Merry Christmas everyone!

Spending a lot of time with family here and it's so relaxing. I really missed them in China.

Last night I went to Silent River kung fu to say hello and train a little. It is so great that even after not seeing them for a whole year it feels like no time has passed at all. Everyone there is so welcoming and positive, it feels like a real family. I'm always so happy to come home for a visit. We are so lucky to have such a great place to train. I hope everyone realizes that.

I leave for the train in one hour!

20 hours on the train, 2 nights in Beijing, 12 hour flight, 2 nights in Vancouver, then.....

HOME

I bought our train tickets today! We leave here on Thursday afternoon and will be home on the 20th. yay!

Just having possession of the tickets makes our departure seem that much sooner. I'm really excited to be going home. At this time of year we're all pretty ready to get the heck out of here. A month or so of rest is just what I need to get me excited about this place again.

On Sunday we finished learning monk spade, I was pretty happy about it. We have still been practicing it almost every day and I think I am continuing to get stronger and stronger. It's good. Shifu is also gone to Beijing for about a week so another one of the coaches is in charge of our class and I'm really enjoying it. He corrects us but doesn't push us too much (this close to the break, we're all just trying to get through these last weeks) and when we practice monk spade he counts each movement instead of having us do it in sections.

To explain, when we practice forms as a group, we do them either counting while focusing on the correct movement, or in sections while we try to go really fast and stay together as a group. When shifu was teaching us the monk spade form he started teaching us the sections and pushing us to go faster right away. It was really difficult for me and the other females in the class. I was just barely able to do the movements with the heavy spade and I was trying to keep up with the guys, some of which were ridiculously fast right off the bat. I found it really discouraging, in fact I cried in class the second day we tried doing it fast. I don't usually feel jealous or resentful of the males in the class, I hold my own pretty well most of the time despite their strength but lately that's changed. I have been trying my very best and using every ounce of power in my body and they are still way faster than me. It even LOOKS easier when they do it. It's been extremely challenging for me and I find myself really resenting the guys. I don't want to hear anything about them being tired or sore, it just makes me want to punch them in the face! It doesn't help that I'm getting kind of sick of them in general, I'm not going to miss them over the break that's for sure!

Anyway, our coach has been really nice to us and I'm still improving but I'm really looking forward to going home soon. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate.

This week was very...different. We trained normally one day, did a short T.V. demonstration the next, then for the following 2 days we were part of an "audience" in a Chinese martial arts movie being made here in Wudang. It was pretty boring actually, just sitting there in the cold for about 8 hours pretending to be interested in the cheesy fight scenes being acted out onstage. Then we trained normally again on Tuesday but I think we all felt really weird and out of sorts from the drastic change in activity level. Wednesday we had to get up and get ready for another performance on the mountain. We waited for the bus to come pick us up for over an hour and then finally just left, in classic organized Chinese showbiz style, they didn't have the transportation worked out properly ahead of time. Then on Thursday (our day "off") we had to get up early and go to the temple for an exchange with some Canadian tourists. These exchanges are when a group shows up with martial arts background and we take turns showing each other forms and visit for a while, a pretty fun activity actually when it's not on the day off. This morning we were in the middle of our early morning practice when we were told to be ready to leave in 15 minutes for another day in the "audience". sigh. Off we went for another long day.

On top of all of that, the power was out for one day and then the following day our internet stopped working for 3 days. It finally got fixed this afternoon.

What a week! Craziness!

Monk spade.......tired.....only 1 month left......

Well this week has been grueling. I'm hoping I'll continue to get better and stronger and that the hard part is over.....yeah.

Not much else to say this time. Maybe next week will be a little more exciting.

Monk Spade

This week we started learning the monk spade (fangbian chan) basics and the form. We started by building them last Thursday. It was a lot of work but a pretty fun process all things considered. When we bought them we each got a hardwood staff as well as the head and the base. We just had to cut the staff to size and then shape the ends so they were tapered to fit inside the shovel and base. Then we nailed them together. It was time consuming but Shifu was helping us and gave us lots of good advice.

Then it rained so a few days later we started practicing it. It is really challenging! I estimate it weighs about 20 pounds or so and it's difficult to maneuver. I thought I was pretty strong for my size but after the first day I was feeling really disappointed in myself. It seemed like it was so much easier for everyone else (plus my shoulder was extremely sore) and I wasn't too happy. I guess I have a lot of room for improvement but the second day was a bit better. I started to understand the technique so I didn't have to use as much brute strength. It's still definitely not easy though. Shifu was having a few laughs at the faces I was making as we were practicing. He said it'll take a lot of work for my arms to get strong enough to do the form well but I kind of expected that would be the case anyway. I really hope this week is better, luckily I have the break to look forward to!

