KC Blog: Power Stretching- I am a lucky girl

Power Stretching- I am a lucky girl

For my second class today we had power stretching. This was my first time having power stretching and I was a little nervous. We had to hold the splits for 6 minutes. Rong Sheifu would come around and put his foot on our backs and push us down lower, I fell forward on my face because it hurt so bad.

We then had to partner up. I was so lucky; I didn’t have a partner to stretch me so I figured I’d stretch on my own. WRONG!  Sheifu was nice enough to help me stretch. I got in the butterfly position, butterfly stretch is when you sit on the ground and have the bottoms of your feet facing each other and you then have to push your knees down on the floor. Sheifu stood on my knees and pushed my back down so that my forehead was close to my feet. OMG it hurt but I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a nervous laugh and he would look at me wondering why I was laughing. We had to hold the butterfly for 2 minutes. Thank God Rong Sheifu isn’t that heavy because I was already dying. He then made me do a butterfly stretch facing the floor and he sat on my back. It hurt sooooooooooo bad but I couldn’t stop laughing. I looked at Jenny, the translator, and told her I was dying. She told Master Rong and he laughed and said he wasn’t even heavy and wouldn’t get up. 

The last stretch I did with Master Rong was the worst. I had to lie on my back and he pushed my knees out to stretch my hips. It hurt SO BAD I grabbed his wrists and kept saying “ok ok”. He’d look at me like I was crazy and asked the translator why I was laughing. He told me to relax but I couldn’t. Sheifu had to help me straighten my legs after each stretch because it hurt so badly I felt like I was stuck. Thankfully the next stretches required 3 people to do and I was able to join a group. One person would sit on my leg while the other person would push my leg up. After class I wasn’t sure if I could make it to my room on not.

On Wednesday I woke up so sore! We have stance training on Wednesday s and it wasn’t very fun. I had a hard time holding my poses and Sheifu came around and hit me with a stick because I wasn’t holding my horse stance low enough and they he kicked me because  I wasn’t holding my cat stance low enough. It makes me feel like he cares about me when he pushes me to work harder.

After Mountain Run.  I am getting in better shape.  I am a Lucky Girl to be here!

Julie is leaving on Thursday morning and I’m really sad. But when Julie leaves Mel, my new roommate from Iceland, and I are moving upstairs. I’m happy to move upstairs because the bathrooms are a little nicer and the rooms are A LOT nicer. There’s more space and more light and less bugs.

I haven’t told you about the showers yet. The girl’s shower is on the first floor. There are two showers separated by a metal wall. They only give us hot water after 4:30pm so if you want to shower before lunch you get a cold shower. Sometimes if I’m lucky they forget to turn off the hot water and there’s hot water early in the mornings. The showers are kind of gross, there’s flies all over and tons of spiders and mosquitoes. I don’t mind the spiders because they are in the corner and they eat the nasty flies.

I have power training tomorrow and the mountain run Friday. Wish me luck.

Xoxo, Kc

School Birthday Performance

Kunyushan Performance.



Its the 7th birthday of the academy so the masters will do a performance. Then master told us one student from each master will do a form. Me and clement will perform but he does Baji and i do WingChun. The other guys are doing two Shaolin fist forms, shaolin sword form, and one mantis form. Master told us some friends of the head master, police guys from the town, and tourists will come watch us.Master asked me to perform my WingChun "fist form, Sin Lim Tao", at the Kunyushan birthday performance.

Last Wednsday during the last class in the evening, Master Chu called me and clement out of class and brought us to the stage to practice our forms with the other performing students. The other masters watched us and told us where to stand and such. Later that night Jenny the translator came to my room to tell me at 7:20pm we have to meet at the stage to practice for the performance on thursday. Only problem was she told me at 7:17pm and i was in bed already showered and ready to sleep! But still I throw on on some clothes, shoes, and run down to the stage outside. Its pitch dark outside! I found Allen and Sharadon, the two guys who are doing the shaolin fist form, sitting on the stage. We did not know where everyone else was so Allen found a frisbe and we played, not "catch", not "pass the frisbee", we played "see if you can see the frisbe coming towards you in the dark" and catch it or dodge it. We played that game for about 5 minutes and not once did anyone catch the frisbee, we would see the frisbe at the last moment and then dodge! Hey i guess its called "Kung Fu Frisbee". 

Then the other students joined us and then the Masters. The Head master gathered us all together by the stage and told us that this is the first time students will ever perform along side the masters here in Kunyushan. We all felt honored to perform with the masters. 

Then we began running through the order of the performance. Only problem was it was a little dark. They turned the lights on in the hall so we had some light. But it was kept pretty dark so no one else could watch the practice sessions.  The students performed first. Three guys on the left of the stage and then three guys on the right. It started with a shaolin fist form and he came from the left when he went off one guy from the right went on, then left, then right,  I was the last one to perform out of the 6. I felt so embaressed to do my WingChun form. All the other guys did jumps or big movements in their forms but i do not move my feet at all,my form was just hand moves. But master wanted me to represent WingChun and the form i did was the most famous form in WingChun.  I performed this form at the competition in front of the Masters and hundreds of chinese people but never the head master. If i messed up tonight he would probably not let me participate in the performance tomorrow. But i did ok. When i finished my form the head master said 'Good job' which help me to relax.  Once i finished, the masters performed their forms. Master Xiang, aka "Terminator", did a Pudao form which was amazing. Master Shao, aka "Smiling Budda" did a shaolin staff form. Master Rong, aka "Baby Face" did a druken straight sword form. Master Guo, aka "G-Unit" did two performances, 1. WingChun dummy form noone ever seen and he did it blind folded, 2. He also did a QiGong demonstration of breaking marble. Master Qu, aka "Chewy" did a mantis staff form. Master Xiang and Shao did a QiGong performance as well by breaking staffs on their bodies. 

After all the masters finished the Head Master did a Taiji form and when he finished we all lined up and Saluted together and walked off. We practiced that whole sequence about 4 times with music. This was the first time students ever saw the masters practice. At night the Masters practice their forms but in the training hall with doors closed and window curtains closed. It was shocking seeing the head master show the other masters where to land in the form and if they did a move wrong he would correct them. I never knew a Kung Fu Master needed to practice too.  Then after an hour the head master called us all together again. He said tomorrow they will video our performance and   show future new students who come here our "amazing" forms. Even though we will eventually leave this acadamy, our faces wont be forgotten. I thought that was an honor as well.

Thursday was a good day. At 10am we began the performance. There were about 40 chinese guests along with the rest of the academy. TV people from Yantai and near by cities where there taking pictures, and somehow my nerves began to tingle. But i kept thinking that i won two gold medals in this form so i must know what i'm doing. Once the show started and my friends performed i began calming down. I got up there and did my form and felt as calm as ever. It was then that I realized that I enjoy performing in front of people. It give you this certain rush feeling. 

When the Masters all finished, we all saluted together and walked off. Many pictures were taken afterward. When i saw Master Guo after lunch he told me many of the chinese guests were talking about my WingChun form. He said i did it very well. WingChun is not practiced a lot up north so when they saw WingChun they must think its special.

I hope i am picked to do more presentations in the future.

-Scott

KC Blog "We are back"

We’re back in the Shandong Province now. There really is a difference between the bathrooms in Yantai and the bathrooms in Shanghai. In shanghai the mall bathrooms had toilet paper and soap. In Yantai the bathrooms sometimes have toilet paper and sometimes have soap. You know you’re in a nice place when they have toilet paper in the bathroom. You know you’re in a fancy place when they have toilet paper AND soap.

The bathrooms smell so horrible I try to hold my breath, but the longer I hold my breath, the deeper my next breath has to be. So sometimes I try to breathe into my shirt so I don’t have to smell the bathroom; it doesn’t always work and I usually end up gagging and have to run out of the bathroom to get clean air.

