up promptly at 9:00.  I got some surprised faces, since they hadn’t seen me in a while.  Han Laoshi said hello and had Xiao Yu translate some information for me regarding some training requests I had put in to him from other foreigners.  It has taken him 6 MONTHS to finally get back to me with this information.  But apparently he had to get permission from the head of the facility or something.

Anyway, class started up.  I looked at the weekly schedule on the wall.  This week my plan was to go on Tuesday and Saturday morning (I think I mentioned that in the last blog).  Fortunately both of those days had wushu practice scheduled so I was good to go.

Being the first day back I didn’t try to kill myself.  I just wanted to get back in to the groove of things.  I warmed up with them as much as I could.  My calves were super tight from 2 months of no stretching so that was tricky.  Basics started and I tried to focus on some fundamentals like front stretch kick and horse-bow stance transitions.  I worked on those during their nandu training too.

Around the time they started forms training Yang Min told me to grab my nangun to work with some athletes he was overseeing.  It turns out there is a Compulsory Forms (guidin taolu) competition in Wuhan on June 5th.  A few of the guys in our group were going to be competing and so I worked through sections with them.  I hadn’t reviewed my nangun in a while so I spent most of the time working on the first two sections, trying to remember how they went.  The other kids were working on the new compulsory staff (2) and spear (1) and one kid also did some of the old compulsory Changquan.

That lasted about 30 minutes or so.  There were just 5 of us, so rotating sections took a bit out of me — granted I wasn’t really going full out, but mostly just walking through sections.  It was a good workout either way.

After class I spoke with Xiao Yu and Coach Zhang for a while, just talking about random stuff.  I walked out with Xiao Yu who was going to lunch.

My plan Saturday is to try to push myself a little farther still.  Each class I will up the ante and put more in to the training.  So, I have a few days of healing and recuperation before the next class.  I think I’ll need it.

Later in the day I made arrangements with Angelica Cukon (pictured below), who was visiting from Italy, to meet up for dinner in the evening.

Angelica Cukon in Xi'an (Taken from alivenotdead.com)

We ended up going to the Shandong BBQ place next to my house.  It was me, Ruhi, Angelica, and two of her friends — James from New York (not to be confused with our other friend James from New York) and another friend from Chile.  We had a great time talking and telling each other funny stories.  It was nice to finally meet her in person after all this time only knowing her online and from AliveNotDead.  (Angelica’s Chinese is crazy good, by the way.)

Unfortunately she will be heading back to Europe later in the month, but the good news is that she plans on returning to Xi’an later in the year.  I will probably see her again when I get back from my summer U.S. trip in September.  Good timing since I will have a bit more time available then.  Maybe we will even get to train together!(?)  Us nanquan people have to stick together, right?

Anyway, this week I have a lot of work going on so it is a good thing I’m only training twice.  I will provide another training update after Saturday.

Related posts:

1. Almost back to training!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who am I kidding.  This is my life.

Related posts:

1. Competition Prep! Athletes Depart at T-Minus 4 Days

First, I think a lot of people (myself included) assumed that to improve the stability of your stances you needed to building up the ability to hold the stance for a longer period of time.  True, that will help to some limiting degree (although whether or not holding stances actually helps sport wushu with its high-qi focus, is a whole different discussion) but what I’ve discovered is that the problem isn’t really with holding a stance, but the problem is with being stable with a stance once you have just gotten to it.

Very few people ever lose their balance when they are already in a horse stance, but when you are spinning around and transitioning from some other technique into a horse stance, that is often when your stability is compromised.  How best to stabilize yourself as you transition into a stance then?  Well, with focused attention on stance transition basics, for one.

Generating the transitional power in to a stance position reinforces your body’s ability to “punch” into that stance with stability.  A solid transition helps build stability with stances.  This, as it turns out, requires doing a LOT of stance transitions.  This is why kids wushu classes in China are pretty much just basics for the first few years.  You couldn’t get away with that in the U.S., of course, but here in China they are training athletes, not pacifying parents (no offense to any parents who are reading this, since you are obviously not one of those types – or else you sure wouldn’t bother reading wushuzilla’s super geeky wushu blogs. ).

The second thing I’m noticing that helps with stance power and stability is having a strong core.  Especially your back and oblique muscles, as that is where a lot of the transitional power comes through, as well as the stopping power to hold a stance effectively.  One of the biggest problems you see with beginners doing stances is that they tend to lean forward too much into their stance.  How many times have you seen a coach slap someone’s back to straighten up?  And how many times after holding a stance for a while do you find yourself slowly learning forward and bending at the waist?

Building up your core is, I think, the second part of having strong stances.

The last part of having strong stances (well, the last part that I’m going to talk about) is actually flexibility.  Most of my personal stance problems stems from not having the full range of motion in my joints or muscles to hold the stance in the right way.  if you look at a beginner’s stances, most of the reasons they aren’t able to do them correctly is that their hips can’t open up wide enough yet (hence the funky chicken horse stances and too-high bow stances).  Or having proper ankle flexibility also prohibits a lot of people from being able to fully get in to a drop or empty stance.

