Wushu West was not only lucky to train under some of the best Wushu Coaches in the world, but we also have some of the most prolific students to provide their own personal anecdotes. The advanced Wushu West students were taught by Liu Qing Hua, who is pictured below, has a fierce reputation that no doubt helped prepare them for the many competitions in the later half of 2007. From Collin placing in the US A Team, and Kenny taking a few gold medals of his own in the Chicago Wushu Tournament.
James trained in Sanda under Kong Xiang Yuong, and now brings back those Sanda skills to Wushu West. James since then has begun showing a few students the basics of Sanda, and working with the target pads with them.
The other students trained under Sun Nuo, and they have made measurable improvement in their wushu since they have come back. It really shows that both the highly competitive advanced students and beginners can travel to China and train under the best, while having a great time!
Student Comments
Connor:
This was my first time training in China with the Beijing Wushu Team and I am very satisfied with the service and training I got. The hotel and facilities were very clean, comfortable and well organized. The food was good, especially the Beijing roast duck, so delicious! We would train for about 5 hours a day except for Saturday, when we had only 2.5 hours of training, and we trained for 6 days a week. We would train for about 2.5 hours in the Underground Wushu Hall from 8 to 10:30 in the morning and 2.5 hours in the Main Wushu Hall from 1 to 3:30 in the afternoon.
Out of the 30 days that I was in China, we went to the gymnastics facility only 4 times and when we were there, we had the gym from about 9 to 10:30. The gym had this awesome pit of chunks of foam where we were able to practice our aerials, front flips, and back flips. We had an excellent coach who is 22 years old and was on the Beijing Wushu A Team for 10 years since he was 12 until now, when he decided to teach others and pass on his knowledge of Wushu to future generations. While we were in China, we went to many well known places.
On the Saturday after our first week of training, we went to the Great Wall. It was a nice comfortable day; it even started to sprinkle a bit! Plus, the direction of the wall that we decided to take was not very crowded, so we were able to use most of the pathway to take pictures for a while. We had brought a total of 8 cameras, so when we thought we were finally done taking the same picture over and over again, someone would always say, "Oh, one more, one more!" It's amazing how long it took us to walk through only one small section out of 3,000 miles of brick road. There must have been millions upon millions of people working for many years to build the Great Wall. I think that the Great Wall was just breathtaking.
The day after we went to the Great Wall, we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was huge, hot and very crowded. The street separating Tiananmen square and the main entrance to the Forbidden City is so wide that it is 8 lanes in each direction! So instead of crosswalks, there was a huge underground walkway under the street that you had to go through to get to the other side! The Forbidden City is so big that it took us two hours to get from one end to the other!
We also went to the Summer Palace, and it was absolutely beautiful! Long ago, the Empress Cixi wanted to make her own summer retreat and used funds that were supposed to be used for upgrading the military to hire people and materials to construct a temple on a mountain, build a 2,388 foot walkway, dig out a huge lake, build a marble boat, and many other ornate buildings, bridges, etc. That is why everyone attacked China: because their army had not been modernized. Even though it's crazy how she used all that money for her vanity, the empress did have great taste.
This is what made up most of my China trip. It was an amazing experience! I feel so fortunate and thankful to Sifu Patti for putting together our terrific training with a great coach. I am looking forward to training in China again because there is so much more to do and see.
James:
There's too much to write to do it it here, but a couple highlites:
Spending time with Wu Bin, and having him sign my copies of his wushu books was great. He is always so generous with his time and advice.
Trainig twice a day is really the key to improving. Your body gets used to being under stress, and performing when it's tired, so it learns to recover quickly. Also, training under a coach who has a different method of teaching keeps you on your toes- you really have to pay attention and follow along as they instruct, which carries over to studying under any teacher. This forces you to be stronger mentally, as you learn more and more how much your body can really withstand if you are training safely, and intelligently.