I got my first battle injury in San Da yesterday. We were practicing our punches and kicks on the punching bags and I scrapped my knuckle against the bag and tore skin off of my knuckle. It hurts but I’m kind of excited I have my first kung fu injury J . Chris was my partner during San Da and we’d hold the bag for each other so it wouldn’t move too much. We had to do 40 punches, and 80 kicks. When it was my turn to punch the bag he was a little shocked how hard I could punch. And when it was my turn to kick the bag he was surprised how hard I could kick. He’d tell me “Kick him in the kidneys, break one or two ribs” or he’d say “punch him in the ear then punch him in the throat” it would make me kick or punch harder. It was so much fun, I really love San Da.

My roommate is leaving in two days and I’m kind of sad. I have a new roommate but I think she might move upstairs because she is staying for one year and the rooms upstairs are soooooooo much nicer.

I had my first day of acrobatics training today. Shaolin kung fu focuses a lot on acrobatics. We had to jump and spin in the air jump kicks, tornado kicks…. I was struggling a lot this morning. We had to get in the sparring ring and do flips and tumbles. I could barely do a front roll and a back roll, I need more practice.

I have power stretching soon. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Xoxo,

Kc

back at the Mountain

Back in the Mountain


I am so glad to be back training again. Sure a week off of training was nice, but now since i am back i feel more relaxed, like i'm back home. This week is the School's birthday celebration and the Masters are going to do a performance. Good thing we came back this week!

Monday was an interesting training day. Monday mornin Master told our class that some Yantai tv station wants to take a video of us doing martial arts. Master did not tell us if it was for a tv show or a movie but we hoped we would be famous after today. We all got excited, dressed up, and headed up the hill. When we got to the top, there were a lot of chinese people. 

Master told us to start doing warm ups and i lead the class. After that we did line drills. Clement and I ran down the lines making sure everyone did it correctly. THe mantis group was there with us as well. They did there own warm ups and drills next to us. I told clement this tv show is about crazy foreingers fighting each other and we got to fight the mantis guys. After we warmed up master told all of us to line up, the mantis group and wingchun group. Then he told us to follow him and told us that we are doing a Tai Chi form for the camera. 

 Master put me up front next to clement for the video. I began to freak out because i did tai chi with KC a few times, but i only know 1/4th of the form and now i'm by Clement who knows a bunch of tai chi forms and the other guys in the line all completed this form...i got really nervous. Clement said just follow him and ill be fine. Some of the guys didnt do tai chi so they felt really lost. Master told everyone we are only doing a few moves from this form so follow him. He did about 10 steps in the form. I knew at least that much of the form already so i relaxed after he told us thats all we are doing. Then he told us to practice those moves and if people were confused they should ask the older students. After 10 minutes of practicing Master made us all line up again and we shot the video. The video guys made us do the 10 moves about 3 times. Master did the form with us too so that was pretty cool.

Afterward Master called us all together and told us that they need 6 guys to make a second video on the beach in Yantai. I shot my hand up to volunteer and Master said, "ZiLong(My chinese name), Steffan, You, You, You, You," and pointed to 4 other guys, Sam my roommate was one of them. We were all excited that we get to go to yantai after lunch to the beach. 

However, when we went inside the academy, Master called me into his office and told me that they might only need 5 guys for that second video so if thats the case he wants me to stay at the academy and train. This surprised me.  Steffan and I were the best students out of all of six vouteers. I would of thought they wanted the most experienced guys to go. Two of the guys Master picked have only been here a month or two.

I was shocked they might be going while I might be staying behind. But i did not question, thanked Shifu, and left. I asked the translator later and she told me, "Shifu wanted you to quit because you will never be mad at him. You support whatever he tells you, but the other guys might make a big deal about not going. BUT you might still be able to go so i will ask them when they come to pick up you guys." 

Well i didnt get my hopes up and at 2pm we all headed down to wait for the yantai people to pick us up. We waited and waited and waited and by 2:50pm i began to give up. The other guys where getting anxious and i knew when master came to train at 3pm and he will see me and tell me to go train. I told the other guys master wanted me to stay and they asked why so i told them what Jenny the translator said. They thought it was messed up but i told them 'its ok'. I missed training anyway but i still was bumbed out i wouldnt be in a "kung fu video". When it ws 3pm Shifu saw us waiting and i asked him if i should go train, he told me to wait and see if they still need 6 so we waited. At 3:20 they finally showed up and only needed 5 people. I told the guys ill see them when they get back and headed upstairs to change for class. I walked to class and Shifu smiled at me and Jenny saw me and knew i was upset. BUT i couldnt do anything about it so i trained hard that class. I noticed thanks to my week off my legs and knee's were not as sore so my kicks have gotten higher! Even the way my body moved when i did my form moved a lot smoother and faster. Maybe taking a break isnt to bad after all or i just really missed training. BUT whatever training i did that day, i did to stop thinking about the Beach in yantai. 

This week is the School's birthday celebration so the masters are going to do a performance. During class Master Guo came to me and told me he wants me to do a wingchun performance with the other masters. clement is doing a baji form as well but we are the only two guys i know who will perform with the masters. So maybe thats why he didnt want me to go to the beach.

At dinner Steffan gave me a call. He told me for the past two hours they have been standing on the beach waiting for people to come to do the video. They were all hot because they were in their kung fu outfits, bored, and the guy who picked them up just wanted them to play vollyball with a bunch of 13 and 14 year old chinese kids on the beach. Steffan told me i am lucky that i did not go. When Sam came back from the beach i asked him how he thought it was. He said the same thing what steffan said and they never took any pictures doing kung fu. Only thing they did was film them playing vollyball but then later the five students were taken to a dinner by the video people in some hotel which was ok.   Sam said, "If the school asks for volunteers for anything, I will never do it again," . Maybe this was why Master did not want me to miss class. I will never know.

-Scott

KC Blog: On the way to Bejing

This picture was taken in Yantai in front of Druids Irish Pub

Saturday

Today we went to Yantai as a going away celebration for Phil. Phil is from Germany and has been at the academy for a year. We stopped in Muping and had lunch at the Noodle house. Since the noodle house is down the road from the tailor I was able to pick up my dress. It is so pretty! I need a fancy event to wear it to.

After lunch we went to Yantai. We stopped at the underground market near Walmart and had a tea party at a tea shop that Scott always goes to. It started with me and Scott at the table, and then a few of the other guys sat down with us. It was a real tea party. We were only missing our party hats and the cookies. This was the best tea I have ever had. We tried oolong tea, jasmine, green tea and black tea. I bought a little bit of black tea. We then went to the fake market, had lunch, and went to the antique market.

We had a full day of shopping so we decided to go to Druids, an Irish Pub. The food was pretty good and they had a table big enough for all 10 of us. While we were having dinner a man and his wife came into to the restaurant. This guy had a big beard and Scott said he looked like the monkey king. The guys kept looking at him and talking about him, so before we left one of the guys asked if we could take a picture with him. It was funny and the picture turned out nice.

After dinner we got Crepes and went back to the Academy.

I am going to rest all day tomorrow.

Xoxo,

Kc

Sunday

This is why I’m glad I didn’t drop out of law school

Sam’s hair has been getting pretty long and Scott’s been telling him to cut it or shave it off. Sam shaved his head “Shaolin style” when he first arrived at the academy and didn’t want to shave it that way again. This morning I was in Scott and Sam’s room like I always am and Scott told Sam he needed a haircut. I offered to cut Sam’s hair. He asked me if I have ever cut hair before and before I could answer Scott told him I had. I looked at Scott confused and he said “Remember you cut dad’s hair”.

