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Monday, January 16, 2012
4:50pm
As I type this, I am sitting on a hard bed, in full winter gear. Hat, gloves, winter coat, two shirts, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of socks. I started the morning with three shirts and two pairs of gloves, layered, but it got warmer. Well, mostly I got warmer what with all the moving, but it was nice around midday; I even got to see the sun for the first time since I've been here. I was also eating a “mango pudding” (a milk-based jello-type thing that is all mango flavored all the time and has pieces of mango in it it is amazing) as a treat, but I finished it while talking about the weather.
In short, it’s cold. Not sure of the temperature, but right now, Michigan is probably warmer.
The school is the Qufu Shaolin Kung Fu school, located in, surprise!, Qufu (pronounced chu-fu), which is in the North of China, and it is, well. Cold, would be the word. In fact, it’s now about 6pm, since I took a break from typing to walk around and then it was dinnertime (which is at 5:30pm), which means it’s colder, so I’m back up to two pairs of gloves.
The other word for the school is basic. There are a few buildings that act as the student ‘dorms,’ and I think each house up to three. Each room is just one space with three beds, some desks, and some standing pieces of furniture for clothing. They look sort of like sheds, if you want a better picture. Stone floor, one light, and sparse. They do have a bit of heating, which is nice, though I do mean a bit. Most of the students go to bed in layers. Last night I slept in my coat too.
There’s a training hall as well, a long, rectangular building, stone floor, no heat, but with mats, where we do warm up, but most of the training is outside. Start with running laps around, then into stretches, and then whatever it is of the day. Today’s classes were Basics (the basic moves that make up the Kung Fu style) and free forms, Chinese boxing, and sword forms, which was an optional class.
This was the day:
7:30am: breakfast (usually the day would start with ‘up at 5:30am’ for Tai Chi class, but the Shifu who does that is on holiday for the new year celebration, as are many others)
7:30am: digest breakfast
8:00am: Warm up and stretches
9:00am: Basics (Brittany and I were taken to the side to be taught the first ten; there are eleven)
10:30am: free forms (we mostly switched between practicing basics and watching the other students)
11:30am: break until lunch
Noon: lunch
12:30-2pm: “Naptime.” More of a Chinese thing, though some students really use it for napping. Heck, I might tomorrow, given how exhausted I’ll probably be.
2:00pm: Chinese boxing (we learned the basics again; stance, moving forwards and back in stance, punch, double punch, hook, double hook, front-leg kick, back-leg kick, and how to move forward whilst doing all these things)
3:30pm: Weapons class (we actually learned part of a basic straight-sword form! With actual swords!)
5:30pm: dinner
Curfew is at 9:30pm
The 3:30 classes are usually optional, so people sort of trickled in and out, and some didn’t participate at all. Can’t really blame any of them. I can see wanting to use that time for other things. Like resting.
All of the other students that I’ve met so far (there are about 30 here right now, and no one’s been here for less than a month) are very nice. I have two roommates: Sarah, who’s also from America (Seattle), and Mintoi, who’s from the UK. Brittany’s upstairs with a girl named Carol, from Switzerland. Everyone’s been incredibly, amazingly helpful in getting us settled in, explaining everything from how the washing machines work to the fact that there’s a shop within walking distance from the school, that stocks basics.
The shop, named the Ten Minute Shop by the students, since it takes about that long to walk there, is where I went during Naptime instead of taking an actual nap. Sarah, and Yogi (he’s from London, originally from India, had arranged to come to the school for two months. So far he’s been here for four—apparently that sort of thing happens a lot here) came as well. I got a thermos, which I’ve been needing, as China’s water is undrinkable until boiled, so all the water provided anywhere is hot. There were a pair of slippers at the shop that I had eyed and didn’t get, which I’m regretting now; they really would be very useful to wear, since they are lined (for warmth) and have a tread (so I could wear them outside). It would be much easier than having to put on my sneakers every time I wanted to go out to the washing area. I’ll probably go back tomorrow and get them.
