We had a blast.... 'nuff said

The weekend.


Friday-

Started off with training. Today was the mountain run. Morning training was pretty easy. We had a new guy join our Wing Chun class. His name is Jake, 22, from Australia, and he came here with his wife. Not sure what his wife's name is but she is 23 from Australia too.



After lunch was the mountain run. Usually you can run 6 times up and down the mountain. I wanted to try the Bear Crawl on my hands down the stairs. They tell us that if you do bear crawl instead of run, it’s only 3 times up and down. A new thing is that, the master makes us bear crawl down a different set of stairs because it gets too crowded on the mountain. The stairs for Bear Crawl are a bit shorter. They are a  set of white marble stairs. Since the number of stairs are about 1/3 of the regular run, Master said if we do bear crawl we are to do it 10 times up and down the small set of stairs. That didn’t sound to bad so i decided to do the bear crawl.

When we got to the mountain Kyle, Rob, and a couple other guys were doing the bear crawl. Most of the guys were only going to do it five times, but Kyle was committed to doing the full 10 sets. I was going to try this and I was going to try the full 10 sets. After I did 3 bear crawls my arms were so sore! I was thinking that maybe the guys who were only doing 5 sets had it right. Then Kyle said, "Come on Scott, let’s do 20 sets!" For some reason....I said, "OK!" Kyle was always two crawls ahead of me. He crawls fast! Now crawling on your hands and knees down a flight of stairs might not seem too hard to some people but there was one other problem. The stairs were marble and a bit slippery. If you don’t keep control, your hands could slip away from you and your face smashes on the marble step. So we were not just diving down the stairs letting gravity do the work. It was more like we were doing moving ‘planks’ because we had to keep our bodies balance and stable.



When I was on the 16th crawl and he was on the 18th crawl, the Masters came to watch us. When we started there were about 4 guys crawling. As time passed more and more guys came to crawl. About 7 students including me were crawling today. Once the masters came we crawled even faster! That didn’t help my arms at all! One of the masters followed a student down the stairs kicking her because she crawled too slow. (yes a girl student) We all kind of ignored what was happening and crawled because we didn’t want to be kicked...well I didn’t anyway. Kyle and I did all 20 sets. After we finished I headed back to the academy to get ready for Rodney's goodbye dinner night. Sam, Danny, Gram, Kjertil (AKA Gertle), Mark, Matt, and Rodney were all going out tonight. We had a blast.


Saturday-
Next morning headed back to the Academy after sleeping at the Bath House. Did my laundry, cleaned my room, watched a couple movies, had a relaxed day.


Sunday-
I was talking to Rodney and planned to see him for Lunch before he left Yantai. I booked a cab for myself to go to Yantai. I met up with him, went to a noodle shop that he told me about a while back and i wanted to try out. The food was great. First time i had noodles in China. During training Rodney told me about how you can fish for crab and I wanted to try that ever since. I asked Danny and a few other guys who have been here pretty long and no one had heard of it. I told Rodney before he leaves we have to try it out. So after we ate we went to the beach to fish. When we got there the waves were so strong they would smack into the other people who were fishing. They got SOAKED. I told Rodney, "Ok, well I know where to go now, I’ll come back another day." He had to finish packing anyway. 

Rodney and Scott at the beach.

Lady with a stick and Crab net

On the way back we were talking about how he is sad to leave and he doesn’t want to go. We realized how bonds are quickly made here at the academy. In the car he said, "Bonds are made so quickly probably because we train together, suffer the pain together, eat the same food, its like spending time in prison." I can’t say I know what being in prison is like....not sure how Rodney knows either, but I agree. Friendships are made quickly and since we share so many things in common, bonds are made quickly. I have known Rodney for 5 weeks and it feels like I am saying good bye to a best friend I’ve known for years. I saw other friends saying goodbye to him Friday night and I couldn’t imagine how sad I will be on that day when I leave here and say goodbye. Rodney even said that was the hardest part of leaving. Seeing everyone and hugging them goodbye… must be hard. It feels like we are a family here. 