A few years ago I cut my dad’s hair, we made a bet and since he lost he had to let me cut his hair. This was my first time cutting hair and he didn’t let me finish cutting his hair, after about 10 minutes he got bored and left with one side of his hair longer than the other.

Poor Sam…. He believed that I actually knew how to cut hair, but he told me “In case you mess up we can just shave all of my hair off”. I used Scott’s paper scissors to cut Sam’s hair. It was actually turning out really nice. He has curly hair so it took me a while to get both sides even. I was almost finished and it was looking great, I was pretty proud of myself. Sam wanted me to touch up the back and his sideburns with the clippers. How hard could this be? Well… it turned out to be VERY hard. I messed up his side burns. I cut the left side wayyyyy above his ear and it looked awful. All my hard work ruined. Sam told me to shave it off but I convinced him to try a Mohawk. It was looking pretty good until I had to do the finishing touches…. I accidentally cut off too much from the front on one side. Sam called me a “suicidal hair dresser” the hair looks great until the end and I totally butcher the entire haircut. It was SOOOOOO funny though. And this is why it is good that I didn’t drop out of law school. I would never have made any money cutting hair.

 Definitely one of my best memories.

Xoxo,

 Kc

Sam and me (and the clippers)

Shanghai

Monday

I trained this morning before we left for the airport. Grading was supposed to be today, but they postponed it until tomorrow. I was a little sad because i won’t be able to see the students grade again before I leave to go back home.

We made it to Shanghai around 6 and went straight to our hotel. We had dinner at the hotel which was okay.

Tuesday

We got up early today and had breakfast at KFC down the street from our hotel. We took a taxi to the Metro station and from there we took the train to downtown Shanghai. The tours were really expensive so we decided to check the city out on our own. Good idea? Maybe not…

We tried to find the Historical Jewish district. We asked the concierge at the hotel to mark on the map where the district was. We showed the taxi driver and he acted like he knew where it was. He had no idea where it was. He had to stop and ask for directions and kept going around the block. Finally he let us out and pointed down the street. Scott and I started walking; we couldn’t find it so we went into a hotel and asked the people at the desk. They told us where to go, so we started walking again… couldn’t find it. We gave up and decided to go somewhere else.

We went to the aquarium. It was not impressive. The best thing we saw was the turtles and the sharks.

There were so many people inside it was crazy. I don’t know if it is a cultural thing, but when people here cough they don’t cover their mouths. I was trying to walk out of the aquarium and this lady coughed on me, I felt her breath on my arm. I’m usually not a germaphobe but here I feel so OCD (obsessive compulsive) I carry anti-bacterial wipes with me and I took one out right away to wipe my arm. The waitress at the restaurant was even coughing on my hair while we ordered.

We then went to the mall and looked around, but the stores were all really expensive. Scott got a call from the academy informing him that his visa was going to expire in 2 days. He had three choices, 1) try to renew it in Shanghai, 2) if he couldn’t renew it he had to go back to Yantai or 3) go to Hong Kong and try to renew it there. We were not planning on going back to Yantai for another 4 days. If Scott had to go back to Yantai our trip will be cut short. We decided that Scott would try to renew his visa in Shanghai tomorrow and hope for the best.

We rode the train back to our hotel and I saw a guy spit in the train, on the floor… China is really dirty. People spit everywhere and there is a lot of garbage on the street. People are rude; they push you and shove you to get by you or in front of you. I don’t like it.

For dinner we went to the French Concession district. It’s a really nice area with a lot of bars and restaurants. We had dinner at a German restaurant and went to a jazz bar after dinner. The singer at the bar was really good she was from Vegas.

Scott has been obsessed with the show “How I Met Your Mother” and he got me hooked on it too. On one episode Barney and Robin went to a cigar bar and Robin became an “Honorary Bro” or one of the guys, so to speak. When Scott and I saw that they sold cigars at the Jazz bar we HAD to get one and I became an honorary bro. We smoked our cigars, drank scotch and listened to the jazz band. The cigar wasn’t that bad until the end and the smoke became really harsh so I stopped smoking it. We had a glass of Glennlivet and that was actually pretty good. I don’t know if the scotch made the cigar taste better, or the cigar made the scotch taste better, but I liked both. This was the best thing we did the entire time we were in Shanghai. After the Jazz bar we grabbed ice cream at Haagen Das and went back to the Hotel.

Let’s hope Scott gets his visa tomorrow

Xoxo,

Kc

Wednesday

We got up early this morning to go to the US consulate to get Scott’s visa renewed. We got in the taxi and it started to rain HARD. Our taxi driver got lost but we got to the place Scott looked up online. We got out of the taxi and he drove away. It was raining so incredibly hard. I tried to walk past the guard into the building but he stopped me. He tried to make me stand in the rain, in my dress, while he talked to someone. I was not having it. I told him I am not going to stand in the rain and I didn’t move. He even tried to push me away! I could tell this was going to be a very bad day….He took our visas and talked to a guy in the building while we waited under an umbrella in the rain. They told us we were at the wrong place and had to go to a different location.

We got another taxi and had to drive across town to the second location. Our taxi driver dropped us across the street from the place he thought was the US visa office. While we were waiting to cross the street and this really nice girl offered to share her umbrella with Scott and me. We must have looked pretty pathetic. I was in a dress with flip flops and Scott was in shorts and a tank top and we were SOAKED! My hair was soaked, my dress, my backpack.  She was nice enough to walk with us across the street and up to the building. But the entrance was on the other side; we had to walk all the way around the building in the rain. Thank God it wasn’t cold rain, but inside the building the air condition was blasting and I was freezing.

There was a long line at the visa office. We were in line for about 15 minutes and I noticed a sign that said “by appointment only”. Good thing I asked the guard about it because Scott told him his visa was expiring the next day and he was able to let Scott inside to talk to someone without having an appointment. After 10 minutes Scott came out and told me we were at the wrong place, we needed to go to the Chinese consulate. OMG… could this get any worse. I spoke too soon.

We got to the Chinese consulate; Scott had to get a passport picture so we waited in line for that. It took forever because people kept cutting us in line. His number was called at the visa window. The lady tells him he cannot get his visa renewed in Shanghai because it is a special visa, his school has to help him and he has to get it in the same province as the school.  We could either go to Hong Kong or try to get him a traveler’s visa, we could go back to Yantai, or he could let his visa lapse. If it lapses he will be fined 500 Yuan ($80) a day, kicked out of china, and possibly never allowed back in.

Our plan was to go to Beijing before we went back to Yantai so I could see the great wall, go to the silk market, and shop. We tried to see if there was any way that I could go to Beijing alone, or if Scott could meet me in Beijing once he got his visa, but the visa office keeps his passport for 10 days while they process his visa application. We went to the Apple store to use the internet to look up airline prices from shanghai to Beijing and Beijing back to Yantai. Maybe we could make it to Beijing for the day before Scott’s visa expired. But the tickets were so expensive and we didn’t have time for the train.  We decided that we would just go back to Yantai.

When we left the Chinese consulate and it was pouring rain and the loudest thunder I have ever heard. It was very hot and humid in Shanghai, worse than up in Kunyushan. Luckily we found a market at one of the metro stations. We decided to go shopping here since we weren’t going to Beijing. The people at the market are crazy. They tell you an insane price for an item because they expect you to try and bargain. A few times I went into a store and asked a price for an item and I didn’t really want to buy it because it was too expensive. When I tried to leave they blocked the door and wouldn’t let me out. They would hold me back or push me back and tell me “what’s your price, no kidding, serious price”.

