It's the little things that make you happy.... and can scare the crap out of you.

Chinese word of the day: Xia Wu Hao-means-Good evening.

British word of the day: Fit-means-good

"Its the little things."
                                    -Scott Campbell


I say that phrase to Sam all the time. Like when Sam told me “That hot chocolate smells good.” I would reply, "It’s the little things." Which means it’s the little things that make me happy like drinking some hot chocolate or even having a tasty Oreo cookies before training really helps me make it through the day. (The Oreos were in the care package from home)


Well, I made a decision. I decided I can always buy more chocolate mix at the store even if it’s not Nestle hot chocolate mix so I am going to forget about ‘skipping a day’ and using the chocolate mix every day in my oatmeal. I did notice I have more energy and eat more oatmeal when it has chocolate in it. This morning when I was eating breakfast, my friend, Phil, who lives two doors down from me asked if I had chocolate in my oatmeal. I said, "YUP!" Then I noticed he had a bowl of oatmeal and it was suspiciously dark. I asked him, "Do you have chocolate in your oatmeal?" He said, "Yup!" I was surprised that he also puts chocolate in his oatmeal. He even got his mix from the walmart here. (Please comment below if you eat oatmeal with chocolate or comment about what you DO put in your oatmeal)


Phil is from Germany. He is going to be training here for THREE YEARS. He takes training a bit seriously. He stands in the ‘horse stance’ at the table during meals. He does a total of one hour of horse stance during meals and he splits up an hour between breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The ‘Horse stance’ is where you spread your feet a little more than shoulders length apart and squat down till your knees are parallel to the ground and hold it there. Kinda looks like you are sitting on an invisible chair. It/s quite hard to do.


Morning training was fun. While we did our stretches and as Master Gou walked by Rodney and I and saluted Master Gou as usual. But this morning I also said, "Zao Cheng Hao Shifu." Which is “Good Morning Master”. He smiled then said back to me, "Zao Cheng Hao," and a few other words in Chinese which the translator translated, "Your Chinese is good." I told Master Gou, "I’m practicing!" He laughed. After drills we did Wing Chun applications. Master Gou showed us four different moves for us to practice on one another. He would demonstrate the move on a couple students in the class then we practice. Today, on the last demonstration, he told me to punch him. Worst Idea Ever. When I started to punch Master in a blur I felt that he grabbed my arm and almost flipped me backwards. I was so stunned I laughed. Master Gou laughed too. Then Master explained the steps slower to the class and I actually got to see what he did to me. As we practiced with our partners, I got the moves down real fast. They were fun and quick moves. When Master Gou walked around I would ask him is this new move ‘legal’ for us to use in the ring for Sparring. He would tell me yes to most of the moves we learned but there were a couple he said could not be used during sparing because they were… more for street fighting. I thought that was awesome.


Second class was Baji applications. Before we started class, Master Gou told us, "we need to choose two new class leaders because Shawn left last week and Andrew left yesterday. So at the end of class were to vote." I knew Joseph and Clement were my two votes. Joseph is 25, from Georgia, and is a really nice guy. He goes around helping people as they did their forms. Thanks to Andrew and Joseph I got the Wing Chun basics down. Clement is 27, from France, he is also really nice. He was one of the French guys I met who explained to me the difference between Wing Chun and San Da. He convinced me to join Master Gou's group. I also sit at the French table from time to time at meals so I’m good friends with Clement. I already knew who I was going to vote for before class began.


Generally I have learned that every other Tuesday is “Acrobatics and Applications in the ring” so I was looking forward to jumping and rolling but when I went to class we just did the applications. In this class too Master Gou had me demonstrate punching him again to show the class this time I was slammed into the ground. After he showed us the moves we partnered up to practice. Again, I asked Master which moves are legal for sparring because these moves seemed so much more powerful than the regular Hook Punch, Jab, Straight Punch the San DA classes practiced. In Baji if someone threw a punch we could block and step to the side, Grab their arm and pull them to us as we slamed our elbow in their ribs or face. Unfortunately elbows and knees are illegal in San Da sparring. However, one good (legal) move he showed me was to block with two hands on the inside of the punch then if they throw the other punch jump to the other side and punch him in the throat...or just in the face if were sparring. Once class ended we had to vote for our class leaders. Everyone voted for Jacob and Clement. So now they are our leaders during drills and warm ups.


Lunch was great. We had a new dish. Chicken on a stick. It was a bit spicy but really good. Everyone started lining up for more but since I was at the end of the line, I was able to walk to the front and get back in line before the people at the tables got up to get in line for seconds.



While we had our lunch break in my room I saw another spider! This time by my table! I was on my computer and I saw it so I grabbed some tissue and killed it! It was a smaller one but it was still intense!


Afternoon class was Stance training. I can tell my legs are getting stronger because i can hold the stances better. But now Master Gou knows I can do the stances so he makes me hold my stance even lower now which burns a lot more!


After the class I went upstairs to get my laundry to start a load. It was 4:30pm and with an hour before dinner and thought I could get my laundry done before dinner which is about the time it gets dark. Well I don’t know if it was Day light savings time or I just didn’t realize, but it gets DARK at 5pm! When i headed back down to take my laundry out of the washer before I went to dinner the machine was not finished. There was still 12 mins to go. That is when I looked around and saw how dark it was already. So I decided since it’s already dark I might as well go to dinner. For Dinner today they had fried veggies. I didn’t know what kind of veggies they were but I really liked them. I sat with Jacob, Rodney, and a couple other guys for dinner. I asked them if they knew what the fried veggies were. Jacob said, "Ya they’re Eggplant." But I hate.....hate eggplant. Back home whenever my family would eat eggplant I would run in the opposite direction because I hated the taste. Tonight for some reason, fried eggplant tastes amazing! (Do any of you readers like eggplant? Have you had it fried?)


Once I finished dinner I went directly to go check my laundry. Luckily it was done! I had left my bag down there so I could put my clothes in and take it to the clothes line to dry. By now it was PITCH DARK. I had my flashlight in my pocket because i knew there wouldn’t be too much light near the clothes line. I was wrong. Because the clothes line is located far away from everything else in the corner of the academy a few yards away from the wash room and behind the Academy building, there was NO LIGHT at all. It was really really DARK. So I turned my flashlight as I walked to the clothesline. And I held my flashlight between my teeth while I hung up each piece of clothing. When I got to the clothesline, there was some other items of clothing left to dry by other students. It was a bit windy and due to the wind these other clothes would bounce a little the light would shine just enough to cast shadows and let me see SOMETHING moved. There were multiple times when I thought I saw a person standing by the clothes line that just turned out just to be a sweater or a shirt blowing in the wind. Even though, I was really creeped out. I hung up my clothes as quick as possible so I could get the heck out of there.


Now I’m back in my room getting ready for bed and I am going to rest because I have POWER TRAINING TOMORROW... seems like I just had power training yesterday.


Goodnight.


-Scott

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Now I say 'Goodnight' for real.