If you want to learn more about the Wudang Monk Spade check out the schools page:

http://www.wudanggongfu.com/kungfu/monkspade.htm

They've been doing renovations at the temple we train at for a few years already but this week they did something kinda cool. I don't know what it means but they put these brass knobs all over the big red doors we go through each day. They certainly look much more impressive now! I keep meaning to ask Shifu what they're for but I've forgotten in all the excitement of halloween....


We had a really fun Halloween party here with lots of fun and games. Everyone had a really great time. There were activities like pumpkin carving, face painting, mask making, games, and then we danced to some awesome music played by a D.J. who happens to be training here right now. Though the Chinese students thought it was a little strange, they seemed to really enjoy it. Even shifu scratched on the turntables for a while and played a little. It was definitely the best party we've had here by far.

These are a few photos from the competition a few weeks ago. Me, Mel, mom, and dad cheering everyone on and one of me helping out in the pre-start mayhem. I was sure glad to have my parents there, it made the whole thing a lot more fun!

Well after all the excitement of my parents being here and the competition this week has been kinda bland. We're all waiting with bated breath for Shifu to announce what form we'll be learning next but he's really drawing it out. He likes to do this, I think it's on purpose, to mess with us. If anyone asks him he's just really vague and then walks away. Classic shifu. Hopefully he'll give us a break and let us know tomorrow.

So sorry to everyone about my long silence. My computer was on the fritz and is still in the process of dying a slow death so I had no keyboard...kinda hard to write a post without letters! A lot has happened over the past month or so. My parents came to visit for a few weeks (luckily they brought me a new laptop which is what I'm using now) and we've been busy, busy, busy. First Mel and I met them in Xi'an where we stayed for 4 days. After that we took the train to Chengdu for another 4 days of touristy stuff and then we took another train to Wudang where we live. I think my parents really liked both cities and I hope they enjoyed our little town too. It was so fun to have them at class and I feel like now they understand better what exactly we're doing here. My mom enjoyed training with us, Dad, not so much. He liked watching and taking some pictures but never did have much interest in martial arts. It was great having them here though. They left early this morning and I know I'll miss them but it's only another couple months until I see them again so it seems like nothing. I haven't traveled with my parents since childhood and it was really refreshing to see them outside of their usual environment.

We also had a tournament here in town that most of my classmates participated in. I didn't have much time so I just hung out with mom and dad and we watched and cheered everyone on. Our school did really well but it almost didn't seem fair to compete with other foreigners who have jobs and families. We do this full time so it wasn't much of a contest. It was really interesting to watch though, I just hope the people who came from far away had a good time too.

It's getting cooler and more comfortable...
we're almost finished tai chi sword...
my hip is feeling much better....
2 weeks until my parents arrive....
knitting again...
reading some good books...
moon festival is next week so we get an extra day off....

Life Is Good

Fall is coming!

It's still pretty hot and the school is crowded but there's an end in sight. Some of the small kids have already left to go back home in time for school and more and more people will do the same. The feel of training in the fall is so much nicer. Cool nights and warm days are so comfortable. It's still good for stretching but it's not so draining just to exist. I think everyone is feeling it, our attitudes seem to be improving and everyone is more happy to go to class and train. Yay!

We're pretty close to finishing tai ji sword. A pretty long but totally awesome form that I really enjoy practicing.

My hip is getting better, I can do almost everything I normally do again. I'm glad it's happening relatively quickly.

Friday morning during our stretch part of class I hurt the tendon in the front of my left hip. Strangely, I was stretching the hamstring on that side and I kinda squished the tendon inside my hip joint somehow. Sounds weird I know but it's actually a fairly common injury here. Well anyway, it's nothing too serious but it is annoying. I have to take it easy on the stretching now, which is the only good thing about hot weather training. I also have to be careful and kick slowly and gently for a while. Overall though it's not too much of a problem now. Sleeping is when it bothers me the most, it gets stiff and starts aching and sometimes wakes me up. I've gone for a painful massage and have another planned for this afternoon so hopefully it'll heal quickly. I was just thinking about a week and a half ago that it had been a really long time since I'd had an injury so I guess I jinxed myself.