For example, Scott tried on a pair of shoes; the lady wanted 1000 Yuan for them that are about $162. No way were we going to buy those shoes for 162 dollars so Scott left the store. They were really nice shoes, but that’s waaay expensive. I tried to leave and the lady asked me what my price was. So I told her 100 Yuan, $16. She looked at me and told me I was crazy. So I tried to leave the store. She blocked me in; she wouldn’t let me walk past her. She told me 800 Yuan, $130. I told her no it’s ok we don’t want the shoes, she still wouldn’t let me out, Scott was standing near the door laughing at me. I told the lady we didn’t want the shoes if I had to pay more than 100 Yuan for them. Finally after about 5 minutes back and forth I got the shoes down to 170 Yuan. I think that’s pretty good so we bought them.

Scott and I had a strategy, if it was something he wanted I was the one who had all the money and wouldn’t let him buy anything and hated everything he wanted, if I was the one who wanted to buy something, Scott was the bad guy who didn’t like anything. We had lots of fun.

We were able to buy a lot of presents for my family so I’m happy.

Going back to Yantai tomorrow

Xoxo,

Kc

Thursday

Wednesday night the rain was so hard there was lightning and thunder. The thunder was so loud and lightning so bright it woke me up in the middle of the night. I was scared that our flight would be delayed and Scott wouldn’t be able to get his visa. We woke up a little late; it took an hour to get to the airport by taxi. We arrived about an hour before our plane took off. We got in line to check in and it was so long. I tried to do the electronic check in but it wouldn’t work. We heard an announcement that the Yantai passengers were already called and if we haven’t checked in go to window 14. I told Scott to stay in line just in case while I went to window 14. A guy and his wife cut in front of me made me an irritated but I didn’t say anything. I was waiting behind them and this man tried to cut in front of me, he was trying to give the guy at the counter his ID. I looked at him and told him that I was here first, get behind me. I’m not sure if he spoke English or could see in my face that I was already at my limit with my patience, but he didn’t try to cut in front of me again.  At this point we had 30 minutes till our plane took off. I finally got our boarding passes and Scott and I tried to rush to our gate. We had to go through security and walk all the way down the row to our gate. I was really hungry and there were bakeries everywhere. We still had 15 minutes and I wanted to stop. Scott wouldn’t let me and he had the money so I couldn’t get anything.

We made it to the plane and the flight took 2 hours and there was a lot of turbulence. We finally landed at 12:30; Scott had to meet Jennifer at 1:30 in Muping. We stopped at a hotel to check in and see the prices; the ladies at the counter didn’t really understand me. I just wanted to know how much the room was for the night. I got tired of waiting and so I walked away and went outside. Scott was behind me and I guess someone who spoke English talked to Scott. I got in a taxi and went to Ramada hotel while Scott went to Muping for his taxi.

When I got to the Ramada it took forever to check in. I was hungry, irritated, and just frustrated. I finally get a room and go upstairs. The hotel is ok… not as nice as the one in Shanghai, but it’s better than the academy.

I go downstairs to eat and ordered a pizza. It the best looking thing on the menu and it’s the only place opens in the hotel. I didn’t want to wander around outside on my own. I got the veggie pizza; it had corn, pineapple, onion, broccoli and bell peppers. I thought it tasted really good because it was the only thing I ate all day and it was already 2:30.

I went upstairs after I ate to wait for Scott. He told me to meet him in the lobby because the front desk needed his passport. Scott only had a copy of his passport because the visa office kept his. The ladies at the front desk couldn’t understand why he didn’t have his passport, Scott called Jennifer to explain and they had their managers come talk to Scott. I did not have the patience for this. I used it all up at the airport. I told Scott I was going upstairs.

He finally got things figured out and we Skyped our cousin for a while. After that we went to walmart and walked around the underground market. We stopped at the tea shop. The lady knows Scott really well so we sat down and tried different teas. We were there for a while and I bought a little bit of Jasmine tea.

We went back to the hotel and had dinner. We ate in the Chinese restaurant and the food was GREAT! Scott said the dumplings were the best he’s had in China.

We are going to do touristy stuff in Yantai tomorrow.

Xoxo,

Kc

 

Shanghai Noon...or Shanghai NEVER!

Shanghai Noon...or Shanghai NEVER!


As you know my sister came to the academy for a month. During that time we wanted to go travel around China for a few days. So we planned a trip to go to Shanghai and Beijing for a week to sightsee and shop. Kc booked all the hotels, i got the flights, we packed and left the academy Monday during lunch time. I haven’t took a day off from training in the past 4 months. Even if i was sick i went to class, if i was injured i went to class, if i was so sore from training i still went to class. So it was nice that i finally get a week off to take a break.

Our flight left at 4pm so we went to Subway for lunch. Walked around the mall next to Subway and then headed to the airport around 2:30. Once we got to the airport i switched to 'ALERT' mode. Maybe because I have a “brother instinct” to make sure my sister is ok or maybe i just didn’t like the ‘looks’ all those Chinese guys where giving her. My sister is tall and white, so a lot of guys were looking at her like, "Whoa look at this Laowi (Forienger) babe!" We waited a little while until we boarded the plane. The ride to Shanghai was about an hour so we landed in Shanghai around 7pm. Kc was hungry and wanted to go get food but i said, "No we have to go to the hotel first, check in, and get settled." She didn’t seem to like that idea but she followed.

We went to the airport Info Desk to ask if they knew where our hotel was so we can take a taxi. The guy told us our hotel is very far from downtown, off the map of the city so it would cost a lot to get a taxi to drive us there. We paid for a shuttle from his service line for about 300 yuan. A little expensive but i would rather pay a little more to make sure we get there, especially since it was a far drive. We got to the shuttle and it was a nice audi – not the old mini vans they have for shuttles in the USA. This was the nicest car i been in since I have been in china. When we got to the hotel it was in a nice location. Yes, far from the city but it had a subway nearby and was very nice for a Holiday Inn. Once we got checked in and dropped off our bags in the room we went downstairs to have dinner. The food was good and the chocolate fountain was amazing for desert. Then we went to bed around 9:30-10.

We took some fliers from the airport so we had some idea what to do in Shanghai. We called lot of the tours and most of them where from 600yuan-2000! I paid 150 for a whole day tour to the Great Wall and factories in Beiing. I told kc we will do tours in Beijing and just walk around Shanghai. We decided to go to the Jewish Temple in Shanghai. We took the Subway which was pretty similar to Beijing Subway so i knew how to work it out. We took a taxi from the station that was near the temple. He had no idea where it was but we thought the taxi driver did. He pointed down some road and when we got out and walked down the road...we didn’t see any temple. We went into a hotel nearby and asked the desk if they knew where the historic temple was...they said we need to walk around the block. So we did and walked around the block for another 15 minutes. We wanted to see the museum because this was where many European Jews fled to during holocaust to hide from the Nazis. Well it was a good hiding spot because we couldn’t find it! We decided we will look up the address and show it to the taxi tomorrow because Kc left the flier of the temple back at the hotel.

So we went to the aquarium which was close by. It was pretty big inside...only problem was there were about 4 million Chinese kids running around EVERYWHERE. We walked through pretty fast just to get some air. The shark tank which is what this place was known for was pretty cool to see. It was a long tunnel with glass on top so we could see sharks and turtles and big fish...again only problem was 4 million people were not meant to fit in that tunnel. Kc was already getting irritated from the little kids pushing her and the Chinese people coughing near her (Kc said when they coughed on her she would get out antibacterial wipes to wipe herself). I wondered when she will snap and “flip out” at the next person who coughed "near her". I wanted to have my camera ready for that moment. It didn’t happen. When we got out of there we had lunch.

Lunch was decent but during lunch, i got a call from the school saying they just found out that my Visa expired in two days. Without a Visa, I could not stay in China. They said i can try to go to the "US embassy" to renew my visa but if i cannot then i have to go back to the school before 1:30pm on thursday. That kind of put a mood kill on the trip but we walked around downtown for a bit before we went back to the hotel.

