EDIT: 7/28: Added photos from wushu practice

To be honest, it feels like a long time ago that we were in Beijing, even though it was technically only 3 days.  I’m going to do a very quick summary of the last couple days.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of Sunday and Monday, so you will have to do with this hastily-written entry. I really have so much stuff from the trip to Zhengzhou (Shaolin Temple) and Xi’an that I want to get to that as quickly as possible.

Sunday

It was our day off.  As such, a lot of us had various things we wanted to accomplish before leaving Beijing on Tuesday.  A lot of that involved going to Ya Xiu.  For myself, I first had a nice lunch over at Patti’s home with a few of her family and some of the Wushu folks who were able to make it.  It was a quick bite and after watching some strange sports on CCTV5, Ruhi and I headed to Ya Xiu.

The main task at hand was to figure out our wedding clothes.  Coincidentally we also ended up running into Lauren, Ashley, Susan, James, Myles, Jennifer, Wu Di, Pierre and Shahaub there.

After shopping 6 of us headed back to the Singaporean restaurant from Friday night and we all had some great food.  It was amazing to watch Wu Di when he’s hungry.  A few of us almost lost some fingers.  Then it was a taxi ride back to Shi Cha Hai and an evening relaxing and preparing for our last full day of workout.

Monday

Originally we had been told that the morning workout was at 8:00.  So naturally we were all up nice and early.  But then it turned out it was switched to 10:00, so we had to wait a couple hours.  Poor Tyler actually went to the wushu guan.  But we finally got situated and then worked out downstairs in the lower wushu hall.  For myself, I was creating a Tiger form, so I made the first two sections of that.  So far, so good.  After class we also had a group meeting about our upcoming departure from Beijing.

After workout we didn’t have a ton of time to do things before our afternoon class.  I went across the street with Ruhi to grab some bing from the restaurant I ate at back in 2004 or 2005 with Patti and her brother.  It was still there and still delicious.

Afternoon practice was in the upstairs wushu hall.  It was pretty empty as we were the only ones in the whole room.  I spent some time figuring out my form and teaching Travis a few moves from my nanquan (Southern Fist) form.  Ruhi had gone by that time, as she had a dinner appointment and was flying back to Xi’an on Tuesday morning.

Most of us spent the rest of the evening packing and preparing for our trip.  Pierre and I also received a visit from Wu Di and Shahaub, along with Jennifer.  After a while it was time for bed.  zzzzzzzz.

Been traveling around China and connection to the internet has been spotty so we haven’t been able to update the blog recently. Today will be a pretty crazy day too, so you might have to wait until we are back in Beijing on Saturday for a catch-up entry. Lots of touring going on though. Many pictures upcoming. Stay tuned!

Yay!  Saturday was finally here!  That meant just one training in the morning and the afternoon and evening to relax.

Well, maybe not relax, since we were planning on heading out to check out the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube, both major sites for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The morning  training went well.  (We might have to stick with Sharks and Minnows for the rest of our trip though.)  Liu Qing Hua’s group wasn’t there so I didn’t get to learn the second section of Xie Zhen Hao’s nanquan form (I believe they were doing strength training in the gym), but I hope to get the rest of it by the time I leave.

Ruhi showed up around lunch.  We couldn’t make it downstairs on time, but we went to the really good bing restaurant across the street (18 Di’An Men Xi Da Jie, in case you want to go) and got some food there.  Delicious!  Much better than the Instant Noodles I was originally proposing.  Sometimes it pays to listen to your better half. (Most times, actually).

In the afternoon Ruhi had a meeting to attend (reviewing a rough edit on a TV pilot she co-directed in Sichuan) so I went to my room and slept like a log for 4 hours.  I think a big group of folks also went to Ya Xiu for some shopping.

