This week was our first week of the summer schedule. Spring here was quite cool and comfortable, normally we would change the schedule a month or 2 earlier. We now get up at 4:50, start class at 5, have breakfast and 7, train again 8-10:30. Then after lunch we nap until meditation at 3:30, dinner and 5:30,  and then we have class again from 6:30 till 9. Last year we were training later until 9:30 and even though it's only half an hour, getting a little more sleep this time is great.

Generally we don't like the summer schedule because there's less time for sleeping but so far everyone seems ok. We'll see how things are going in a month or so! Things can get pretty grouchy around here come July.

I find myself really missing home now. Summer in Canada is so nice and comfortable and I haven't seen one in several years now. Another 2 summers here and then I can finally come home.

mmmmm.... A friend brought pistachio chocolate from Turkey and it is delicious! It's so nice that people bring us treats when they come back to the school.

This week has been pretty alright, it's gotten very hot but other than that training is good. Feeling very flexible again too.

After the tournament we trained for a day and a half and shifu announced that we would start the 3 days of meditation. It didn't make any sense to me because between our trip to Guilin and getting ready for the tournament we hadn't meditated in almost a month. I think it showed too. Some of us had a hard time sitting still the whole time and Shifu was pretty disappointed in us as a class. So that spanned our usual day off and then we trained as usual for rest of the week and everyone was pretty exhausted. By the time the next day off came we were all right on the edge of breakdown. Add to that the fact that Shifu was so unhappy with us and it's a wonder we survived it....but we did! We made it and I had an amazing day off on Thursday just relaxing and resting a lot. I'm really happy to be on the other side of that rough patch. Hopefully next time we do the meditation, we'll be more prepared.

Summer is in full swing now which means, it's hot, humid, and buggy and the school is packed. We're learning spear too and a lot of the movements involve sliding the spear shaft through your hand or against your arm, pretty much impossible when you're coated in a sticky layer of sweat, sunscreen, and bug spray! haha. Grossed out yet? haha.

Here a few pictures from the competition as promised. It was a crazy time during which we had no day off then we got back, trained for 2 days, and shifu announced we'd do the meditation retreat so we again had no day off this week and meditated Wed, Thurs, Fri and back to training Saturday. I've been super busy and I'm also tired so I'll write a much better post soon on the day off. Until then.....I'm going to sleep!