When we got back i looked up the embassy address and number since we had to go there tomorrow. It was about 6pm so we decided to go to the French Concession for dinner. We had dinner at a German restaurant and it was amazing. Then we passed a Cigar Jazz Bar. When my sister and i were young, dad always told us the only drink we can have is Scotch because you cannot get drunk off scotch since you can't drink it fast. The funny thing is me and KC both love an American TVshow called 'How I met your Mother' and on the show two friends had a cup of scotch and a cigar. So we decided to stop by have a cigar and a glass of scotch while we listened to a jazz band. I never thought i would see the day when my sister smoked a cigar and drank scotch with me while we listened to jazz in CHINA! How random is that?! Well i can now say we have done that. We walked around the French area a bit to look at some stores and had Hagan-Das ice cream then headed back to the hotel. Who knew what will happen tomorrow...

The next morning we tried calling the embassy while we headed there. No answer. On top of that it started to rain hard. We did not know it was going to rain so kc was just in a dress and i was in shorts and a tank top. It has been humid and hot the days that we were here. We didn’t plan for it to rain...After a 40 min taxi drive in the rain we get to the American consulate. We get out of the taxi and in the rain. It was windy and raining hard. We got to the front which was outside and a guard underneath a porch umbrella stopped me and kc from going inside. Kc got pissed and said, "I am going to stand under the umbrella," I was in the rain while kc was being pushed by the guard. She wouldn’t give up because she wanted to get out of the rain. I went to stand between him and KC. He spoke no English and i told him i am here for a visa in Chinese. He walked to the window of the consulate and got a business card. Told me i need to go there. So we tried looking for a taxi while we were underneath the umbrella. I guess they did not like us under there so they started to lower the umbrella. I told kc we better move before they take it down or else we will get soaked. Right when we got out from under the umbrella we caught a taxi. He did not know where the embassy is so i got out and told the guard to tell the taxi. He stared at me like he did not understand so i pointed to him and mimed him talking to the guy while pointing to the business card...mind you this was all done in the rain so i was soaked which made me a little irritated. So when the guard still didn’t move after i mimed all of that. i walked over to the gaurd, pointed at him, then the card, then the driver. He finally went to the driver and told him where to go. i got into the taxi soaked. The taxi driver dropped us off across the street from the building because the traffic was bad. We got out and had to wait at a cross walk. We must of looked ridiculous. It was raining and windy like a hurricane was coming and two white people where in the rain with no umbrella getting soaked. Then a Chinese lady came over with a small umbrella and held it over us which was nice. I showed her the card and she told us which building to go to. We get to the entrance of the building but it was locked so we went around...in the rain. We saw some cleaners and i showed them the card. They pointed around the corner. So we went back into the rain and walked around the building some more.

We finally get to the entrance and we were soaked. The air conditioning was on high in that building which made us very cold. We go to the 8th floor to the embassy and there is a huge line. I go to the bathroom to get some paper towels to dry myself then kc went after me to dry herself. When she came back in line, she saw a sign saying “appointment needed”. So we asked the guard about my visa and told him that i did not have an appointment. He said i have to wait for the person with the orange card to come out. I guess it was their way of letting people in with no appointment. So after 10 minutes of waiting, i got in. I went to the American side and told them about my visa expiring. The lady told me i need to go to the Chinese consulate and gave me a paper with the address.

It was already 11am and the place closed at 3pm. So we ran into the mall at the base of the building to buy umbrellas and hats since we had to go back into the rain which was still storming pretty hard. Thunder and lightning was added now. We get a taxi and headed to the Chinese consulate. Kc said she thought it was weird that we went to the US embassy but that was what the school said to do. We get into the place and get my pictures taken. Kc wanted to punch the rude Chinese guys who were trying to cut but she thought the bathrooms were dirty...so who knew what the prisons where like. She thought it better not to punch anyone.

We get to the visa desk and i tell them about my visa expiring. They said since my school does my visa i have to go back there to get my visa renewed. I told them we are traveling and cannot make it back so we need a touring visa. They said they cannot give me a tour visa since i have a student visa. I need to go back to get it renewed at Yantai. So we have to end the trip early...that really pissed me off. I went to the overstay desk thinking if it was possible to over stay my visa then just reapply after paying a fine which hopefully would be cheaper than two plane tickets back to Yantai. Well that was not the case. If i overstayed i would have to pay a fee but then I would be kicked out of the country and possibly never be able to come back. So it looked like we had to go back.

We thought we could at least get a flight to Beijing for the day to see the Great Wall, since that’s the only thing kc wanted to see. If that could not happen, then KC would go alone and meet me in Bejing after I get my new visa. I said, I thought it too dangerous for her to go alone. It was about 1:30 when we got out of the Chinese consulate so we wouldn’t have time to go to Bejing anyway. So we got tickets to fly to yantai in the morning and thought of what we could do for the last night out. Kc found a market to go to so we did some shopping. Got a few cool things and got to bargain with the shopkeepers. They sold clothes, silk, bags, glasses, shoes, and bunch of other stuff. Since we got to bargain with the stores we played good cop bad cop. I was the mean guy who held the money when she wanted something and she would be the older sister who wouldn’t let me buy the stuff i wanted. Kc first went to a bag shop. The lady told her 3000 yuan for her what kc wanted. We got it down to 600 yuan. Then we started getting stuff for 800 yuan down to 100. 600 yuan stuff down to 80 yuan. After every purchase the shopkeepers always said, "we killing them" i guess we are true Jews! Some shops got mad that we dropped from 700 yuan to 50 yuan and we would walk away. Sometimes they would run after us trying to deal and then they would give in after we said “no” so many times. Some stores were good. They would split me and kc up so we couldn’t do our trick but when I tell her we go they would block her from leaving...literally. Kc would laugh and they kept trying to bargain but would not let her leave. Got Kc a few times by blocking her. She gave in and made purchases but we still got good deals even then. Afterward we headed back to the hotel by using the subway. We dried off a little from shopping but we were still pretty wet from being in the storm all morning.

At the hotel we had dinner by room service. First time i had that in 10 months. Then we got ready for the flight tomorrow morning and got a good night sleep.

Woke up Thursday morning and checked out. We got to the airport around 9:15am and our plane leaves at 10:30am. The check-in line was huge. We got our boarding passes at 10:05am. It would of been later if Kc let the Chinese guys cut in line in front of her but every time someone tried she wouldn’t let them. One guy cut in front of her and she looked at him and said, "Back up...*(expletive deleted).

So we hurried to the security check. Once we got through there we had to go to our gate...which was the last one on the row! We walked as fast as we could and kc was whining that she did not have any breakfast and had to use the restroom. I told her on the plane she can go but we will miss the flight if we stopped now. It was last call already! We made it onto the flight and people were still coming on after us. She looked at me mad saying she had time but i would rather her be mad than me miss the flight and get kicked out of the country.

I had to meet Jennifer who did the visas at the academy in Muping at 1:30pm. We landed in Yantai at 12:15. kc and i got a taxi to a hotel by the airport to stay in. since our trip ended early we decided to stay in yantai for the weekend then go back to the academy. When we got to the hotel it was pretty expensive so kc wanted to go somewhere else. Now kc hasn’t eaten all day and when she gets stressed out, she gets mean quick (if you haven’t noticed already). So she was flipping out when we waited for the taxi because i had to meet Jennifer soon, it was already 1:18pm and i am in Yantai and still had to get to the next town over, Muping. So i gave KC money because she said she will get us a room at the Ramada which was the original plan but we did not know how to get there. The hotel manager who came out because Kc was "talking sternly" at the desk clerks, knew where the Ramada was and told the taxi where to go. I told kc i will get a taxi and meet Jennifer.