In the evening I grabbed dinner with Ruhi and some folks downstairs:

After dinner we all met in the lobby to head to the Bird’s Nest.  We were accompanied by the group from Hong Kong.  Patti was nice enough to introduce me to one of my wushu idols.  I don’t have a ton of them, but this woman is certainly on the list.  She is leading the group (along with a couple other men) from Ma On Shan, where the Hong Kong Wushu Team trains.  This group is their junior athletes, so folks like HK Collin are not among them.

Anyway, I took a TON of photos.  Of those I picked 109 that were good.  Of those, these are the ones I’m including on my blog.  Go check my website’s gallery if you want to see the rest (narom.net).

After the journey back to Shi Cha Hai, most of us just settled in for the night, anticipating a Sunday off from wushu training and 2 more days until we embark for The Shaolin Temple and Xi’an!

Edit (7/28): Added video of athletes conditioning and swapped out others with youtube versions

Once again I have skipped a couple days in my blogging.  Originally I thought Lauren was going to be writing a blog for me.  Why did I think that?  Probably by the way she asked me multiple times during Wednesday morning’s class “Can I write the blog for today?  Pleeeeeease???” and I told her yes (naturally .. I would love it if they would write some blogs in here.  Makes my life easier, right?)

Jump forward a day or so:

“Hey Lauren, don’t forget to write that blog for me” I reminded her.

“Do I have to?” she asked.

After a pause: “You asked me to.  Multiple times.  and I said yes.  Multple times.” I replied.

“But I didn’t think you would say yes.” she said.

After considering the illogic of that statement I replied with “Why would you think that?”

To which she replied “Because you always say ‘no’.”

So, besides the fact that she had asked multple times and I had said yes multple times, she didn’t think she actually had to write the blog because she assumed I would say “no”?  Well, I think what really happened is she realized that writing a blog requires writing a blog, so she decided it wasn’t how she wanted to spend her hard-earned personal time.

That being the case, you are still stuck with my personal rendition of this trip.  Until someone else decides to chip in with some content, I’m left holding the ball (so to speak).

Thursday

Actually, Thursday I was anticipating Ruhi’s arrival to Beijing.  (We’re engaged, in case you didn’t know, which is entirely possible since there are lots of people I didn’t tell and who don’t check my facebook status — consider this your notice )

She was flying in around 5AM and would make her way to Shi Cha Hai after dropping her things off at Grace’s house.  She finally made it around noon-ish and we went downstairs to grab some food, running in to Patti and Cary in the process.

We went to go watch the afternoon training as well, since she had never seen professional wushu up close and personal.  She also got to meet Shahaub and Wu Di.  I also got to help Wu Di and Myles with some conditioning.

After class we went down to eat because we had requested 2 dishes from the manager.  Unforunately they seem to had forgotten, so we just ate what was there (which was perfectly fine, of course) and spent time with some Wushu West folks.

After dinner she was tired, but we got sucked in to watching “Kiss of the Dragon” on Pierre’s laptop and then I took her to Dongzhimen Station and came back and fell asleep.  zzzzzz.

Friday

The morning practice was good.  It was the first time my calves weren’t hurting.  It might have been because Ruhi brought me some requested supplements (vitamins, mostly), but I wasn’t complaining.  The class wasn’t unusual in any way.  Everyone is slowly improving and it is starting to show.

It is a little hard to see since we see each other do wushu everyday, but it is a little noticeable.  When we get back to the U.S. everyone will have to let us know if we have gotten any stronger/faster/more flexible/better.  But from my own estimation, I’m seeing some good growth in Tyler, Noah and Myles.  Ashley is working really hard and improving too.  And I even see Lauren overcoming some of her arm issues.  Jonah is relaxing his shoulders and Jennifer is building up her endurance.  Pierre is also getting some good corrections from Liu Hong.

During the morning training I walked over to Xie Zhen Hao (Shanghai nanquan guy) and asked him if he could teach me his form.  He said yes!  I would start learning it in the afternoon. Cooooool.