5 students... wait there are six of us.
Gram, Clement doing horse stance, Issac on top, Andres under clement, Philip kneeling and  me (Scott)

After the beach I had the taxi drop Rodney off at his Apartment he stayed at when he was working and before he went to the academy. Saying goodbye made me sad. I told him next time i see him it'll be in Australia on one of the nice warm beaches.



Before we headed back to the academy I wanted to get a hair cut across the street at the mall. Risky I know. I walked in and asked if they spoke English. The lady ran up to a hair dresser and he came over and asked me how I wanted my hair done. I told him just a trim. So I got my hair washed and went to a seat. I had no idea if he understood me, no idea if he told the hair dresser who was cutting my hair I wanted a trim, but he went to work. I just hoped for the best. Luckily he cut a little off and I relaxed a bit. After got another hair wash and paid 30 Yuan. Basically 5 dollar hair cut. (Beat that TARA!) After that I had the taxi driver take me home. On the way back we passed a bus stop and Peter Pan was there. The taxi pulled over and I told him hop in and I’ll share the taxi with him. I asked him if he knew where a couple shops where in Muping because I wanted to get some martial art slippers. So we went to the shop, got some good kung fu slippers and on the way back to the cab we saw a tailor shop. We went inside to see the prices. I wanted a long jacket for the winter because I only have the sleeveless top and I will get cold. I asked how much it would be. 320 expensive! For me to get 2 pants and a top at another tailor shop altogether was only 400! Peter Pan priced a pair of pants they said 150! I said ‘let’s leave and check out the other shop’. We walked around the corner to the first tailor I bought my outfit from. A top with sleeves alone was just 250. Pan didn’t want to buy anything so I said, "ok ill come back another day." On the way back the taxi driver was in the tailor shop. We went inside and they offered Pan 140 yuan for pants. The material here really was a bit nicer. He said, "130?" They said, "120?" He was shocked and said, "120?" They agreed. He said, "OK!" They told me the top would be 240 for me. I said ok that’s pretty good. They sized me up, wrote out the receipt and the total was 140. I said 140? and I wrote out 140 on the calculator. They said "ya". I said, "OK!" Made some great deals there. Then went back to the academy. Had dinner next door because we got back after dinner. Washed up and going to sleep to get some rest for training tomorrow.

Goodnight

-Scott 

Life Here is Great

Chinese word of the day-Wo hen Hao-means- I am good.

Life here is different. Best way to discribe my life is to sing the
Hakuna Matata song from Lion King. Life here is great. There are 'no worries'. We wake up, train, improve our health, become more fit, learn how to defend ourselves, and go to bed. It is a really great life. EVERYONE who is leaving is leaving for one of three reasons. Either School, Go back home for a job, or going back home because they are running out of money. I am really concidering staying here longer. Any comments on that?

The weather is getting stranger and stranger. Yesterday it was sunny, hot, beautiful. Today it was foggy, thunder, wind, and rain. There is no snow yet and hopefully no snow for a while. As much as I want to see snow, I heard training in the cold is very....very hard. I will let you know how 'life in the cold' will be soon.

Today training was easy. Mountain run tomorrow so thursdays are easy when we don't do the 'circuit training' like last week. Today was basic and afternoon class was fun. Did San Da with Gram. Gram is from New Zeland, about 27 I think. HE taught me how to punch quicker, block sooner, kick faster, real good tips. Maybe if I train with him for a few weeks my sparring will become really good and I will Spar in the arena soon.


A lot of people are arriving at the acadamy. Its shocking. I heard this place is deserted during the winter. A lot of my friends are leaving though. Rodney and Issac leave this week. Gram, Rorey, and a few others are leaving in a few weeks. I am making life long friends here. My Grandpa told me before I came here I would "No Doubt make life long friends." Well Grandpa you are correct. I now have friends from Austrailia, New Zeland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, England, Saint Martin, and many other places. Maybe before I go home I will visit some of those places and stay with some friends. Time will tell.