My stances are always much more stable when I’m fully stretched out and warmed up.  I can’t hold a decent cold horse stance to save my life, but after an hour of training and stretching, my horse stance is almost human looking.

So there you have it.  My personal three-step approach to improving my stances.

1. Transitions

2. Core Strength

3. Flexibility

And if you had asked me a year ago how to build up stance stability I probably would not have said any of them (well, maybe “transitions”, but not at first).  Just goes to show you that even after 15 years in wushu you can still learn new things and make new distinctions in your training.

Before I used to think that wall sits and holding stances was the best way to get strong rock-solid stances.  That is probably a result of my time training with He Jing De, since he was a strong proponent of the wall sit.  And wall sits are good for building leg strength, especially after a knee injury where you might not be able to do a full stance yet.  But now I realize that it is all the stuff you do around the act of holding a stance that really builds up your stability, as well as your power.

Today’s Class

And that brings us to today’s class.  Because it was in the midst of one of the most intense workouts I’ve had in a while that I came up with these new found distinctions.

Wednesday afternoon is pretty busy in the wushu guan.  Chu Feng Lian is there with her 2 dozen wushu kids, the taiji group is doing their power training, and the wushu group is in full force too.  I got there a little early today and watched the earlier kids classes that are there before 3:00.  It really is fun to watch 100 kids doing basics in a 4-carpet wushu guan.  There is always something interesting to watch.

But soon enough it was time to train.  Our group was doing the usual competition preparation (60 minutes of self-warm up followed by full sets – just like at the tournament.  something I’ve actually been meaning to blog about in more detail but haven’t had time yet) so I went on the side with the non-competing athletes (i.e. the”kids table” at your cousin’s wedding).  After a quick warm up and some stretching the kids got some staves and were going to do kicking practice.  I opted instead for stance training, as per Xiao Yu’s recommendations.

10 lines of 10 mabu-gong bu transitions = 100 mabu-gong bu = jello quads

After that I did some horse stance holding (feeling much stronger today!).  I would hold horse while doing 100 quick grabs with my hands (quick clenching and unclenching of my hands – helps build forearm power) and then hold the stance for another 30 seconds.  Did that 3 times.

3 x 90 second ma bu with quick clenches

I also did some kicking practice – holding the bar while the other arm is out and doing quick front stretch kicks.  I did 3 x 10 for each leg.

Next I went in to the weight room and did 3 sets of “pop squats” at just 40kg worth of plates (i’m a wuss), followed with 3 sets of quick calf hops with the bar and weights on my shoulders.  After each set I would go out to the carpet and do some deep knee hop ups – 5 or so.

Then I did 3 sets of 10 – 15 bench presses.  Again, not too much weight, focusing instead on developing explosive power. To be honest my arms were SUPER sore from Monday’s class.  It took me a good 15 minutes of swinging my arms around and stretching them out to get some of range of motion back.  Just goes to show you how much I need it.

After that I worked on my abs.  I did 3 sets of 20 leg lifts and 3 sets of 20 situps.  My abs were pretty sore after that (I haven’t been doing much ab work, as you can tell) and then I went to a bar near the window and did calf raises.  3 x 30 with legs together, then 3 x 30 of each leg individually, almost to muscle failure.

By this time I was pretty tired.  But Xiao Yu told me to do more ma bu – gong bu transitions.  This time I was told to do the same exercise that I saw the kids at the track doing the previous week.  You can see it in this video at around 1:40.  I did 5 sets of 10, so 50 total of the hopping mabu-gong butransitions.  I have to say that they are way harder than they looked when I saw the kids doing them at the track.

One thing I have to say is that Xiao Yu has been really helping me out.  She pushes me to work on the stuff that we talked about and is always giving me suggestion on what to work on.  If she sees me not doing something, she’ll suggest something for me to do.  Coach Zhang doesn’t really provide much feedback (which is fine with me since he’s got bigger fish to fry and it is sort of our arrangement) so I’m very happy that Xiao Yu is being so helpful.  I’m going to have to invite her over for another home-cooked meal next month!

Oh right … you don’t know about that, do you?  Xiao Yu and another friend of hers from DongMing, Shandong – a sanda athlete) came over for my home cooking a couple weeks back.  I made tu dou ci and suan la bai cai.  (That’s right folks.  The ‘Zilla can cook.  Being Brandon’s roomate actually paid off. )  This year I’ve been making a concerted effort to learn some local dishes, which has proven quite popular with some of the Chinese folks who come over to our home.  Plus, these are my wife’s favorite dishes so I’m scoring some brownie points at home too.

Anyway, I did take some video.  The first one is of the athletes after class.  Some of them were hanging out, some of them were practicing some random things.  You can take a look for yourself …

And then is my wushu training vlog, but to be honest it isn’t very informative because I was way too wiped out after class to form any coherent thoughts.  All I could get across was that I was tired.  Here is that:

Tomorrow I have to take care of a few things in the morning so I will go to the afternoon class again – at the track.  My plan is to run, but I also am going to practice the stance and power training while there.  It will be good training to get me used to doing that sort of thing outdoors when I’m down in Hong Kong next week and don’t have a wushu guan to hang out at.

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