Ruhi came over in the afternoon again.  We decided to go run an errand to change some of her (our?) money and then grab some lunch.  We went to the same small place I took Myles and got the Tang Su Li Ji (sweet and sour pork — the real version, not the stuff you get in the U.S.) and Suan La Bai Cai (hot and sour cabbage — which wasn’t quite hot or soury enough).  After eating we walked around Di’An Men Market for a bit and then walked back to the school for the afternoon practice.

I took a lot of photos and after class Xie Zhen Hao taught me his first section.  It was probably one of the most complex nanquan forms I’ve ever learned.  Whoever made this form was on some sort of nanquan crack.  But it is cool to learn new techniques and movements, so I’m not complaining.  If I can finish learning the whole thing I’m going to teach it to the Wushu West nanquan folks.  Gotta get a video too …

But here is a quick video I took of the professionals doing some conditioning:

We also took a TON of photos during class.  Here are some to enjoy …

And a few videos of Ashley’s wushu, per her request:

After class I went out for a dinner with Ruhi’s friend, Josie, and some of her friends.  It was a nice restaurant which was 1/2 Sweenson’s (A Bay Area ice-cream and burger place) and 1/2 Singaporean food.  It was actually very good.  Awesome ice cream deserts and located close to Ya Xiu, so I think I will need to take some of the Wushu West foks.

After eating our fill it was time to head back by way of Dongzhimen station where we said goodbye.  Then I came back and crashed hard again.

Saturday will be a half-wushu day with just the morning class.  In the evening we are all going to chek out the Bird’s Nest stadium!  Photos are definitely on the menu.

Edit (7/28): Swapped videos with youtube versions

Earlier in the day Lauren asked if she could write up a blog entry for class, mainly because she was running around taking funny pictures of everyone at the end of training. But that was fine with me, since it means I don’t have to write a blog about our training during the day.

However, I am going to write about our trip to get Beijing Roast Duck in the evening. Sifu Patti had arranged a bus to take us to the restaurant so we all met up in the Lobby at 6:00 PM. One sad note was that Loren and Ryan were taking off for a language/culture camp thing, so we wouldn’t be seeing them anymore. But I grabbed a quick video of Ryan saying goodbye:

A bunch of us piled in the van and headed out to the restaurant. I also caught a quick video of us on our way:

When we got to the restaurant, we were lucky to have 2 tables waiting for us, thanks to Patti’s brother, neice (JingJing) and sister-in-law. The food was delicious, but I’m going to let my pictures do the talking for me. As usual, click on an image to see the picture:

And as a special double bonus, here are two videos. First is James and second is Jennifer.

Edit (7/28): Swapped video with youtube version

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last 2 days.  Not that much have happened to warrant a single entry for each day, but now two days have passed.  And since I’m waiting for the guest blog entries on the F0rbidd3n City and The Gr3at Wa11 (Pierre and Ashley?  Hellooooo?) I’ll fill some time by sharing what we’ve been up to the last two days.

Monday morning was practice.  9:00 AM in the Wushu Hall.  Actually all practices this week are at 9:00 and 3:30 in the upstairs wushu hall, so at least it is consistent.   Everyone was working hard, and down on the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group.  Since it was just the two of us, we got to be on the blue carpet.  Yay!  For myself, I primarily focused on the first section of my nangun (Southern Staff) form.  I’m working on making a new one this week so each day I’m creating a new section.

After class was lunch and then I spent some time in the afternoon working in my room.  The afternoon class came and went as well, and I spent that time working on more nangun.

I’m not sure what everyone did in the evening, but I spent the whole time working on my computer, so this is why I didn’t end up writing much in the blog.

Tuesday was another morning training (of course). Unfortunately Myles hurt his ankle so had to sit out the rest of the day.  Jennifer said she tweaked her ankle as well.  Hopefully they’ll both be back in full form soon.

After the morning practice I spent 20 minutes or so working on my nangun form after everyone left.  However, Liu Qi and Zhang Ye Xin were still there so I talked to them for a while and had them record a video so they could greet everyone in America.