Not much to say this week. The weather is hot and sticky. Humidity today is 100% according to the weather page. gross. Mel got a heat rash on her belly. We've started taking around 3 showers a day too. I really can't wait until summer is over. Mom and Dad will be here in a month and a half and I'm REALLY excited!

We started leaning tai chi sword (taiji jian) this week and I love it! I've been wanting to learn this form for ages, watching jealously as foreign student after foreign student in the free class learns it. Well now it's our turn and even though we've just begun, it's totally awesome so far.

Here is the web address for the video on youtube. It's not the whole form but you'll get the jist of it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8FTg-d5JVY

well I missed writing last week but there's not too much to say anyway. Summer has gotten really hot again, more like what I remembered from last year and the school is busier than it's ever been before. I think this puts everyone around here a little on edge but overall we seem to be enduring it with relative patience. It's almost August which means another month or so of this and things will calm down and return to some semblance of normalcy. One thing that's quite exciting is the new form we'll start learning tomorrow: Tai chi straight sword. I've watched several students come learn this form and I've often been envious of them. It's a really beautiful form that combines two things I've fallen in love with over these past 2 years, straight sword and tai chi. I also think it's a perfect way to spend the second half of the summer.

A few weeks ago was my birthday which we celebrated well. I got many messages from folks at home and it really meant a lot to me that so many people were so kind. Thanks everyone!

When people come to visit this school, they often come with either experience in some other meditation-type tradition or preconceived notions of what meditation is. They want to know what we 'see' when we meditate, what Shifu teaches about spirit travel, or share stories of visions they've had.

I've often wondered where people get these ideas from. Meditation, at least for the first many years is pretty much a matter of sitting and breathing. That's it. Shifu tells us that learning to sit and learning patience are a beginners only concern. He also tells us that in order for any feeling from meditating to be "real" it must come from your body, not your mind. If it comes from your mind, it is a hallucination created to entertain you. Perhaps you read in a book about an ecstatic experience someone had and your mind thought you should be feeling the same thing.

I've started reading a book by Livia Kohn called Early Chinese Mysticism and in the introduction she explained perfectly to me why so many westerners that visit the school have these wild expectations about our internal practice. From the writings of Christian mystics, there is a fixation on "peak experiences", visions of the divine, ecstatic union with God. Chinese scriptures focus more on the transformation of body and mind. This comes from a completely different worldview. The Christian tradition has a god completely separate from us, who we can see only through his mercy and all of these experiences are otherworldly. Chinese philosophy, however, speaks of the Tao, within and without all of us. The Tao is completely natural and to be in union with the Tao is the most natural of states for every being, a more everyday kind of experience. From what I understand of Buddhism, the basics are quite similar, instead of searching for something outside oneself, the goal is to accept all as it is and without judgement. This early Christian mysticism has influenced us westerners in way we don't even realize. Even for those who are neither Christian, nor religious, our very identity has been influenced by our past roots. Very interesting.

There are many other traditions such as shamanism where one goes on vision quests and experiences sensual wonders and I don't wish to devalue those but I don't think they've influenced our cultural identity in the same ways as Christianity. One thing about living in a place so far removed from home is that it really gives you a new perspective with which to view your culture.

The other night during class Shifu gave us a bit of an impromptu lecture where he talked about a few random things. One of the topics he talked about for quite a while was fighting between kung fu schools.

When he was quite young he trained at Shaolin for 3 years and he said the inter-school violence was pretty bad. A classmate of ours also trained there and said it is even worse now. He mentioned standing alone on a street corner in the town and if a group of students from another school saw you they would come over and ask you if you wanted to change schools. If you said no, they'd beat you up.

Both in Shaolin and here in Wudang, they would send students to the train station and if a young person got off the train alone, they'd just grab them and practically drag them to the school to try and sign you up, whether you'd planned on visiting that school or not.

Shaolin is full of young Chinese students wanting to be the next Bruce Lee and learn to fight so a little violence is not a surprise, especially when there are literally thousands of people crammed together. Even here in Wudang though (internal style) fighting used to be a big problem. Back in the 80's and early 90's there were two very large schools who's students got in fights all the time. The two masters finally had to talk it over and decide to stop the fighting when one student was stabbed in the liver and was very critically injured. Not only were people getting badly hurt, both schools were paying hundreds of thousands of Yuan to the local police as bribes to keep the students out of jail and also to the hospitals. The townspeople as a result had a very bad opinion of kung fu students in general which is only now starting to change. Shifu has a class of local schoolchildren training at the school during the summer and on weekends which would never have happened before.