At 1:45, Jennifer called me asking where i was. My taxi driver was driving so slow. I told Jennifer my taxi driver is slow and i will be there soon. She said she will tell the driver where to meet her so i go there right away. I met her at the Police station to do the visa. After there Jennifer and I went to the Yantai government building where we always do the visas at. I asked for a copy of my passport so i can show the hotel because i need a passport to stay there.

Afterward i had Jennifer drop me off at the mall and i got McDonalds for me and Kc. I get a taxi to the hotel. I give them the copy of my passport and they told me that it won’t work they need my visa. Kc who already yelled at them when she checked in started getting angry again so i called Jennifer and told her to explain to the manager about my visa. Once they finished talking Jennifer told me they will call the police station to make sure my visa is there....and not to come arrest Kc for being mean...but everything is fine. I thanked her and hung up. Then the manger started asking me questions like when did i arrive in China, my birthday, how long i been here. I asked her why and she said she needs information to tell the police to make sure its my passport. Once that was all clear i went to the room. Kc and i went out to walk around Walmart and some shops. We passed 'TaiShan' which is a landmark on top of a mountain so we decided to do that tomorrow. When we walked around everyone was very polite, even the people in the shops had manners to say excuse me and not cough on you. I like smaller cities rather than the big ones here in China.

Had dinner back at the hotel and it was very good. I stayed here at the Ramada the first night i was in China. I remember the breakfast being amazing so i cannot wait till then. Its a shame we are back so early but i could not stand being in shanghai.

-Scott

The Week in Kunyushan

August 14

The Week in Kunyushan

Since i finished the competition on Tuesday I planned to get back to a regular training schedule on Wednesday. But since my sister came to the academy i promised her i would do Tai Chi and Qi Gong with her in the mornings. Out of my 10 months here i never went to that morning class. Mainly because

1. I wanted to focus on WingChun, Baji, and San Da when i came so i did not want to get overwhelmed, and 2,

2. Since my first day here I was never able to wake up before 7am. Tai chi is at 6 so wake up time is 530am! But for some reason,(I was happy to see my sister?) I promised that i will go to morning class with her after my competition. So Wednesday was my first day. Tai chi has two masters teaching the first form and then Master Guo teaches the other tai chi forms. This week i was taught by Master Xiang. 

Usually you get taught how to do each step in tai chi then after a few weeks you will start to learn the form. But master taught me the form right away. I picked it up quite easily which is why he probably showed me the first part of the form. Then every morning he would show me a new move. In Wing Chun, Master Guo teaches me a new move just twice a week. in tai chi with master xiang i learn one move a day! It’s faster to learn this way, but i would not want to learn my other forms like this. I like how master Guo lets us practice and then he teaches us another move. I remember Master Guo telling me at the tournament that the Chinese kids learn a form in one month and that’s the form they will do for a whole year.

It is weird seeing my sister around the academy. She seems out of place. My sister is not much of outdoor person. Her version of “camping” is going to a hotel that does not have room service. i am shocked he is doing well here so far!

Thursday was Big Mac’s last day here in kunyshan. He starts school next week so he had to go home. Before he left he asked if i had QQ, a Chinese chat messenger thing online. I did, so i gave it to him and we all took pictures with the class. He gave everyone hugs and it was sad for everyone to see him leave. He was our little kung fu baby brother.

Master Guo went to dinner with clement, Steffan, Oran, and me again. Since we got Gold medals, we invited him to dinner. He told us stories about how the school started and how he began teaching. He even told us they might start letting Chinese kids in the academy… but the head master thinks the Chinese kids will be too fascinated seeing so many white people at once and not train hard.

We had dinner down the road from the academy since master had to get back at 8pm to train. He is preparing to do a Qigong presentation by breaking a bigger piece of marble than the one he did back in March. Last time he broke a piece of marble that was about a foot thick. he wouldn’t tell us how he would break this bigger piece of marble, he said it will be a surprise.

Friday was the mountain climb. We started in the morning to climb the national park mountain. They said it would rain but we went anyway. Kc was tired before we even got to the base of the mountain....well it was about an hour walk to get to the base...uphill, but she was fine. I had to carry the food so that’s how i got her to keep walking. If she lost me then she would have no food! When she wanted water i would say, "Come on, get it," and kept walking. She would whine but hurry to get some water. To the top of the mountain was about 3km plus another km to get to the lookout part. 

We were the last students already to walk to the base so Kc, Max, Sam, and me walked up the mountain trail without a lot of breaks. I did this climb once with my friend Brittany already and it was not bad so i knew kc could make it. About half way up it started raining. the rain cooled us down from the humidity and the mountain walk. I wanted to find a stick to beat kc but soon her Master started walking up the hill and i told him in Chinese “kc is lazy so yell at her”. He did. And it scared her to keep walking. Kc turned to me and whispered..."I'm going to kill you Scott."

When we got to the top we took a break and headed back down with some friends. On the way down i told them we should take the slide down. Sure beats walking down stairs. So we paid 25 yuan each and slide down this marble slide. I did it last time and it was fun. This time since it was raining it was a little wet and when i went down...i went down FAST! Sam and Jeremy ended up crashing into each other. We all had fun and it was nice to have less steps to walk down now. When we got to the base we saw Master Guo and Rong sitting and talking. I told them my sister is very tired. They laughed and told her “good job”. All of my friends think kc is my younger sister. When i asked them why they think that they said because i am always taking care of her. I get her water, i get her stuff she needs in her room, i get her food from down the road...what they don’t know is SINCE she is older...she MAKES me do all of those things. They laugh when I told them that but it’s true.

My sister and i are going on a little break for a week and going to travel to Shanghai and Beijing. It would be a nice break for me since i haven’t taken a break from training since i began training for the first competition.

-Scott

KC Blog: Big Mountain

Blog 5 August 15, 2011




Wednesday morning I got up for tai gi and qui gong. I convinced Scott to have breakfast in the dining hall with me. He usually has breakfast in his room. He brought his chocolate powder down so I could have chocolate oatmeal.

We had stance training this morning in shaolin. We had to hold a 'horse stance' for 7 minutes, but I think it was more like 9 because Sheifu wasn’t paying attention to the time. We had to hold about 5 other stances as well. My legs hurt so bad! The second half of morning class I learned a part of the first form. There is a floor spin that I have to do and I look awful trying to do it. I fell a few times or I get stuck half way through my spin and have to push myself with my foot.



I was so hungry for lunch, I could hardly wait to eat. After lunch I rested in scott’s room. Afternoon class was san da. I love san da its fun. But it was soooooo incredibly hot and the humidity must have been 90%. I was sweating so much. It was so hot Sheifu had us practice outside behind the building in the shade.

The rest of the day I stayed in Scott’s room, finished my book and tried to rest because Thursday is power training.



Thursday

On Thursday mornings my shaolin group does Qi Gong and "conditioning". We walk about 2 miles to the river and each student finds a rock to sit on. After meditating for about 30 minutes our Sheifu calls us up and we walk to the bridge to do moving qi gong. Clement shows me the moves to do, but it’s hard to remember. I have so many forms to memorize its hard keeping track of everything.

Once we finish qi gong we have to punch and kick each other for conditioning. Good thing I don’t bruise easily because my partner hit me pretty hard a few times. We then had to find a rock to use to gently hit our shins. The purpose of conditioning is to get out bodies used to the impact and our bones stronger. I had to punch the cement wall for a while also.

Since we have power training in the afternoon we don’t have the second part of morning training on Thursdays. Power training was really, really hard. We did our usual run before class and headed to the training hall. Master made us do 7 minute planks with our legs up on the stretching bar. I had a hard time holding my plank. During the 7 minutes Master would stop us and make us do 20 pushups. He did that about 3 times. After that we had to sprint across the training hall, do frog jumps, and bear crawls. We did abs exercises and class was over, I felt like my body was dead.

