China can get hot and humid

Wednesday June 8th was the hottest day of my life so far at the academy. The funny thing was, it was not very sunny. The weather during the morning was a little sunny with clouds, not too bad. When lunch time came around it rained a little bit. Rain is good. Can’t be hot right?. Well i was wrong. It only rained about 10 seconds. Problem is the rain made the air sooooo humid.

We had power training this afternoon which meant we had to run to the gate which is about 5 miles there and back. I started running with Sam and Ash. The sun was covered by some clouds but for some reason it was HOT! After 5 minutes my whole body was full of sweat. When we got back i was drenched. Power training began. I have never sweated so much before. I was dripping sweat drops on the floor every time we did drills. It was like i was in a water park from HELL.

When we finished drills we began to do the stretches and drills on the ground. Mathieu and I have been helping out a new student named Abdule. He is a nice guy… just a little lazy. And we all tease him a bit and push him to train a little harder. If he doesn’t work hard, we “help” when we do stretching. Like one of us will hold one of Abdule’s legs to the ground and the other we will lift. If he is too slow during drills or not blocking right we will “help” again… well we hit him anyway. It’s all games and a little bit of pain in there too. He can almost do the splits so we are just helping. Really!

Ow!

So when we did power stretching we really stretched him hard. He almost got the full splits down. When we pushed him a little lower he was laughing and gave up. Shifu yelled at him saying “COME ON! Don’t give up!” Shifu was laughing more than he was yelling. So Abdule had to hold the splits twice as long. Abdule gets his revenge because he gets to stretch us after we do him. 

The next drill was the 8 minute plank. The Plank is when you get in push-up position but you stay in that position. You are stiff and straight, like a plank of wood. If you sag, or if your arms bend, Shifu hits you. It is one of the harder things we have to do. My mat on the ground was wet with my sweat from the humidity and doing abs and other dills. For some reason Matheiu said that me and him should make this very hard exercise even harder. He said we should do the plank with our feet up on the bar just to make it harder. I am not sure why i listened to him. But I agreed. So we were not just doing an 8 minute plank, Matheiu and me were doing an 8 minute decline plank!

After two minutes of doing the decline plank, our hands where slipping from sweat, pools of sweat where gathering from the drops coming off our heads, And the worst thing was Shifu was walking around with a staff beating the people who fell! Then a little past half way thru the 8 minutes, disaster struck! It happened like a chain of reaction. First we heard Ash say, "Uh Oh." Then BOOM! Ash's hands slid out from under him and he fell face first on the ground. He was doing the regular Plank with his feet on the ground so he did not fall too hard. Master ran over and hit him till he got up! We all started laughing. But I was laughing so hard sweat got in my eyes!

While I was in the decline Plank I tried whiping the sweat away with one hand while the other held me in place but now it has been over 5 minutes in that position and my arm was so tired i couldn’t lift one arm and be sure I would not fall! Mathieu started laughing at me because i was yelling, “I can’t see! i can’t see!”, then because he was laughing at me, he couldn’t hold himself so he dropped off the bar and crashed to the ground. Shifu came over to us and began hitting him! Now I still could not see with the sweat stinging my eyes, but I could hear Shifu next to me hitting Mathieu! Now i really couldn’t give up or I’d be hit next! It seemed like I was in that position forever. Legs up on the bar, eyes stinging and arms getting more and more tired while my mat was getting more and more slippery. But eventually Shifu called ‘time’ and I crashed to the ground, I got to wipe my face with my soaked shirt and see again.

Last week we had sparring and i did pretty well. So that weekend i had a few friends come up and ask me if i can help them a bit to get ready for the ring. Two of the newer girls asked for help, Kelly and Brittany. I told them that I’d help them out on Wednesday. So after dinner i met up with them but Kelly said she was too tired for any additional training so Me and Brittany did a few drills. We worked a couple hours and with a few tips from me she improved a whole lot.