Tomorrow is the Mountain Run. But a few friends and I are going out tonight for Rodney's goodbye party. Train hard, Celebrate hard! So far, the guys who are going out are Rodney, Sam, Gram, Matt, Jkertle aka Gertle ( I spelt it Gertle which is wrong), and Danny. Will be an exciting night I hope. Dont worry I will fill you in.

Hakuna matata

-Scott

It's Wednesday must be power training day

Chinese word of the day-Hao De-means-Good

Breakfast was great! My friend left the school to go back home and was giving away stuff he didn't want to pack. I think he gave me the best stuff. He gave me BANANAS! So this morning for breakfast I had oatmeal, chocolate, eggs and bananas!

Stretched this morning. For some reason I keep having Rodney stretch me. He DOESNT LISTEN! He stretched my leg so high this morning it hurt SO bad. On the other hand I am getting really flexible! I can almost do the splits with my left leg forward!!

Learned more in wing chun class.  In second class we did baji in the big training hall and we even did the punching line. Got a couple bruises on my shoulders from punches and elbows. Good for Conditioning! Then Master Gou took pics of us doing our forms.

After class Rodney came up and told me that he worked so hard on the dummy and for me to look at the results. He showed me his knuckle that had a piece of skin wripped off. I was laughing so hard I told him, "Wow your so tough Rodney. I'll put that in my blog!"

Today lunch was interesting. I was at the front of the line for once because Master Gou let our class go early so our class got a good spot in line for lunch. I was about third person from the front. When we were let in the servers didnt grab the spoons to dish out the food but instead the guys in front of me just grabbed the spoons and started scooping food in their own bowls. The kitchen lady didnt stop them so I grabbed the spoon and got a big bowl and got a bit more for lunch than usual. I had no idea what one of the dishes were. I could recognize that it had potatos, chicken. sheep. I sat down at the table and Sam reached into his bowl and pulled out a chicken foot that was barried in his food!

Afternoon POWER TRAINING was pretty easy today. Some how Rodney got me to run past the usual tree. We push ourselves a bit more since it was power training. Raced during the drills again and when I was on my hands during the wheel barrel drill I even went fast and caught up with a guy who was already half way finished. I just wanted to see if I could beat him. I went so fast Rodney, who was holding my legs, almost had to run.

After we finished stretching and we partnered up to stretch more I had to push on Rodney's back so he gets a better stretch. Some of the other guys sit on each other but I prefer pushing down on the back...Rodney agrees. After a while he would say 'push a little more'. Then after a while He said, "Done." I guess I didn't hear him correctly because I pushed him lower. He yelled, "Done!" I said, "Oh! Sorry." Then I pushed down one more inch just to get revenge for his making me stretch high during morning class.


Then had the little competition with Rodney again like last power training day. Did a couple more sit ups and other exercises than required just to be sure to beat him. He wouldn't tell me his number until I finished. He says he beat me a couple times but I think I still did more.


When we did planks instead of putting our knuckles on the nice soft mat, Master said, "floor. better." So we got on the floor and did planks for 7 minutes on our knuckles. IT WAS NOT BETTER! IT HURT.

Showered up. Went to dinner. Legs are soooo sore. Now going to get an early rest.

Goodnight.

-Scott

Tuesday Nov 10

This is the second try at this blog.  I hit a wrong key and the whole thing disappeared. So this is my second try and a little shorter.

 Stretched with rodney this morning. He really made me stretch! I said 'ok done', then he would raise my leg higher! I would say "ok thats good." He would still raise my leg higher! Then for some reason, I let him stretch my other leg. HE did the same thing! After I was stretched it was my turn....revenge time! I lifted his leg up higher whenever he said "done"or "finished", and kept lifting until his back leg lifted off the ground. His other leg is injured so I was nice and didn't cause pain to it. Hope he doesnt walk in circles. 

