We're leaving in a few days to go on a class trip to the city of Chengdu to see some pandas and visit a taoist mountain near there. I would be excited to go anyway but after this week, even more so. We trained quite hard and the temperature has skyrocketed to about 37 degrees in the daytime so it's been pretty torturous for me. Although this place will most likely be just as hot, we won't be training like madmen in the blistering sun. We're all really looking forward to a little rest and relaxation.

ahh allergies.

It's been very dusty here the past few weeks, we even had this crazy windstorm last week that blew dirt all over the place. In Canada I usually like the wind (unless it's -30 out) but here it is so incredibly dusty and gross. I would have thought that being in the mountains in a pretty humid area would mean we didn't have this problem but it seems to be China-wide. Spring is the worst, all the sand from the deserts in the north blows all over the country, combine that with the pollution and you've got a yucky situation.

I really miss Canada sometimes, I know there's still snow and it's cold and everyone complains about it but just think, it could be worse. I think I'm really going to appreciate the little things about home so much more after I return at the end of the program. I know it's easy to forget in the busyness of our day to day lives but we really are very lucky.

We started learning a new form this week called baji chuan. I'm not even sure what that means. I'll try to find out. It's a really cool looking form with lots of swinging forearm strikes and stomping. I was kinda worried about learning it actually, stomping is hard on my knees which have been feeling so much better lately. So far it's alright though, I'm a little sore but it's nothing that feels damaging to the knee joints, they haven't started collapsing on me unexpectedly again or anything like that. I guess they're still getting stronger and stronger. I wonder what will happen when we start running in the morning though, that was always the worst for me. Everyone is surprised we haven't started the early morning run yet. Last year by this time we were already about a month into it. It's seems pretty unlikely but it would be awesome if we just didn't do it this year, not only easier on the body but we'd actually be getting a full nights rest too. I imagine Shifu's just either forgotten to mention it, or he's holding back because the weather has been so weird and he doesn't want us to get sick. I'll just continue to enjoy it while it lasts.

We finished bagua, yay! We learned the last part on Tuesday and on Wednesday for performance I showed everyone. I only made one mistake which is pretty good considering how new it is. I was ok with it. One of the staff of the school took a video of me, if it wasn't for the stupid internet firewall, I'd post it here. Maybe I can figure out a way around it. I'll try for next week.

I got a weird stomach thing a few days ago and have had a headache since then, perhaps a mild flu or I ate something yucky. Shifu talks a lot about knowing your body is weak before you get sick and preventing it but I'm still just at the point of getting sick and looking back and seeing in hindsight that I could have maybe done something to stop it. I remember on Tuesday being extremely tired but I just attributed it to being the end of the week. Maybe with more practice I can realize these things sooner. Overall though I am much more aware of what is going on inside me. I think it's partly just paying attention but also partly due to our internal training like meditation, qi gong, and tai chi developing greater sensitivity. It's really neat to see improvements like these, things that no one but me can notice.