The next day i did a lunch break session with Brittany and Kelly in the ring. So i began to tell Kelly the basics and did some blocking and reaction drills with both of them. Afterward Kelly went up to me and told me that out of the 2 months she been here she never was taught how to properly block or do the drills that i showed them. She was really happy with the tips i gave her. I told her the Shifus give us so much info we get a little overwhelmed. I know I did when I was first here. The only reason i got good is because i broke the steps down with Jake. And now we are doing a lot better. So that’s what i did with them. I first worked on their stances, then their guard, then their blocks. Till they get those down we will worry about kicks and counters. But it’s easier to understand when it’s broken down a bit. And they both agreed.

For afternoon training it was San Da and Shifu paired me up with Abdule since he was pretty new to show him the basics. So i basically told him the same thing i told the girls. Then we did pad work. He got the basics down quick. When we swapped pads i would do my combos. I guess my punches were pretty strong because he ended up punching himself in the face and a couple hits hit him so hard it knocked his glasses off a couple times. Soon when he put the pads up for me to hit, he would back up because he didn’t want to get hit.

Tomorrow is the mountain run, then Saturday i told ash we should take Sam out to the beach and dinner for his birthday since it was this week and Sam didn’t do anything.

Ill fill ya' in more later

-Scott

how about some pictures

a big hike last weekend

I wish I could say I was meditating, but it was just resting.

I wish I could say my room got messed up from fighting off Ninjas... but it is just  my room

We go by this on our morning runs

This too

Our Acadamy

Wing Chun Do Jo

Long Blog about life in general at a kung fu acadamy

Its finally the weekend here. The 28th of May. On friday i felt really sick. All week i felt a little under the weather but i thought that was because of my allergies. Turned out to be a cold. I havent had a sick day off since i been back (went back to the USA for a month because my parents were worried about the Japan nuclear thing) and i did not want to start taking time off to be sick so i went to class on friday even though i felt a little ill. I made it through morning training but i was not looking forward to the Mountain run. Last week it began to rain during the run. Did we stop because the path was slippery and people could fall off the side of the mountain. Nah...the Shifus told us to keep going. Well this mountain run was the opposite Not one single cloud in the sky. I felt like i was raining sweat because it was so hot. After about 14 mountain runs, i headed back with the other guys. It was a birthday dinner that night but i stayed in and had a nice rest since i been feeling ill. This whole weekend was a nice lazy one. Full of chores, watching How i met your mother, and more movies. i feel a lot better and hope to be feeling 100% on monday. On monday during conditioning, we have to break a brick for the first time. we are all excited about that.







The weather has been extremely weird lately. LAst week every day was extremely windy. This week has been random with days of rain and days of sunshine. Next week, it is said to be 34oC all week. AKA...HELLA HOT! I got here in fall. The trees were brown, the fields were dead, and not a lot of green. I was here in the winter, the trees were white, the fields were coved in snow, and all you can see was white and chinese people. Now during spring, i look around and i see trees of green, red roses too, actually they are pink but i like that song. The Mountains are full of different shades of green. All might sound so beautiful, which it is, but there is one down part to all this beauty...BUGS! The giant spiders, giant mosqitos, and giant scorpions are back. Great example of yin and yang right?












topic 2 friends

A lot of people have been leaving the academy lately. And more leave next month. I can't imagine how it feels to say goodbye. On thursday night the 27th i was feeling pretty ill. Ash comes in with a bag of my favorite dumplings down the road and gives them to me. On saturday afternoon, Sam comes back from muping with a couple burgers he baught for me. I have Four months left with the guys here and many of them leave during the summer. Looks like i will be saving up my pennies to visit other countries Mom and DAd!

Now i mention a lot about the guys i hang out with a lot. I get many questions about the girls here. So since i have been in bed all day i have some time to write my blogs. The women here are very tough. Some of the guys here can't even beat some of there girls here. Many women that i met here come from the States and england. Some come here because they are touring Asia and head to Thailand next, so they want to learn how to defend themselves first...true story. Some come here to get back in shape and start life over again, like many of the other guys here. Others just tag along with there husband or boyfriend for a few months. And some come here to be the next 'Kill Bill' actress. (uma therman reference because she trains in a kung fu temple. Stupid?)

Right now, there are about 39 people in the academy. More are coming in the summer. Some of the rooms here have 3 or 4 guys to one room. Luckily in my room there is only me and Sam. Most of the couples moved to the hotel. I have no idea what will happen when more and more people join in the next couple months. But i will be sure to share that information with you when i find out.