Even though I generally don't really enjoy the Sanda (sparring) training we do as much as the other stuff, hearing these stories helps me understand why Shifu places so much importance on learning to fight. He's seen first hand how you might need to defend yourself against someone with training equal to your own. None of us plan to fight competitively and Shifu doesn't encourage that either so I often wonder why we spend so much of our time on conditioning and stuff. What I'm really excited about is when we eventually move on to the traditional fighting. Basically self defense training with empty hands and weapons. Less sport oriented and in my opinion a lot more interesting. Shifu showed us a few straight sword techniques the other day...totally awesome! I can't wait!

Sometimes I am so tired that I have almost nothing to say. This is one of those times. I'm looking forward to September when my parents come to visit. Summer is definitely the worst time of year here.

Things have settled down here and we've gotten back into a weird routine. It's been raining for about a week straight which means 2 things. We get to sleep in because there's no early morning training so we wake up around 7....yay! One the other hand we have to train inside and there's not nearly enough space for everyone so our options for training are really limited....boo. Hopefully the rain stops soon, I'd really like to practice forms this week.

I have really had a terrible week. There's not one thing that happened but lately one thing after another has built up and this week was just the pinnacle of crappiness.... and it's not even over yet. The worst thing of all is that about half of our class feels really down and depressed about our training lately but no one feels like they can go to Shifu with their problems. He has been really distant and also harsh this week and he has zero patience for any of us. It's really sad. I feel so full of doubt, maybe the worst I've felt since I got here. It's not just that I'm tired, though I am, I like to train hard but it feels like most of what we've been doing is either a waste of time or taking us in a direction that I don't want to go. I've been really down in the dumps for days now and I've tried lots of different things to cheer myself up and stay positive but then I go to class and it all comes rushing back. I keep remembering how good I felt a few weeks ago before our schedule changed and it makes me so sad! I was so happy with my progress and now I feel like our entire class has taken about 10 steps backwards. I feel old, I feel tired, I feel alone, I feel bitter.... The only thing I can think of is just to try and wait it out, hopefully things will get better. I wish I had something else to look forward to. Right now all I can think about is how much I wish I was at home.

We started practicing hard qigong or iron body training. It consists of making little bundles of bamboo sticks and beating each other's torso's with them to first kill the nerves in the skin. It's pretty painful because the bamboo really stings and gives you little red bruises that can be itchy and uncomfortable. We have also got bigger bundles (about the size of a baseball bat) that we use to train the deeper tissues. There are very specific breathing exercises and you have to really flex all your muscles very hard. We will eventually be hitting each other with bags of sand and rocks but not for another few months and then maybe we'll be able to break wooden sticks on our bodies. The point of it is to learn to protect your organs from impact like a body shot in a fight, you learn to isolate an area to absorb the strike with your muscles instead of allowing it to to penetrate too deeply and cause internal damage. Eventually we will also be able to isolate our muscles to the point of actually being able to move the organs around a little inside. That's really advanced though but a big part of why I am excited to be doing this training. You basically have to go through this 'hard qigong' in order to do the higher level internal cultivation that comes much later. Well anyways, here is a picture of my back after about 4 days of practice. Pretty cool, huh? Actually this doesn't look too bad. Some people's skin marks much more easily and as a result they look way worse than I do. It's funny how many of the guys look worse than the females. You just never know how each person's body will react I guess.

whew!

Sorry about the 2 week silence, the firewall has been getting stronger (or higher?) and I haven't been able to sign in to blogger even using a proxy site. Problem is solved now though, we bit the bullet and got a VPN for our computer. This should make blogging a lot easier and more interesting. Now I can upload pictures and such so it's pretty exciting.

Speaking of pictures....here's a good one from our trip to Chengdu. This is Mel and Shifu with some pandas.

Last week we spent 3 days just on meditating, eating lightly, and taking some Chinese herbs to build our chi. Our class has been talking about this for almost two years now, it was supposed to be something we did semi-regularly but we just now did it for the first time.

First Shifu bought all the herbs which we dried, steamed, and dried again several times before grinding them into a fine powder with this really ancient looking piece of machinery. Then we melted honey and some weirdly congealed bricks of donkey skin (Yes, I'm serious, it's supposed to be a blood cleanser) and mixed it with the powder and rolled it into 9 gram balls. Each day before meditation we would eat 1 to 3 of these "pills". We spent around 6 hours each day meditating. Morning session was 2 1/2 hours, afternoon was 2 hours, and evening was another 1 1/2 hours. We were allowed to eat fruit, a few cooked vegetables, and some special porridge that the cooks made for us with rice, barley, corn, beans, and lentils. I actually enjoyed eating only healthy foods for a few days, although I was dreaming about home-baked cookies from time to time!

