Last week we completed our one month Kung Fu experience and we were definitely sad to say goodbye to this part of this trip. It was a short week as we were due to leave Thursday lunchtime but it was tough nonetheless. The weather was warmer which always helps so a lot of our training was outside.
Tuesday was my most interesting day with acrobatics in the morning and a change in itinerary so we had power stretching in the afternoon. The usual jumping around with (badly) attempted tornado and butterfly kicks, followed by cartwheels, rolls, headstands, kick ups and rounded off with backward somersaults. Thankfully this was assisted by two people helping you spin backwards once you had jumped. I wasn’t keen on having a go but Master Rong insisted. It all went fine but I did feel something in the back of my knee twang as I landed awkwardly!! Oh dear, another injury to add to the collection. This is actually quite painful and is now in a support but it didn’t stop me doing the rest of the training. During power stretching I asked Master Rong to tell us a story while we were stretching to help pass the time and take our minds of the pain. I’m not sure he understood this concept but was happy to chat whilst showing off his splits, ‘no problem!’ apparently! The only downside to this was I’m sure he forgot about the time when he was chatting and left us there for quite some time. The problem with power stretching is when the time eventually finishes it makes no difference as it still takes another few minutes to ease yourself out of the position that you honestly feel you will be stuck in for eternity! We also had a bit of fun on Wednesday when we played a basketball match against the other Shaolin group. The Sifu’s had the most fun I think, jumping around the court and chasing each other whilst laughing hysterically. We won though so what we may lack in Shaolin ability we made up for with our basketball skills!
John spent his last week practicing, practicing, practicing his form to be graded before we left. The whole school stopped on Wednesday to watch him grade in front of the usual panel of Sifu’s. He was awesome and the practice paid off. He got very high marks for it too so that was a relief. He was also told by Master Guo that he was a good example to the younger ones as despite his back problems he worked really hard. Unfortunately a lot of the younger guys have huge potential but are pretty lazy with their training. John learnt more skills on the wooden dummy and a few skils with the long pole, one of the Wing Chun weapons. Now when I say long pole, I mean long, about 9ft in total. This was very tiring but it was OK as Master Guo told him, when you get tired on one side, practice on the other side!
We could easily have spent longer here and would definitely consider returning as you learn so much in a short space of time due to the intensity of the training. The time to come would be April, May as it’s warming up, the trees are blossoming but it’s not so hot that you struggle to train. It was very sad saying goodbye to friends, translators and Masters but we’ve made some friends for life and will be keeping in touch and definitely seeing some of them again.
We flew to Shanghai and spent a long weekend there walking, walking, walking and eating a lot of street food too. The most difficult thing for us was getting used to not training for 5 hours per day. We literally didn’t know what to do with ourselves and had excess energy waiting to be used. We found ourselves standing on one leg on the trains, still practicing forms without thinking and worst of all still waking up very early!
Shanghai is an amazing city and we definitely preferred it to Beijing. They are very different as Beijing is more traditional and Shanghai more modern and cosmopolitan. The Pudong area looks like something out of the Jetson’s and the French Concession is truly a little bit of France in China as you wander between café’s, boutiques and bakeries in tree-lined avenues. The Bund was by far our favourite place and was a pleasant stroll by the river admiring the amazing art deco architecture. We came here a few times and spent hours looking at the buildings. We visited the old Peace Hotel, once the grandest in all of Asia, to wander through the corridors and lobby’s appreciating the décor. Every detail was in keeping with the era, nothing missed or out of place, absolutely stunning with chandeliers, coloured glass and symmetrical patterns everywhere you looked.
Shanghai is definitely a city to wander around at your leisure exploring the streets and what they have to offer. We walked through the old town which was right next to our hotel and found markets selling everything you could imagine, kitchen utensils, ducks, chickens, a huge variety of food and there was a whole road dedicated to haberdashery with every colour and texture of cloth as well as buttons and sequins. We stumbled upon the antiques market where there is definitely a business in making things look old. If you dare to show an interest in anything you are hounded down the street by the seller who will drop their price to a tenth of the original price fairly quickly.
On Monday we flew to Tokyo to spend the night before flying back to Heathrow the next day. It was galling arriving in Tokyo knowing we were so close yet so far from visiting it properly but we will definitely come back when the country is in a better situation. It’s obvious you’ve arrived though when the toilets have a whole keypad next to them with an array of options from a deodorizing spray to a flushing sound to drown out any toilet sounds! Our hotel room was small and hot, but we did enjoy wearing our kimono bathrobes for a little if brief taste of the Japanese experience!
So that’s the Asian chapter finished and now we are in Birmingham for a couple of nights before starting our new and unexpected European chapter. Spain here we come and then who knows!
Some of the Chinese Master’s very few English phrases that will stick with us for a very long time!:
‘More power’ (used all the time)
‘Faster’ (in power training)
‘Slower’ (admittedly used less than the others- but there were moments believe it or not)
‘Higher’ (acrobatics jumping!)
‘Lower’ (usually in stance training!)
And the best one of all…’Fierce!’ (applied to nearly everything!)
No comments:
Post a Comment