I didn’t think I would be able to make it down for dinner. I was sore from stance training yesterday and I knew I’d be sore from power training. The only thing that got me up to dinner was my hungry tummy.

Dinner was really good, I don’t know if I like the food because I’m always hungry from training, or if the food really is good.

We have to walk up the big mountain tomorrow. Wish me luck.


Mountain Walk

On Friday afternoons the students are required to go on the mountain run, but every 3 months or so they have the students go up the big mountain. It takes about an hour to walk to the base of the mountain. I was having such a hard time walking to the mountain I made Scott, Sam, Max (British guy in Scott’s Wing Chung group) and me last. Well, almost last, a lot of students decided to turn around and go back to the academy, but Mathieu and Will (American guy from Jersey) were still behind us so we weren’t THAT slow.
It started to rain while we were walking which was nice because it wasn’t too hot. We finally made it to the mountain. There was this rope that you can climb, kind of like a tight rope. Scott went first then me, Max and Sam. Max and Sam started jumping on it to make me fall off. It was funny but scary. There was netting around the rope, but I could see myself falling through the rope so I went back and walked across the bridge instead

.

There are about a billion stairs up the mountain. Halfway up the mountain Mathieu, Will and my sheifu caught up with us. Mathieu and Will sat on a rock and my master stopped to talk to them, but we kept going up the stairs. Every 100 steps or I’d have to stop to catch my breath. Scott called out to my sheifu and told him in chinese that "I’m bad and lazy." My sheifu yelled at me “FASTER”. Omg! I was going to push Scott down the mountain if my sheifu started chasing me up the mountain. But thank God he didn’t. We reached a resting point with benches and my Sheifu came up and offered us chips. I sat for about a minute took a chip and started up the mountain again. I didn’t want him to think i'm weak, even though I felt like it.

The rain was coming down hard for a while, by the time we made it all the way to the top I was cold, soaked, hungry, and my legs were covered in mud. We’d stop every once and a while to snack but the boys kept reminding me that we were last so they didn’t want to stop for too long. As we were walking up we saw a few people start walking down. At the top the students and sheifus were eating and sitting. We weren’t up there more than 5 minutes and the sheifus told us to start walking down. Oh man… my legs were giving out on me. I actually fell once on the stairs but I didn’t get hurt.

Halfway down the mountain is a slide made out of marble. You can take the slide as a fun short cut.  There is a cost of a couple coins to do it.  I wanted any kind of short cut there was.  

To slide, they make you wear covers over your clothes and you slide down. Sam, Scott and Jeremy went before me. When I was trying to go down I kept getting stuck so the lady threw me an empty flattened soda bottle to sit on. It helped a lot and I soon I was going fast! It felt nice to sit for a minute.

At the base of the mountains we saw the Sheifus sitting and waiting for the students. The walk back to the academy seemed to take forever. All I wanted to do was sit down. My calves were so tight I was walking funny. When I got back I took a shower and could barely get up to go to dinner.

After dinner I sat in Scotts room and watched a few movies on my computer.

Tomorrow we are going to Yantai.

Xoxo, Kc

Stance Training- Charlely (circus guy)

Qi gong spot

Scott Blog Tournament 2 Day 2.

Day 2



Woke up early again and got ready by myself since Jake didn't have to go back today. 11 of us went on day two to perform. Luckily all our forms were in the morning so we started warming up as soon as we got there. When Clement and I were warming up, a few Chinese people came over and asked to take pictures. Clement said we should pose so we did. After that about 12 more kids came over to take pictures with the "cool foreigners" doing poses. After that we kind of walked away from our new fans since we needed to warm up. Still, while i was warming up people would take pictures of me and about 5 people just asked to take pictures with just me. Maybe it's because of my tattoo?

Master Guo met us out front with his daughter who was performing a shaolin form today, she is 11 years old. Master Xiang and Master Sun helped us today and they both perform today as well. After warm up we were told our order. I was the 3rd person up for my WingChun form and then after that i am up for my Baji form. I asked Master if i would have a break and he said he will fix it. 

My Baji form was with Clement so In the last tournament i got gold for my Wingchun form and Staff but only silver in Baji because i competed in the same division as Clement. So i asked Master Xiang if we were in the same division but he did not know.  When Master told me i was moved to perform 8 people later in a different division, i got hope.  I went out to do my WingChun form and it went well. Then i waited a bit to do my baji. Right before i went to do my Baji form, an old guy maybe 60 or 70 went to do a baji form...it was the same form as mine!! Every move was the same, except my stances were a bit lower and i stomped harder but hey he is like 60. I was shocked. I went out next and performed and felt like i did a good job. Was it good enough to beat the other guys in that division? I think so...but i dont know about beating Clement. 

I finally got a chance to relax. All my forms were done. Master Xiang gave me my medals for my staff form along with my WingChun....both gold! I was happy. I really wanted to know what i got for Baji. I sat with the other guys and Master Sun while the tournament continued. Finally Master Sun went to get more medals for us. So far everyone got gold. Its not a big shock....the other foreign schools were not that good. Master Sun came with my certificate hiding my medal underneath. Finally he gave it to me and it was....GOLD! I was so happy i said, "AWESOME! High Five Shifu!" And he did while he laughed. Master Guo was so bored from judging he was watching us in the stands. I waved and showed him my medals in one hand and made a number three in the other hand. I saw master smile and go back to judging. When the morning part finished 10 people got gold and 1 got silver. We all did very well considering it was a harder tournament than last time and more people got silver last competition.

After numerous amounts of pictures taken we all headed to get lunch. Me and clement told master we saw a guy do a sword form like mine, the big sword. We said it was not very nice. Master said, "Next year you come back and perform your MaoDao." Thats the big sword. Looks like i got to come back! 8 of us stayed, including me and kc, to watch the San Da boxing in the afternoon. We had subway for lunch then walked around the mall till it was time to go back at 2pm. there were about 4 fights and they were all pretty bad. They never had their guard up, barely punched, but their kicks were ok. We all thought it would be better.

After that we headed back to the academy. Training tomorrow.

No weekend break for me.

-Scott

KC Blog Tournament 2 Day 2

Competition day two

We got the competition place the same time as before. Fewer students went to watch because there was class and the competition the day before took so long. I went to McDonalds with a few people because that was the only place that was open at 730am.

Scott performed in the morning and I wasn’t expecting him to perform so soon I almost missed him. Master Gou was judging the kids on the other side of the gym and everytime a student from the academy would perform master gou would look over to our side and would not pay attention to the kids on his side. It was really funny. One of the kids did monkey form today. I’ve never heard of monkey form and it was so funny to watch. He really looked like a monkey!

After all the students finished their performances we went to subway and it actually tasted like subway. We walked around the mall for a bit and went back to the gym to watch the sparring matches. I don’t’t know a lot about sparring but I could tell that these guys weren’t very good at fighting. They kept dropping their hands and just looked so tired. Once the competition was over we went back to the academy.




KC

KC Blog Tournament 2 Day 1

Sunday, resting day

We went to Muping to do a little shopping. We had lunch in the noodle shop. You can watch them make your noodles while you wait for your food. After we ate we walked around a bit and went shopping. I got this really tasty melon from a street vendor. It was a cross between a cantaloupe and a honey dew melon.

We stopped at the bathhouse and got a massage. It was nice but…. A guy in front of me kept hocking loogies and people all around me were smoking. But besides that the massage was really nice. After the bathhouse we went back to the Academy and rested.



