Kung Fu fighting – week 4!!!

Our last full week over at the academy, with a few extra challenges thrown in. The biggest one was the grading of our basics on Tuesday. This was held instead of session 2 in front of a panel of masters with the rest of the school watching. There were 9 people grading altogether from the various martial arts groups here. John did his basic Wing Chun steps and stances form and that went really well. I was very nervous and made a couple of mistakes but overall it went fine and we were both glad that it was over!

The 2^nd treat we had was on Friday. We were informed the day before that there would be no regular classes that day but instead we would be given bread and water and our task was to climb the highest mountain in the Kunyu mountain range. This particular peak is called tai bo and is 923m high. It was like a big school outing. We all headed off at 8.30am with back packs on filled with lots of snacks and goodies as well as our bread and water! The walk to the base steadily rises, is quite steep in places and took us one hour at a good pace. We had a quick break at the base where the Master’s where waiting for us (after arriving by taxi I might add!), then John’s master smiled and told us to get going. It was a hard climb of 3km to the peak up what seemed like thousands upon thousands of stairs, then a wooded track with a final rocky scramble to the top.

It actually felt like your heart was going to burst. Geoff and I walked up steadily without stopping and reached the top in 1 hour while John and Neville stopped a few times and were about half an hour behind us. A few of the superfit guys ran/walked up in 39 mins and then decided to bear crawl down too! We had lunch at the top then started the painful on the knees walk down.

To ease our pain we decided to take the option of the slide part way down to cut out a lot of stairs and it looked like great fun too. Very little health and safety usually goes hand in hand with a fast and fun ride which this was. We had to tie a piece of cloth round our waists and legs, wear a pair of gloves to protect your hands when braking then sit on a squashed plastic bottle.

The lady was very keen that you put your feet against the side to slow down. The slide was in 2 sections with mats at the bottom with a cargo net to catch you as you hurtled off the bottom of the slide. I think Gary from our group broke the speed records on this one. The husband and wife owners looked at each other in shock and concern when he lay back flat and flew away like a bullet out of a gun, riding it luge style. He has the burn marks on his arms and a near sprained ankle from hitting the net at such high speed at the bottom. It had to be done though and it was better than killing your knees on all those stairs!

Another hour back along the road to the academy and our 5 ½ hour, 10 mile walk was over by 2pm. We were then thankfully allowed to laze for the rest of the day. Phew!

John has finished learning his first form this week and now needs to practice, practice, practice as he thinks he might be graded on this before we leave. His training has been hard as usual as has mine, however we have both noticed that the Master’s seem to all be increasing the intensity. John’s group are always kept back later than everyone else and mine just likes to walk round with his stick ready to give you a quick whack if you are slacking.

There was a whole new level to our stances training this week when it no longer seemed good enough to stand in horse stance for 10 mins holding weights. Half way through we had to place our weights on our legs and hold a staff out in front of us. We were told if we dropped the weights we would be beaten. It was pretty impossible so everyone seemed to find a way of holding the weights on legs with elbows while holding the staff out in front! My new challenge this week has been knuckle press ups which I find difficult with permanently bruised knuckles from padwork and sparring but I persevered and have improved already.

One of the highlights of my week was during conditioning. We went down to the lake for our Qi ging session and then did our conditioning there too but somehow I managed to draw the short straw of getting Master Rong as my partner. Conditioning with him was excruciatingly painful and made me realize how kind Monica and I had been to each other. It doesn’t seem to make any difference that you’re a girl and no allowances are made as he punched and kicked me with all his might. He actually had to take rests he was putting so much effort in! By the time he reached my inner thighs all I could do was laugh (it was this or cry!). A whole new reaction for him I think as he looked at me in confusion and bewilderment! I told you some people have funny reactions to pain! He then finished the session off with him and a couple of the other guys having a jumping competition across the water. He is annoyingly good and makes it look so easy!

On Saturday we popped into Muping for our weekly treat, a supermarket shop and street food for lunch. You can buy these amazing pancakes stuffed full of lettuce, aubergine, potatoe, sausage, chilli and garlic sauce,etc. They are delicious and cost all of 4 Yuan (about 35p!).

So we have 4 days left here which will be the end of our month and we will have mixed feelings when we leave. The food is awful and we can’t wait to have our own bathroom with hot water whenever we like but we will miss the training, the Master’s and some of the other students. We’ve definitely made some friends for life and we wouldn’t rule out returning at some point. We fly to Shanghai on Thursday to spend the weekend there before flying back to the UK a little early (as we can’t go to Japan as originally planned). We will spend 2 days in the UK and then fly to Malaga where we have rented a villa for a few weeks to rest but definitely continue our training, but maybe not at quite the same intensity!