Monday the 30th finally came around. I was excited for today for a couple of reasons.

Reason 1-So after 8 months of doing Qi Gong/ Conditioning my hand, today will be the first time i try to break a brick. I was a little nervous. Ash went first, broke his brick easily. Sam went and broke his brick on his head. Mathieu broke his after a couple tries. Some of the other guys couldnt even break their bricks. I went and i held the brick wrong the first time so shifu helped me adjust the brick. Second try, broke it with my palm. The first try i tried to break it with a chop. There is a specific way to do the chop. You do not want your hand in a straight verticle position. If you chop it straight down you will hit the bone and will damage your hand...or hurt really really bad. I found that out the hard way. I chopped the brick and hit my pinkie knucle in my hand and also the bone in the middle of my pinkie. The correct way to chop it is with your hand slightly at an angle. This way allows the muscle in your hand to hit first and not your bone. I hurt my hand pretty bad the first time so Shifu said i can use my whole palm to break it. I built up my qi, and broke it in one hit. I felt very happy and proud i broke a brick! i hope to do more in the future. i want to try two bricks stacked on top next time.

Reason 2-Raven was caught with a girl over the weekend and Master Guo told him he will disipline him today. Everyone in the academy knew he got caught. He was caught once before last year, also for having a girl in his room. His punishment was Master Guo bringing him infront of the school, beat him with the staff so many times on the back of his legs that the staff broke in half...master did not stop. He continuesly beat him with the remands of the staff. So everyone was pretty curious what his punishment will be. During morning class, master did not even look at raven. I have never seen Master look so mad before. In the afternoon Raven went to Shifu and asked him if he was going to get displined. MAster told him he will talk to the Head Master about his punishment. The next day, Raven was called into the Head Master's office and was told he was kicked out of the academy. Raven was so upset all day. Master Guo called Me, Mathieu, and Sam into his office before lunch. He explained to us what happened to Raven. He even told us how he had so much hope for him and how upset he is to have to kick him out. The reason why master told us this was because Raven trained with us. Master told us that now since he is being kicked out, Raven might not want to train with us after class anymore and he will not force him to since he is leaving in 10 days. Then he told us that he hopes we can train hard and not let this ruin our training. After that we went and talked to Raven. Raven told us he is going to write shifu a letter begging not to be kicked out. He read the letter to Shifu that night.

Today, Wednesday the 1st, Raven told us he talked to Shifu. He said he read the letter and told shifu how he broke up with his girlfriend and how this is his home. He appologized for the constant grief he brought shifu and begged to stay. Raven told us after his letter, Shifu got a little teary eyed and upset. Shifu told him how he had many hopes for Raven and he didnt not want him to leave but it was not his disciion. it was the Head Master's disciion. So he told Raven to write a letter to the Head Master. Well he did and told him at lunch. Turns out it worked. Raven is no longer being kicked out. But he is on thin ice. i hope he doesnt fool around and get in trouble again. He is a good fighter and a good friend to me as well.

That wraps up the 'Kunyushan Drama' for now.

-SCott



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On the 9th of June will be my 9th month here. I can't believe time went by so fast. I remember thinking when a new person comes here its like they are a new born puppy that cant walk or cant bark. A many new comers cant do the forms and can't fight. But as the months progress and the training pays off, the forms and fighting gets easier. Speaking of fighting. I sparred on friday the 3rd. All week i have been training with Jake to get ready because i knew master would make me fight. So When friday came around, Master already chose someone to fight me. When i walked into the training hall, Taylor, a friend from canada who does brazilian jitisu came over and told me that the masters paired us to fight. I said sure. Master Guo saw us talking and i looked at Shifu and he was smiling and shaking his head as if he was telling me Yes fight him fight him, i nodded back at Shifu and started to gear up. after a few fights it was my turn to get in the ring. The rounds last a little over 3 minutes. After 2 minutes, Taylors Master stopped the fight. I guess all my training paid off. Master Guo was proud told me i did really well and said that i wont fight Taylor for the second round and for me to choose another fighter. MOst of the other fights were already finished except for a few. So i started to take off my gear after i asked a few other fighters who did not want to fight. After a bit another guy came around and asked if i wanted to do a second round with him since he only did one round. I said sure and geared up again. This round went the whoe three minutes but i knocked him down twice and he didnt take me down once. My fight record is 8wins-2loss. I have about 10 more fights to add to my belt so i hope i keep up my good record.