Competition day 1

We left the academy at 6 am. And arrived in Yantai around 7. The competition didn’t start until 9. The competitors were practicing and people were setting up. At 9 a few groups did demonstrations and the competition began. Scott found out that he wasn’t going until the afternoon. A few students from the academy went to McDonalds but I didn’t want to eat McDs. Chris, the Belgian guy in my shaolin group, asked if I wanted to go get food. He didn’t want McDonalds either. There was a typhoon last night and it hadn’t stopped raining since. We didn’t have a taxi so we decided to walk around and find food. We walked a block and didn’t find anything. The top half of Chris’ shirt was wet; thank God I had a jacket on.

We decided to get a taxi but realized we didn’t know how to get back to the competition. Chris asked the cab driver to write the address so we could show it to the next taxi driver. We didn’t know where to eat besides McDonalds. Chris asked the taxi to drop us by Walmart so we could look around. We didn’t find any food so we decided to go to KFC.

We went back to the competition and watched the performances. Scott told me he was the last person to perform. The gym was really nasty and dirty. It smelled like pee and cigarettes. In China people spit EVERYWHERE and smoke everywhere. There was a slight haze inside the gym from all the cigarette smoke.

The kids performing were sooooo amazing! They looked like little soldiers. A girl performed with metal nunchucks. She was great! She couldn’t have been older than 12.Another girl performed with the bull whip and I loved it! I want to learn how to use the bull whip.  A few kids perfomed the drunken style kung fu and that was pretty neat.

The students from the academy were quite good as well. Everyone got medals and most got gold. Scott didn’t perform until after 4pm, but it was worth the wait. He did his staff form today and did a really good job.

After we went back to the academy had dinner and rested.

Scott Blog Tournament 2 Day 1.

Tournament 2


Day 1

Monday the 8th of August was competition number two. After the first competition on the 24th of July i was exhausted. For the last couple months i have been training non stop for completion. I would do extra training before morning classes, during afternoon breaks, and at night. When i finished the first competition i thought about taking a break. Clement and Oran took a couple days off from class but i never seemed to come around to ask a day off from Master. I leave in a few months so i want to get through as many forms as i can. Also Master made me the second leader of the class now so i didn’t want to take a break.



The second tournament is known to be harder than the first one. At the first one there were about 500 people max. This one was said to have about 1,200 people minimum and it lasted two days. Still, the week of the second tournament i took it a little easy. Also since the tournament is a week this time we are training from Monday to Saturday and then have Sunday to rest and Monday at the competition. The week before the completion, after classes i would stretch instead of doing my form. During classes would be when Clement and i would train each other for the second competition but after class we rested. My knees also been acting up a little so i didn’t want to put to much pressure on them before the tournament.

The day before the competition a few guys from the academy went to the bath house to get massages and relax. Kc and i tagged along. We got a good night sleep and woke up at 5am. Jake and i went to warm up at 5 again just like the last competition. After warm up was a shower and then breakfast. This tournament was at a new location somewhere in Yantai. Day 1 was Monday. From our school, only 7 out of 13 competitors from the first completion went. I had one form to do on Monday, my staff form, and two on Tuesday, WingChun and Baji fist forms. A couple other guys from school had to compete both on day 1 had to compete on day 2 as well. A few people from school came to watch on Monday since we had Monday off from school. Master Xiang, Qu, Rong, and Sun went to the competition with us. Only Master Rong competed on Day 1.

So many schools from all over Shandong came to this tournament. Almost all of them did Mantis. Not really surprising due to the fact Yantai is the birth place of Mantis. So many young kids where doing forms so much faster and more complicated than most of our forms. Master Guo was a judge for this tournament. Two mats, green and red, where laid out and each mat had about 8 judges. Master was judging on the green mat. Clement and i both where told by Kathy, the translator, who had the list of who is going that we were competing second but he was on red and i was on green. I was happy and a little nervous that i have Master as one of my judges. When the tournament started we all sat with the Masters and other competitors from my school on the left of the judges. The place this time was a bit older. The floors and chairs where dirty, the bathrooms where horrible, the performing floor was a lot smaller as well. Only reason i could think of why they went here instead of the first competition was it had more seats.

Remember how i said we were told there would be 1,200 people. Well that day it rained...it rained hard. We got there and there were about 800 competitors or maybe more but clearly no more than 1000. The Masters told us since its raining so hard, not a lot of people showed up. That’s fine by me, less people=less nervous for me.

So the competition started. Whie the first guy was performing, i asked Master Xiang if i should start getting ready. He said," No, you later later. In afternoon." So i went to sit down and watch the morning competition. So many great performers. We saw people performing fist forms to Weapon forms. Some weapons forms were amazing, some were a little repetitive and boring. After 3 hours of watching people perform it was lunch break. The competition took a break from 11:30- 1:30. The head master went to go get lunch for the competitors which was nice. Clement and i went down to say hi to Master Guo. He seemed bored judging but he said it was ok. We told him i will perform on the green and Clement on the red. Master laughed and said he will be a judge for me. I was not sure if that’s good for me or not. He knows my form so if i mess up like last time he will know. During the lunch break, Clement and I practiced our form a little on the mat to get a good feeling of the mat and the space. After we had lunch, we started warming up. I was not sure when i performed in the afternoon so i started warming up with everyone else. Master came to us on the mats and told me and Clement that he is going to the red mat to judge so Clement had him as a judge not me. I was a bit relieved to hear that. When it started, the masters told us our order. I was LAST! LAST is the WORST! Why? You spend the most time being nervous and you can’t sit down and relax or else you get tired and your muscles will get cold. This is probably the worst way to prepare. The week after the first completion, I slacked off on the extra training, and now I have been sitting around all day feeling nervous. Well, I will do the best I can. Maybe I should not have taken it so easy last week.




After watching others for two hours I went to Master and asked if i am up soon. He said the same thing again, "No, you last, last." I wondered if started to mean last one to perform out of everyone! I asked him how many more people in front of me. He flipped the pages full of names about 3 times. He said still about 40 people. That’s not good. I sat down with the other Masters and tried to relax. I had about another hour to two hours till I’m up. Master Sun, Xiang, and Rong sat with me. They spoke to each other in Chinese and i listened in and picked up a few words here and there. My Chinese got a lot better thanks to Big Mac. I spoke back to them a bit in Chinese. I told Master Rong his performance was great and asked if the other Masters performed today and if they were tired. They saw me a bit nervous and tense and Master Xiang laughed and said “Relax Relax” in Chinese. Then Master Sun gave me some advice on performing which was nice. When ever the masters called us for our order of tournaments they would use my Chinese name. They did that for both tournaments. When ever another master instead of Master Guo called me ‘Zi Long’ it sounded weird. But I'm glad they use my Chinese name, makes it feel more like I am in a Chinese movie.

When there were only 20 people till my turn I went to warm up. I felt bad because everyone from my school who came to watch seemed to be super bored. I did not want to keep everyone waiting just for me. What if i messed my form up and they waited for nothing? I should not have taken it so easy the last week. More ideas like this ran through my head. Made me a bit more tense. Clement came over and said he could see i was tense and watched me practice my staff form. Finally i was up. Master Guo left his judging seat and came over to watch me. I remember walking up to the mat, then I remember walking off the mat. I blanked out, but somehow i did my form. When i got off the stage i ran to Clement and asked him if i did it right because i don’t remember doing my form. He laughed and said i did it perfectly. Since the others finished their forms early they got their results. Everyone from my school got gold except for one guy but he was happy with silver. Since i was literally the last one to perform i would find out my score on Tuesday. That did not make me too happy. We all got ready for the trip back to the academy. We got back had dinner and after washing up i crashed on my bed. It was about 8pm and i was already ready for bed. I had a long day and being nervous was exhausting and i needed rest. Tomorrow i had two forms so i got a early night sleep.


-Scott