Rodney Danny and Sam

By the way Rodney informed me at dinner tonight that he is 31, not 36 which I wrote in my blog. I found out he is reading my blogs. Told him to become a 'follower'.  And to anyone else who likes this blog, i would like it if you become a 'follower' too. There is a button at the bottom of this to click on.  The more followers the more I am excited to keep writing this blog.  

Also leave comments about subjects or topics you would like to me write about (or take pictures of).  This is my first blog and any suggestions would be soooo helpful.  

Ok ok, back to the Blog.  

It is getting cold now.  When I walk outside my face is so cold! And I can see my breath!

Training class was ok. Did basics in class. For some reason warm ups are so hard now! We do like 15 extra exercises like jumping jacks, more push ups, and a bunch of other ones. I don't know if we do more to warm us up since its so cold, or it could be that  no one in my group is new, so we are bumping up to the next level? I dont know. But hey if it makes me fit then I am happy. I am getting in really good shape. I love it. 

Dinner was crazy! We had SHEEP for dinner!  Could it be the sheep that the student gave to the kitchen?  Well anyway, it was really good!!! 

Very tired. Going to sleep now.

Good night.

-Scott

I came, I saw, I cleaned?

Monday November 7, 2010

Breakfast tasted so good. Didnt get any bananas but I havent had oatmeal for breakfast for two days and I realllllly wanted oatmeal with choclate this morning.... Its the little things :-).


All the students are required to help keep the academy grounds clean. Everyone has one day a week to clean. I haven't been assigned a day yet until last week. I was asigned to clean on Mondays and this is my first Monday cleaning. So today after breakfast was my first cleaning. As a member of the Wing Chun group, I have to help keep the Wing Chun training hall clean. Jospeh, my class leader and my other friend Jiggy also cleans on Mondays. It was sooooooo HARD! To clean we have to sweep the Wing Chun training hall, sweep the leaves off the patio in front of the wash room, sweep the path in front of the gate, and mop the training hall. Since it rained, hailed, and i even heard thunder last night, leaves were everywhere...and wet. We only have a small mop and stick brooms, which are litterally sticks weaved together LOOSELY to sweep the floor. We swept the leaves that blew into the room first. Once we finished the room, we swept the leaves to corner of the training hall. Well we tried. The wind was blowing the opposite direction so when we tried to sweep the leaves that were not sticking to the ground would fly back towards us! So we had to sweep the leaves twice as far going with the wind and putting the leaves in the road. After that we swept the front of the training hall. I was done with my first Monday Cleaning but i was not done cleaning. I had to run to my room and clean that before 'room inspection'. I ran to my room and cleaned my room before Master Gou saw my room. Luckily I got to put my clothes away, hung up my jackets, and swept my floor before he saw my room. 


After inspection I went to first class. At my first class I learned 2 new moves for my form.


Had a small break before conditioning class. Since it was really windy outside, we didnt have to go outside to hit the trees. instead Master Gou gave us blocks of wood to hit instead. After we hit the blocks, we had to hit each other. Forearms, back, legs, the usual. I partnered up with Rodney to hit forearms. When we hit forearms we step to the side. Master Gou taught us an extra strike we could do after we turn around. Rodney and I got it down so we hit each other pretty fast. then we did kicks. Master Gou showed us a new way to condition our shins....by kicking!!!! He used me to show the class how to do it so I stood in horse stance while he kicked my shins. HURT SO BAD! 


Lunch was great had Fried Chicken.


Afternoon class was interesting. While we ran it started to rain. When we got back everyone went into the Big Training hall to train. I learned a couple new moves for my Baji Form as well. 


After class i showered up, got ready for mandarin class at 6:30pm and also for dinner.


At dinner i was sitting with Rodney, The new guy from Saudi Arabia and a few other friends. The guy from Saudi Arabia told us how he went to a near by farm and had a Sheep sacraficed! It was for his religion. He also brought some back and gave it to the kitchen staff! Not sure if we will have lamb soon.