On Saturday the 4th of June, about 9 of us guys went to the Beach in yantai for a little Beach Party. Its been extremely hot all week so we have been waiting for the weekend to enjoy the sun and water by the beach. When we all got to the beach, it was cold, windy, and even raining a little. We still sat out in a beach bar for about an hour and a half thinking what we should do next. It was Kyle's last weekend in China so it was a going away party for him as well. After the beach we headed to the bath house to sit in a nice bath, warm up again, then head out to dinner. We had dinner, went to an irish pub, played some pool, then went dancing at the clubs. It was good night and one last Hoorah for Kyle. He is a close friend so its goodbye to another brother. i told him when i visit sam and a few other guys in england i will visit him as well.

A lot of people leave this week. But there are also 8 more people to join the academy. The summer begins.

-Scott

Master Guo is happier but we get kicked more... How did that happen?

Since Monday the 22nd of May, the Wing Chun class has gone from a huge 23 people in the class down to a reasonable 12. A lot of people left during the past couple weeks. There was a point where we had to line up outside the hall because there was to many people to fit in the small wing chun hall. Training has gone very well this week. Master Guo has been watching us closer now since he has a smaller group.


There are Pros and Cons to this situation. PROS: Master Guo is in a happier mood. I guess less stress now of not dealing with so many students. Master Guo can help correct us more. Master Guo even had time to explain the origens and whereabouts of a few technqies we learned. Oh and the time we have to hold the splits are less since he has less people to walk around pulling legs out. AWESOME!


CONS: We have to do extra drills since we are not waiting for the extra 11 others to finish. Master Guo comes around during conditioning to check if we are doing it correct, if not he "helps". If we slack during class we get kicked more. For example. On tuesday the 23rd we had to do Stance Training. since there are less people, he was able to keep an eye on ALL of us. If we were not low enough, legs werent straight enough, or hands werent high enough he would whip us with a branch he got from a near by tree. He had to keep getting new branches because he kept breaking them on Raven.

Back to monday. My roommate Ben left to go back to France. He was a great roommate. Sam moved in the same day. Time to start making new adventure stories with the roommates back together right?

Well Monday night was Kendra, a friend from the states, was going back home. She wanted to go to the resturant down the road because a few friends and i convinced her it was so she told everyone that her going away dinner was tonight. Turns out 17 people wanted to join us. The rooms down at the restuant could fit 7 people... but i told her we will see what we can do.




We all walked down to the resturant. The loby was small so i told everyone wait outside while i talk to the owner. I went inside and the guy knows me since me, jake, and ash come here a lot on weekends. i told him in chinese that we have 17 people and if that was ok. He told me we would have to split into seprate rooms. i went back outside and told the crew what the plan was. They agreed to go into two rooms. Before we went in he told me to look at this room in the back. It was a big room and looked like it could fit another table. We ended up getting another table and fiting all 17 people in one room.




The hard part wasnt over yet. everyone wanted to see the menu but there was only 1 in english. So after a lot of yelling and a few people snatching the menu from one another i got it and stood up and got everyone's attention. i told everyone what was on the menu then i asked who wanted rice. 12 people, i told the waiter in chinese 12 people, then i said who wanted noodles, then i told the waiter. I got a few dishes per table and i said we will start off with that. If anyone wanted something else wen all the food got here then they can but for now we had about 6 main dishes per table already. Kendra shot me a Thank you look and the evening went smooth from there.




Everyone was satisfied and was too full to order anything else. My job was not over yet...had to pay. I hunted down our waiter and told him we wanted the check. Finally when we paid, my job was done! everyone got back to the academy and a few of us ended up watching a movie before bed. It was a nice last night. I thought to myself, it will be extremely horrible when i have to have my last night here. But thats about 4 months and a half from now. Till that day, more adventures to go on.

