New Years Push-ups

I rang in the Chinese new year with 1000 push-ups.

Actually all my teammates back home rang in the western new year the same way but by the time I'd read about the plan I'd already missed it. So I decided that since I was in China anyways, I'd just do it on Chinese new year instead.

It kinda sucked that I didn't get to do it with everyone else but with the time difference that would have been the case either way. I have to admit that it did take me just over 24 hours but I did complete the push-ups in the end. It was actually easier than I'd expected. The biggest challenge was just finding the time. Luckily everyone pretty much just hangs out and eats to celebrate over here so we didn't have training. I feel pretty good that I got them done even though I didn't really feel like pushing myself on one of the few days off I've had since coming here. It's something I can be proud of and now I can take a couple days off from push-ups and still be ahead.

People really know how to celebrate here. There's been fireworks and fire crackers going off day and night. It's pretty loud too, they set them off literally right on the doorstep sometimes!

My stances still suck

Well I'm still working on my stances. I think they've improved a bit but there's still a long way to go. Every Wednesday is a half day and in our morning class we have a big demonstration where we all take turns getting up in front of the class and performing our forms. This week I got my sister to film a couple of my forms so I could see how they looked. It was pretty disappointing. My sword form had improved from last week, I've really been concentrating on lowering my stances in that form and I think it's helped a bit already. Another form I did was pure crap though! My stances were way to high, I had no power, and my movements were not clear enough. Everyone else seemed to think it was alright but I was not impressed with myself. It's certainly encouraged me to practice that form more though so in the end it's a good thing. That's what I like about videotaping forms. You either do them well and feel good about yourself or you don't and then you are inspired to practice harder.

As far as my UBBT student requirements, all is well. Push-ups are on schedule. It's been really easy to do certain requirements here where others have been more challenging. I'm hoping it'll all even out once I get home.

Only about 2 more weeks to go. I still have lots that I want to learn and improve on. I hope that I will be able to get it all done.

mmmmmmmm

January 16th already?

It seems like I just got to China but my time here is almost over! In about 3 weeks Mel and I will be home in Canada(Jiananda)again. I feel like I've learned so much and improved a lot but at the same time there's still so much room for growth. My stances especially could be lower. I had a dream the other night that I was in class and doing forms and our instructor gave me a hard time for not having low enough stances. He asked 'how long have you been training for? your stances should be perfect by now'. I'm not exactly a dream expert but I figured I would take it at face value and work on my stances anyways.

As far as the UBBT goes, I'm doing fairly well. Keeping up with my push-ups and sit-ups. I'm already ahead on the mileage and I get some more running in almost every day. I'm looking forward to being at home and sharing the experience a little more with the other members, sometimes I feel a little out of the loop over here in China.

I'm interested to get home and see if my improvements are noticeable to my classmates. I wonder if our one hour classes will seem strange after training for 2-3 hours 2 times a day.

I'm also really excited to eat western food! I like Chinese food as much as the next guy but I get bored of eating it 3 times a day every day. Can't wait for spaghetti, salad, burritos, bbq'd veggies......mmmmmm.

A New Year

Christmas didn't seem like Christmas and new years didn't seem like new years. Things like that feel strange here, just like any other day. The only real difference for me is that I've been doing a lot more push-ups. I was already tracking them but now I'm being much more diligent and forcing myself to do more. Since there's no indoor heating here it's also a great way to stay warm!

I used to be able to get to the UBBT website easily but the Chinese firewall has caught up with me and now I have to go through a proxy site. I had to email my mom and get here to register me because said proxy site would now allow my to view the entire registration screen. Once I'm registered though I believe everything will be more straightforward.

Something I've learned now is not to get bent out of shape when things don't work out the way you expected them to. Being here and dealing with China's unique challenges has made me better able to deal with minor setbacks I think. I used to get frustrated with stuff like that really easily but I'm noticing that change already. Like when I logged onto our schools google group on Jan 3rd and saw that other students were starting off the new year by doing 1000 push ups and sit ups and that I had missed the entire thing. Normally I would be really upset but now I've shrugged and decided that I'll do the same thing on Chinese new year instead. There you go, problem solved, no need for any drama.

On a side note, training is going well. I'm learning 2 new forms right now and they're both awesome! Did some sparring the other day and got punched in the nose. It hurts a bit to blow my nose but it was a lot of fun and I look forward to gearing up when I get home.