Now it’s 6:20pm, after dinner, and I’m finishing up this entry. I’m not able to post it on Chiyo (my netbook), because the only way I can get online is on the computer in the Office. I’ve actually typed this all up in word, and am putting it on a USB to just plug in and post after it’s finished, both so that I can use my computer in my room, fairly comfortable, and so I’m not hogging the office computer. Most of the long-term students actually get their own internet installed.
By the way, because of how internet access works here, I won’t be posting any pictures this week. It just takes too much time to upload them for it to be worth it. I am taking pictures, of course, and plan to just make a big pictures-with-explanations post once I’m in Beijing, and have more access to a connection. If the hostel we’re staying at doesn’t have, then there are at least internet cafes all over that will.
In short, we’re both incredibly sore and will only feel more of it tomorrow (I…really don’t want to move right now. At all.), but we’re safe and pretty happy and are looking forward to a week of training. I really think that I’m going to want to do something like this again, with a longer stay.
I don’t think all that much will be happing differently from day to day, aside from the classes being different, so I might not have a whole lot to post over this next week. It’s also likely that it’ll be hard to update due to that internet-access thing I mentioned.
However, before we leave, I’ve got to make at least one more entry about our last two days in Shanghai. That was an adventure. Mostly filled with being frantic a lot. I’ll explain more later. 6:45pm? Yeah, I think it’s time to start getting ready for bed.
( Shaolin Kung Fu Basics: (mostly for my own memory’s sake )
Edit, as of 8:30pm. So this took a bit longer than expected to post. Why? My coat broke. Yeah. In northern China, in the middle of nowhere, in the winter, the zipper jumped the tracks, and when I tried to fix it, it pulled off completely. After about an hour of trying to fix it (even one of the school's Shifu stepped in, since he was there when I went to the ofice to ask for pliers) Brittany got it. Crisis averted for now.
I think, in Beijing, I might need to buy a new coat.
4:50pm
As I type this, I am sitting on a hard bed, in full winter gear. Hat, gloves, winter coat, two shirts, two pairs of pants, and two pairs of socks. I started the morning with three shirts and two pairs of gloves, layered, but it got warmer. Well, mostly I got warmer what with all the moving, but it was nice around midday; I even got to see the sun for the first time since I've been here. I was also eating a “mango pudding” (a milk-based jello-type thing that is all mango flavored all the time and has pieces of mango in it it is amazing) as a treat, but I finished it while talking about the weather.
In short, it’s cold. Not sure of the temperature, but right now, Michigan is probably warmer.
The school is the Qufu Shaolin Kung Fu school, located in, surprise!, Qufu (pronounced chu-fu), which is in the North of China, and it is, well. Cold, would be the word. In fact, it’s now about 6pm, since I took a break from typing to walk around and then it was dinnertime (which is at 5:30pm), which means it’s colder, so I’m back up to two pairs of gloves.
The other word for the school is basic. There are a few buildings that act as the student ‘dorms,’ and I think each house up to three. Each room is just one space with three beds, some desks, and some standing pieces of furniture for clothing. They look sort of like sheds, if you want a better picture. Stone floor, one light, and sparse. They do have a bit of heating, which is nice, though I do mean a bit. Most of the students go to bed in layers. Last night I slept in my coat too.
There’s a training hall as well, a long, rectangular building, stone floor, no heat, but with mats, where we do warm up, but most of the training is outside. Start with running laps around, then into stretches, and then whatever it is of the day. Today’s classes were Basics (the basic moves that make up the Kung Fu style) and free forms, Chinese boxing, and sword forms, which was an optional class.