In the afternoon I went to the airport with Lauren to pick up her mom, Susan and younger brother, Travis.  Once again we were blessed by the airport gods and they came out of the terminal just as we walked up to the door.

We got back to Shi Cha Hai just in time to go watch most of the training.  Lauren quickly changed and I spent some time either talking with Susan and Travis, helping Wu Di with some conditioning, or working on my nangun.  It was Tiger’s last time teaching us, as he would be leaving the next day for a competition in ZhengZhou, Henan.  Actually, we will see him there since he will still be in town when we go to check out the Shaolin Temple.  We grabbed a group photo for posterity.

After class I was asked to go to a Japanese restaurant with Wu Di, who had also invited Shahaub, Patti, Cary and Jennifer.  It happened to be the same restaurant I ate at last November, also with Wu Di.  We had a good amount of food and naturally I took some photos:

After that Patti and Cary went back to Shi Cha Hai, and the rest of us walked down the street to digest our food.  We also grabbed a quick cone at McDonald’s before catching a cab back to the school.

Tomorrow we have two different coaches training us.  I’ll be sure to snap a few photos and post them up.

Edit (7/28): Added James’ photographs from the Great Wall

Sunday was our day off and so most of the students went to the Great Wall to see one of the biggest wonders of the world (or at least one of the longest).  I didn’t go with them, but I have enlisted Lauren/Ashley to write up a blog about their trip.  Until that is ready, here are some photos that Jennifer took of their journey.  Many more photos and information to follow, but you’ll have to wait until it has been forwarded to me:

Edit: James has provided photos for me as well, which are located after Jennifer’s

Edit (7/28): Added James’ photos from the Forbidden City and Hutong Pizza

Finally our last 8:00 am training was here.  I will not be sad to see those be a thing of the past.  Next week all our trainings are at 9:00 and 3:30 in the wushu hall.

We were in the lower wushu hall for basics and forms.  Also a bit of basket brawl to warm up.  But after a while he took us to the weight room / fitness center to do some strength training.  It was my first time in the room.  It was pretty nice.  Like a 24 Hour Fitness type of thing with lots of modern equipment; mostly Life Fitness if memory serves.

We did circuit training and my legs got a good workout.  Myles was helping several of the kids who hadn’t done any weight training before.  After the workout we went back to shower and eat.

When I got back to my room I saw some of the athletes working out on the track so I snapped a few shots with my telefoto lens.

Then it was time for lunch.  And after lunch everyone was supposed to meet up for the trip to the Forbidden City.  But before that I had to take Pierre and Jennifer to the bank to change their money. That didn’t take too long and we were joined by Loren and Ryan as well.  Everyone met in the lobby and they took off for their excursion.

I was told that they took a lot of pictures and Pierre said he would try to write up a quick blog about the experience, so I will post those when I have them ready.  Keep your eyes peeled for that.

EDIT: Here are the pictures that James took!

While they were all out at the Forbidden City I was tempted to take a nap, but I hadn’t fully unpacked from my move to the new room (actually, I hadn’t even fully unpacked since arriving in China since I’ve been busy the whole time) so I spent 3 hours doing that.  I finished just as Pierre walked back in the room.

The comments I got from the Forbidden City ranged from “amazing” to “boring”.  I guess it isn’t for everyone.

In the evening we were doing a group dinner at Hutong Pizza, which was just around the corner in Hou Hai.  Joining us were some friends of Patti.  Liu Yan, her former teammate with her husband Chris.  Anthony Chan, one of the original American wushu athletes from the 80’s, and his daughter (his wife was also a team-mate of Patti’s — in fact Patti, Liu Yan and her got a gold medal for their sparring set in 1984).  Two other people whom I don’t know met us at the Pizza place.  I think the man’s name was Henry.  The pizza was pretty good, but I spent some time taking pictures outside in the Hutong.  After a while I escorted the kids back to the hotel while the adults stayed to chat.

James also took many photos from the Huton Pizza excursion, but I’m just going to include the ones that deal with subjects i didn’t cover in my own.  Here are his!