Being with the san da team really reinforced this idea for me- these guys generate so much power- even the small ones who are around 120 pounds kick with power greater than mine, and they are so fast. Each one of them pushes himself to the edge everyday in hopes of being one of the few champions from their weightclass. Their hope isn't unfounded as their Coach, Liu, has at least one world contender in his group. Everyone and the san da team was so nice and welcoming and open, it was hard to believe they are all trained fighters who make their living on the lei tai. I can't wait to go back and train with them more. If I could afford to, I think I would never leave. There is so much to study- from san da, to wushu, mandarin chinese lessons, weightlifting and gymnastics... shopping, amazing food (from all over the world), wonderful people... I can't wait to return and train more. My wushu practice has improved exponentially since I retuned to the US, and I know most of that is due to my time at Shi Cha Hai, and the renewed resolve to train hard that came as a result of being there.
The food was good- I was suprised that they prepared western and chinese dishes for the students, which I think a lot of people appreciated. There wasw nlots of good food around the school too- neat little restaurants of provincial Chinese cuisine (I love the food from Fujian), and the Shi Cha Hai lake are is so beautiful with the water and people out everywhere enjoying life and walking and dancing at night inthe park and swimming. I love being in Beijing- there is so much there. I think people's idea of China is distorted a lot by the media. The people are so nice and helpful, and no matter what hour I was out away from the school, I never felt unsafe or worried I wouldn't be able to find my way back, and these are feelings I even have in cities in the US often.
Kenny:
China, once again, was a very insightful experience. Not only did I get to train with some of the best wushu athletes in the world, but I also got a chance to experience what it's like to live the life of an athlete. Every trip to China (this was my third one) has never been disappointing to me; I always improve a lot after I come back. If you've got the time and money, I definitely recommend doing this. If I could, I would do this every year!
Jonny:
My trip to China this year has brought about a much higher level of martial arts. Without the training that I received, I would not have had the confidence to compete at the US Wushu Team Trials. It was an inspiration being amongst the best. Diligence with hard work was key to improvement. It was there that I was tested and learned that only when you push through the times you don't believe that you can, do you see what you are truly made of.
Connor:
This was my first time training in China with the Beijing Wushu Team and I am very satisfied with the service and training I got. The hotel and facilities were very clean, comfortable and well organized. The food was good, especially the Beijing roast duck, so delicious! We would train for about 5 hours a day except for Saturday, when we had only 2.5 hours of training, and we trained for 6 days a week. We would train for about 2.5 hours in the Underground Wushu Hall from 8 to 10:30 in the morning and 2.5 hours in the Main Wushu Hall from 1 to 3:30 in the afternoon.
Out of the 30 days that I was in China, we went to the gymnastics facility only 4 times and when we were there, we had the gym from about 9 to 10:30. The gym had this awesome pit of chunks of foam where we were able to practice our aerials, front flips, and back flips. We had an excellent coach who is 22 years old and was on the Beijing Wushu A Team for 10 years since he was 12 until now, when he decided to teach others and pass on his knowledge of Wushu to future generations. While we were in China, we went to many well known places.
On the Saturday after our first week of training, we went to the Great Wall. It was a nice comfortable day; it even started to sprinkle a bit! Plus, the direction of the wall that we decided to take was not very crowded, so we were able to use most of the pathway to take pictures for a while. We had brought a total of 8 cameras, so when we thought we were finally done taking the same picture over and over again, someone would always say, "Oh, one more, one more!" It's amazing how long it took us to walk through only one small section out of 3,000 miles of brick road. There must have been millions upon millions of people working for many years to build the Great Wall. I think that the Great Wall was just breathtaking.
The day after we went to the Great Wall, we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was huge, hot and very crowded. The street separating Tiananmen square and the main entrance to the Forbidden City is so wide that it is 8 lanes in each direction! So instead of crosswalks, there was a huge underground walkway under the street that you had to go through to get to the other side! The Forbidden City is so big that it took us two hours to get from one end to the other!
We also went to the Summer Palace, and it was absolutely beautiful! Long ago, the Empress Cixi wanted to make her own summer retreat and used funds that were supposed to be used for upgrading the military to hire people and materials to construct a temple on a mountain, build a 2,388 foot walkway, dig out a huge lake, build a marble boat, and many other ornate buildings, bridges, etc. That is why everyone attacked China: because their army had not been modernized. Even though it's crazy how she used all that money for her vanity, the empress did have great taste.
This is what made up most of my China trip. It was an amazing experience! I feel so fortunate and thankful to Sifu Patti for putting together our terrific training with a great coach. I am looking forward to training in China again because there is so much more to do and see.