This was the day:
7:30am: breakfast (usually the day would start with ‘up at 5:30am’ for Tai Chi class, but the Shifu who does that is on holiday for the new year celebration, as are many others)
7:30am: digest breakfast
8:00am: Warm up and stretches
9:00am: Basics (Brittany and I were taken to the side to be taught the first ten; there are eleven)
10:30am: free forms (we mostly switched between practicing basics and watching the other students)
11:30am: break until lunch
Noon: lunch
12:30-2pm: “Naptime.” More of a Chinese thing, though some students really use it for napping. Heck, I might tomorrow, given how exhausted I’ll probably be.
2:00pm: Chinese boxing (we learned the basics again; stance, moving forwards and back in stance, punch, double punch, hook, double hook, front-leg kick, back-leg kick, and how to move forward whilst doing all these things)
3:30pm: Weapons class (we actually learned part of a basic straight-sword form! With actual swords!)
5:30pm: dinner
Curfew is at 9:30pm
The 3:30 classes are usually optional, so people sort of trickled in and out, and some didn’t participate at all. Can’t really blame any of them. I can see wanting to use that time for other things. Like resting.
All of the other students that I’ve met so far (there are about 30 here right now, and no one’s been here for less than a month) are very nice. I have two roommates: Sarah, who’s also from America (Seattle), and Mintoi, who’s from the UK. Brittany’s upstairs with a girl named Carol, from Switzerland. Everyone’s been incredibly, amazingly helpful in getting us settled in, explaining everything from how the washing machines work to the fact that there’s a shop within walking distance from the school, that stocks basics.
The shop, named the Ten Minute Shop by the students, since it takes about that long to walk there, is where I went during Naptime instead of taking an actual nap. Sarah, and Yogi (he’s from London, originally from India, had arranged to come to the school for two months. So far he’s been here for four—apparently that sort of thing happens a lot here) came as well. I got a thermos, which I’ve been needing, as China’s water is undrinkable until boiled, so all the water provided anywhere is hot. There were a pair of slippers at the shop that I had eyed and didn’t get, which I’m regretting now; they really would be very useful to wear, since they are lined (for warmth) and have a tread (so I could wear them outside). It would be much easier than having to put on my sneakers every time I wanted to go out to the washing area. I’ll probably go back tomorrow and get them.
Now it’s 6:20pm, after dinner, and I’m finishing up this entry. I’m not able to post it on Chiyo (my netbook), because the only way I can get online is on the computer in the Office. I’ve actually typed this all up in word, and am putting it on a USB to just plug in and post after it’s finished, both so that I can use my computer in my room, fairly comfortable, and so I’m not hogging the office computer. Most of the long-term students actually get their own internet installed.
By the way, because of how internet access works here, I won’t be posting any pictures this week. It just takes too much time to upload them for it to be worth it. I am taking pictures, of course, and plan to just make a big pictures-with-explanations post once I’m in Beijing, and have more access to a connection. If the hostel we’re staying at doesn’t have, then there are at least internet cafes all over that will.
In short, we’re both incredibly sore and will only feel more of it tomorrow (I…really don’t want to move right now. At all.), but we’re safe and pretty happy and are looking forward to a week of training. I really think that I’m going to want to do something like this again, with a longer stay.
I don’t think all that much will be happing differently from day to day, aside from the classes being different, so I might not have a whole lot to post over this next week. It’s also likely that it’ll be hard to update due to that internet-access thing I mentioned.
However, before we leave, I’ve got to make at least one more entry about our last two days in Shanghai. That was an adventure. Mostly filled with being frantic a lot. I’ll explain more later. 6:45pm? Yeah, I think it’s time to start getting ready for bed.
( Shaolin Kung Fu Basics: (mostly for my own memory’s sake )
Edit, as of 8:30pm. So this took a bit longer than expected to post. Why? My coat broke. Yeah. In northern China, in the middle of nowhere, in the winter, the zipper jumped the tracks, and when I tried to fix it, it pulled off completely. After about an hour of trying to fix it (even one of the school's Shifu stepped in, since he was there when I went to the ofice to ask for pliers) Brittany got it. Crisis averted for now.
I think, in Beijing, I might need to buy a new coat.