-Scott

My 19th birthday

May 18



Today the Power Training was not too bad. Regular power training even seemed a bit easy. (If you remember, one day a week training gets harder so they call it Power Training. But a couple other guys and I do even more training after regular class hours) So in regular Power training, 1. We did not have to do wheel barrels and frog jumps across the WHOLE gym, only about 2/3rds of the way. Hey trust me the extra 1/3 is a killer! I do have to say that Stretching was pretty horrible though. Had Mathieu pulling my front leg, Sam pulling my back leg, and Ash pushing my hips down. Master had us do this last week as well. Hurts really really really bad but I can get pretty low now. After training was over Ash said, "Thank God that’s over, now I’m going to rest till dinner." I do not have that luxury. This is when we to the extra power training. At this extra class we were Lucky. Master said instead of sprints and jumps, we can do Pad work and weights. We did a bit of slap sparring to start off then some 1-on-1 pad work. After a while Anders said we should do a drill where one guy is in the middle and the other four are around him with pads and the one in the middle constantly hits the pads but in random order. I thought it was a great idea. I added that the guys on the outside can push the guy in the middle but can’t punch him in the face until he is hitting your pad. Did that for 5 minutes each. I think after a few weeks of training like that, it won’t be so overwhelming when having to face multiple opponents.



Anders got his xbox 360 sent to him a few weeks ago. I never played any game on his xbox till today. He had the game Gears of War 2. He only had 2 controllers so two guys would face each other on teams and the loser gave up the controller. I have not played this game for a looooong time. I remember playing this with my Boy Scout friends last year. Well i got a chance to play and it seems i haven’t lost my touch. I won 12 games in a row, beating anders, raven, and even a few other guys who have been playing this game constantly for the past few weeks. I guess i have another skill i obtained through Scouts, Gaming skill.



Had a long day. Going to shower and go to sleep. Tomorrow is my birthday and i get to spend the morning waiting in a government building for my Visa.









May 19

BIRTHDAY



Celebrated my 19th birthday in China. This celebration lasted 3 whole days. It began on a Thursday. That was when my official bday actually was. Had to go to town to do my Visa with a few other friends so i got the morning training off. When i went down to wait for the taxi, on the board there was a message, "Scott's Birthday. Hella Happy 19th! I immediately knew Sam wrote that. He always makes fun of me because i say the word "Hella". Had lunch at McDonalds in town which was awesome! Made the waiting in a Chinese government building in hard metal chairs for hours worth it since we got McD's! When we got back to the academy i had to do afternoon training. When i got to class i saw Master and he smiled and said Happy Birthday in English. That made my day. After training i hung out with Ash, listening to some comedians on his computer. Then had to rest because tomorrow was mountain run.



After training on Friday i went to yantai with 15 other friends for my birthday dinner. Went to the restaurant ‘Jackies’. They have the best burgers i ever had here in China. After dinner we went back to the academy. I went next door with ash to meet up with some more friends who did not have enough money to go all the way to yantai and have dinner but wanted to celebrate. Hung out with them till about 2 in the morning. The Master on duty was asleep so we all had to jump the fence since it was locked. My first time to do that. It was pretty fun! the wall was about 7 feet so not that high anyway. Crashed on my bed when i got inside. Next day some of my friends didn’t know we celebrated next door so they said ‘lets go tonight’. I agreed and went and hung out with them. I even danced swing and cha cha with one of the ladies from England. Its been 7 months since i even danced. It was awesome. Once again we stayed till about 1 or 2 in the morning and had to jump the fence again. They all have jumped it many times before but since i usually stay in town on the weekends i never been out late next door. Got back and crashed in my friends room with a few other people while we watched the movie ‘Paranormal Activity’. Birthday Celebration Day 3 was over.



Sunday was rest day. Did my chores, cleaned my room. Relaxed. Before bed i went downstairs with Zi Lu to go buy some snacks in the shop. We ran into Master Guo. He was looking happy since he was with his family all weekend. I asked Shifu if he can teach Zi Lu and me a sparring sword form in baji. There is sparring staff but not sparring sword. he thought about it and said, "ok once we finish the form we are working on we can learn it. We were stoked!



The end of my birthday weekend has come to an end. This was my best birthday i ever had.

You can leave me a birthday greeting at the comments section of this blog.

--Scott