Mandarin class was fun. I learned how to tell time and got better at saying numbers. The mandarin class is small. Only about 8 students. About 6 of them are from Wing Chun so its a fun class. Danny teaches the class every other week. Jenny teaches the other week. 


Had a long day. Going to get some rest.


-Scott

Saturday pictures

Saturday

After we got back to the academy from the adventure on Friday I took a looooong NAP. 

Had a relaxed day. Cleaned my room, did a little bit of laundry, watched a bit of movies, and had a kicked back day.

It was nice to relax for once. I've been training hard, running around all day this week.

Nothing special happed today.

Got an early sleep because i was going to Yantai again to buy some supplies. 

-Scott

Here we are.  (Master Gou is behind girl in red scarf)

Gertle and Scott

So my first Testing day and it was a 'test' just to get to the testing class

Scott(me),  Sam  and  Danny

Friday November 5, 2010


I have a tourist visa to visit here in China. Problem is I was only able to get a 30 day visa. The school had told me that they would help me extend this visa. So my visa expires no the 7th and I was told I had to go to get my visa renewed this morning so i can stay. Problem was today is grading. I even had a form i had to do with a partner and if i am not here HE can't test and level up so I felt really bad. I was told that If i didnt go renew the visa I would be kicked out of China or stuck in a chinese prison! (Were they kidding? I was not willing to find out) They said getting visas takes the whole day so I knew i would not make it back for grading.


My first visa was only good for 30 days. I got my new visa for 3 months then I renew it again.


Woke up at 7 had breakfast then went to get ready to go into town for the visa. My friends Kyle and Oruan was going with me to renew their Visas too. Jennifer, the lady who works in the office, went with us to do all the paper work.


We went to the bank first. Had to exchange american money and get 1000 yuan which is about 150 US dollars. The price of the new visa was 990 yuan.


Went to the police station I'm not sure why but we had to wait about 30 minutes while Jennifer did some paper work. When she finished we had to drive an hour to Yantai to do more visa paper work. I'm not sure how the process works I just went along for the ride. When we got in the taxi to head to Yantai Jennifer said we had to go back to academy because she had to send a message. I was so happy because if we go back to the academy I can make it back for grading!


We made it back to the academy before grading started. I ran up stairs changed into my kung fu outfit I bought at the tailors and went down to find my partner to tell him I am here. Gertle was glad I made it back so we could do our sparring form. Grading was very long. A lot of people were grading from the Shaolin group. Only four people were grading from my group. I was very nervous but i still went up in front of all the students and teachers. I graded and passed!!


After grading we had to go back to town to finish our visas. On the way to the visa place I brought my iphone and kyle and I played" angry birds" which is an game app on my phone. Helped killed time in the hour car ride into town. When we got to the visa place we were at there for over two hours. Then had to drive an hour back to the academy. It was very long.


Sam also graded and passed. When we got back I wanted to go celebrate grading. . So Sam, Danny, and I went to go get dinner in Yantai and stay at a 'bath house' in Muping for the night. We had much fun at dinner. There was a stage where the performers would sing and dance. I told Sam we got to get up on stage and dance. So when they played regular music, I dragged sam up there and he danced one platform and I danced on the other. All the chinese people looked at us like WOW FOREINGERS!


After that we went to the bath house. The place is huge. It is like a big spa. Had showers, pools, a massage room and a place to sleep. Danny had stayed in this bath house one night while I was in the hospital. While Danny and Sam went to sleep, I went to pools and got my body massaged. Then I went to sleep feeling fresh and relaxed. And No there were NO girls working at this bath house. It really was a bath house. The only worker I saw was a guy who had a big fire hose thing who would hose off guys taking showers if they wanted him to. I guess like a 'water massage'. In the morning we went shopping a bit and headed back to the academy on Saturday morning.


-Scott