The next day would be their excursion to the Great Wall.

This blog was guest-written by Myles Cardinell, a student of Wushu West who is here with us in Beijing for the summer.

The Shi Cha Hai Sports center is located in Beijing China.

The school is right on the main street. It’s walled-in campus really resembles a compound.

Although to say that it is a compound brings on too many negative connotations.

Beautifully gardened three-story atrium with ponds, waterfalls, fish, and even singing birds. Just an incredible place just to walk around in and really realize its one of a kind.

Adequate seating for anyone wanting to enjoy a cup of coffee at 6 am suffering from jet-lag or a late night beverage after a hard day of beating your body.

There’s two living facilities on the grounds.

One is a dormitory for the students who live and train here. The other is a hotel for all the foreigners who come here to train and experience true chinese culture. The hotel itself is beautiful. In my own opinion it would be rated about a four diamond hotel in the states. Extremely nice people work here who genuinely smile and want to do everything they can to make things better for you. The food is all buffet style, fresh, and delicious. In my stay here I noticed a variety of different nationalities who came here to train including Norwegian, Scandinavian, American, and Canadian.

All the students here are pretty much Chinese and the dedication of them is absolutely remarkable.

With a variety of sports offered I was lucky enough to witness their Wushu talent.

So far [Wushu West] has been honored enough to be trained and critiqued by a few of their students.

When i first heard that we were going to be trained I thought of middle aged masters coming and helping us with our Wushu.

Instead, we had trainers no older than twenty coming and showing us what it was really all about.

These teachers at such a younger age and such an accomplished level of athleticism I assumed no humility and no patience.

Obviously I had a total American sense of judgment.

Even though there was a language barrier between me, I felt that I could call them friends based on their sense of humor, and willingness to help me, and most of all their patience.

Although not being able to understand direct words, basic emotions are easily read. Having teachers that can laugh with you and not make you feel like an idiot has been one of the best things I could have hoped for.

Although there still have been already countless times where I have wanted to walk out. The frustration that you endure when learning something new is always going to be there, but having the right instructors will really make an unpleasant situation bearable and fun.

Mark had some great words of advice ” wan shi kai tou nan” translated from chinese it means that everything in the beginning is difficult.

Words of wisdom from people who have been there, really keep you positive in wanting to learn more and keep trying.

This applies for everyone. The Wushu west students I think also feel the same way. The ones I look at and say “Wow, that is insane!”, have mutual feelings. Hitting barriers were they feel like they should just about walk out as well.

What i’ve seen in just a few days here wasn’t just the great teachers, but also the great attitude amongst everyone I train with.

Such talent with everyone showing up on time (thats just a start) and having such positive attitudes even with the pain that everyone has from prolonged training day in and day out. Everyone has personalities that click and it truly has a “team” feeling.

Many more weeks of precious time we have here to expand on our Wushu, our minds, and our hearts with the Chinese culture.

It is such an incredible feeling knowing that your in China, training, with no other worries in mind other than to better yourself and have a wonderful experience.

How honored we are to live and breathe Wushu.

Edit (7/27): Swapped out videos with youtube embed and added another one of Zhao Qing Jian’s jump practice.

The day had finally arrived for two more members of Wushu West to join us in Beijing.  But first, we had to deal with some morning training in the upstairs wushu hall.

When we arrived in the wushu hall there were a few of the professional athletes stretching on the main blue carpet; Zhao Qing Jian, Wang Xie and Liu Xiao Lei.  Basically, three of the top athletes in the world.  On the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group (which included Liu Qi).  With the coaches and Patti in the room, I calculated that there were roughly 300 national and international medals worth of athletes sitting in the room.  Not too shabby.

