Fourth week in Wudang [ENG]

Summary

The fourth week didn’t differ much from the third one. I kept practicing and learning the 伏虎拳 tiger form I started in the third week, and among the new movements I learnt there is a low spinning kick that was pretty difficult to do properly.
Shishu had us practice it so many times that before I noticed, i burnt a hole in one of my shoes. It’s on the upper side, not the sole, which helped me realized I had been doing it wrong the whole time - you’re supposed to spin low on the ground keeping your straight leg parallel to it, with the foot’s sole facing it.
Anyway, I managed to stop and notice before burning through my sock underneath, and I had a good laugh, so I wouldn’t say it was for nothing.

I’ll make a post regarding the tiger form when I finally complete it, but I can already anticipate you that it’s main trait is being heavy on the 马步. Mabu, for those who aren’t familiar with the Chinese martial arts, is the “Horse stance”: basically standing with the legs a little spread out in half a squat. Pretty much every movement of the tiger form begins and ends in a mabu stance, making it very tiring for the legs.

Me, like the whole time for the last couple weeks.

Some attempts at using Chinese medicine - part 2

In last week’s post I talked about the 药酒 yaojiu and the moxa. The next thing I tried was acupuncture: since there’s an acupuncturist here at the school (he’s studying martial arts here) I asked him to try and see if it would work on me. I went to his room an afternoon and he stung me with some needles, on the right leg and some other points all over the body, including the top of my head. Once everything was in place, I just waited for 20 minutes laying on a bed. It felt quite strange: especially the needles on my wrists and on the top of my head gave me an interesting feeling.

At the end, although I did feel more relaxed, it sadly didn’t seem to work for my knee. I was supposed to take another session two days after the first one, but both me and the acupuncturist ended up being busy. I have heard stories of other students here who benefited a lot from acupuncture though, so it might be I just wasn’t that lucky.
At the end of the session he gave me a bottle of 活洛油 huoluoyou, a liquid medicine. I’ve been using that for some days now, and I feel like my knee is slowly improving. It’s going to take some more time before I’ll be able to throw kicks with my right leg, but it can’t be helped.

A gym’s opening, or
How I ended up on a spinning bike in front of hundreds of people

On Sunday I was suddenly asked by a fellow student if I wanted to help him with the opening of the gym he’s working at. The plan was to go there in the evening and join his spinning bike lesson, with some other students. I told myself it would be a nice occasion to see how things work here, as well as seeing around a little, so I decided to go.
But as for pretty much everything so far, it didn’t quite go as planned.
When we got to the gym, he told us that the plan changed entirely and we were going to have a small demonstration in a plaza nearby. It was only when we got there that I realized it was one of the central places in the town, where people hang out at night, and that they had built a stage at its center for the occasion. Needless to say, the spinning bikes were right next to the stage, and we were made practice there first, with a (I’m guessing local) TV broadcaster camera pointing at us. Then the event begun and we stayed on the bikes for most of its duration.
It did feel a little uncomfortable at first, especially since hundreds of people had already gathered around us, but all in all it was an enjoyable experience.

First month in Wudang, sum up

This being the fourth week here, it also marks the end of my first month, so I thought I’d share with you my impressions.
I came here without really knowing what to expect, and I have to say that I’m satisfied with what I’ve found. The school being quite good, it took me only roughly two weeks to get used to the everyday routine here. Some things at first weren’t that good - for one, the food - but they have been improving so I can say I’m pretty happy with it now.
The feeling is similar to the one of a summer camp, as I just have to get up in time for breakfast and not be late for the classes and the meals, but I can’t say I have much free time, as I tend to study/write the blog during my spare time. I really like it here because I can focus on myself, and since the classes are tough mainly on the body, the mind can rest a little and I can study more effectively during the day than I would normally.
It would be very hard to work while training at the school though, but I guess this might change too later on.

Regarding my Chinese language ability, it’s slowing improving. The strong dialect spoken here is really tough to decipher, but I suppose that will come eventually.

The training is tough on my body, but it’s a matter of getting used to it. With this one month I have already seen some good progress, both in my kicks and in my stances, but there are so many more things that I want to learn and master that I’m pretty much constantly looking forward to what comes next. If you remember the fact I mentioned that going upstairs proved to be pretty tough during the first week, well it hasn’t really become any easier just yet. This being said, I believe the tiger form to be a really good one for preparing your body to what comes next, it’s the “level up” I need to do in order to move forward to the next forms.