We were going to start the class with some more Basket Brawl, which is basically a combination of basketball and soccer.  After we got the teams organized I asked Zhao Qing Jian (jokingly) if he wanted to join in.  He said sure and joined the game.  Wang Xie Liu Xiao Lei joined us too and pretty soon we had quite a game going.  I took some pictures and got a bit of video:

After warming up it was stretching and basics.  I continued working out choreography for my new nangun form. Across the room I saw Liu Qin Hua’s group working out.  There was one guy doing nanquan, which I naturally paid close attention to.  There was also a girl doing some nanquan.  Very cool.  I don’t really see enough nanquan up in Beijing so I try to pay attention whenever it is going on to see if I can pick anything up.  While they performed their forms I was trying to figure out some of their moves, even fantasizing that I might ask Tiger if I can learn their forms.

I continued with my training, focusing on the class.  After a while Xu Ming Hu (Tiger) called me over. There was one of Liu Qing Hua’s athletes with him  It was the nanquan girl!  I didn’t quite understand what he said, but it sounded like he wanted her to teach me some nanquan.  Wow!  Someone had read my mind.  I agreed and the two of us went to the side of the carpet.

I waited for her to tell me what to do.  She seemed to be waiting for me too.

Women kaishi ba? (Shall we start?) she said.

Hao (Okay) I replied.

Then she motioned for me to stand in front of her.  Wait a sec.  How would I see her form if I was in front?  Then it dawned on me that it wasn’t me who was learning from her, but her who wanted to learn from me!  “Wait … am I teaching you or are you teaching me?” I asked.

Ni jiao wo (you teach me), she answered.

Wow … totally weird moment.

So, it turns out they had seem me do my form 2 days earlier and had asked Tiger to have me teach it to them.  I suppose my choregraphy is not necessarily standard, or perhaps they just want to have more variety in their repertoire, but whatever the reason I was totally humbled and flattered that they were even watching me from way across the room, let alone her wanting to learn my form.  Especially since I was pretty much doing the same with them.

So, I proceeded to show her my form.  After a while I noticed someone else standing behind me.  It was the nanquan guy too!  He had come over to learn as well.  Goodness gracious…

I got to talk to them a bit after showing them my first section.  They had both trained at Shanghai University of Sports, so we knew a lot of the same people.  Her name was Xiao Lan and he was Xie Zhen Hao.  It was a very neat class.  Unfortunately, it meant that I couldn’t pay too much attention to what everyone else was doing, but I did look over and see Zhao Qing Jian and Wang Xie giving some pointers to the Wushu West students so it was nice that they were getting a few tips from the pros.  I was also asked by those two and Liu Xiao Lei to video their nandu (difficulty movements) practice, so I have that here to share too:

After lunch and a shower I had to go to the airport with Rita from the Foreginer’s Office to pick up Pierre and Jennifer.  They were finalliy arriving from the U.S.  Their flight was early and we were running late, but it just so happened that as soon as we walked up to the arrivals area they walked out the door.  Very good timing and pretty soon we were on the road back to Shi Cha Hai.

We helped them get checked in to their rooms and once Patti got back to the hotel we did a bit of roommate swapping.  I was now going to room with Pierre and Tyler was going to room with Cary, leaving Noah and Jonah to enjoy the peculiar smells that their room seemed to be developing.  Jennifer decided to get her own room which meant that Ashley and Lauren could keep it to the original 2.

I spent some time helping Pierre and Jennifer acclimate and we went downstairs to get some dinner as well.  Lots of reuinion-izing going on (yes, I just made that word up).

After dinner was the evening practice.  For this particular practice Tiger had arranged for us to practice jumping in the gymnastics room.  After running, stretching and basics, he had us all practice our twists and butterflies into the foam pit.  Then we went to the spring floor and folks worked on their twists (such as they were) and Loren even got pretty good rotation towards his 720.  Here are some photos and a video:

Towards the end of class I took Pierre and Jennifer upstairs to watch the professional wushu athletes training.  They were both quite impressed.  Then it was back to the hotel so I could finish moving the rest of my stuff to Pierre’s room.  After that I hung out a bit with Wu Di and Shahaub in the lounge downstairs and then it was time to sleep for an early morning practice the next day!