I knew this was going to be challenging and it definitely was. The second day in particular was quite rough for me. I was in a lot of pain in my legs and feeling very discouraged pretty much all day but then in the evening we learned a really cool lying down chi gong which helped renew me for the next day. I woke up on day 3 feeling good and I really got a lot out of the meditation. I felt relaxed and calm, I was able to really focus on my dan tian (lower belly) and I think if we'd gone for 4 or 5 days, I would have had some powerful experiences.

Getting back to training has been interesting. I felt really good the first day, relaxed and soft and full of energy, now I'm pretty sore but I still feel more healthy and vigorous. I think we really did build up some chi over those 3 days, I just have to not waste it and continue to build more now. Although it was very hard, I'm looking forward to the next time we can meditate for 3 days, I hope each successive time will be a little bit easier and more rewarding.

Chengdu Trip

We got back this morning from our holiday to Chengdu. Some of you may remember Chengdu from the big earthquake that made the news several years ago. It's a lovely city with a small town feel and the people were quite friendly. We saw a lot of the local sights like temples, the tibetan district, parks, etc but the two main highlights were the pandas and Emei shan.

The panda breeding centre is on the outskirts of the city in a lovely scenic area. The place is full of flower gardens and pretty walking paths as well as adorable pandas! I was worried that the living conditions for the pandas might be inhumane (China is not big on animal rights) but it seemed really great. They had plenty of outdoor space, with lots of bamboo and it was very clean. The pandas seemed really happy and healthy and we got to see babies, teenagers, and adults. Seeing them on a television screen really doesn't do these sweet animals justice. They really were enchanting, even to the more stoic members of our group. We spent about 3 hours there but I could have stayed all day.

Emei shan is the name of a mountain we went to see that was about a 3 hour bus ride from the city. It was absolutely gorgeous scenery and the air was so fresh and clean. Apparently this area is where a lot of scenes from the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon were filmed. There is also a famous kung fu style that originated here and is still practiced today. The Fuhu Temple was incredible in itself and the surrounding beauty just added to it's magnificence, I really hope to take my parents there when they come to visit. Unfortunately we only had a day and a half here and so we saw less than 10% of the mountain, I'd love to go back and stay for 3 or 4 days to have the chance to see everything.

Overall the trip was great and we all had a really fun time. It does feel good to be back though and I'm really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight, sleeping on the train sucks!

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.

Last week it rained....and rained, and rained. I usually like rain at home but here it's really annoying because it last like a week sometimes! We also have to train inside which is pretty boring due to lack of space. I honestly don't remember many details from the week, it's a bit of a blur. We sparred one day and did rolls and throwing another day. Nobody got hurt so that means it was a success as far as I'm concerned.

We're almost finished learning our bagua form and that's cool. We learned the seventh part yesterday so only one more to go. This is definitely one of the coolest forms I've ever learned. I can't wait until I'm actually good at it! haha. I think that usually takes a while so I'll have to be patient and keep practicing.

I saw some flowers blooming today. I hope that means spring is finally here. The weather has been so changeable lately.

This past week has been a pretty good one. Our meditation room is finished so we've been meditating again in the evenings. I think everyone is quite happy about it. I also reached a milestone for stretching. At the beginning of every class we stretch. One of the stretches we do involves putting one leg up on a railing and doing a forward bend, bringing our head as close to our foot as possible while pulling the foot in. I've been doing this stretch for 2 years now and it's always been extremely difficult and painful but I kept trying and pushing myself and I finally did it! I touched my head to my toe, on both sides! Some people can do this one in a few months but for me it's very challenging so achieving it felt SO good. It really made my day, no, my week.

We also started getting up early to practice qigong in the morning. Still not going for our run first so we get to sleep in until 5:50 am. yahoo!

I don't have much to say about this last week. I think we're all getting used to the current schedule and lack of meditation, though we're still anxiously awaiting the completion of the renovations. It rained a lot last week and we had to train inside which can get pretty boring and cramped. Other than that nothing really new is going on. I finally finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo (a Christmas gift) and I'd recommend it. At 117 chapters it'd definitely NOT a quick read but it is a really interesting story about revenge and forgiveness. I liked it and thought it was well written. Being here has really changed my literary tastes. I have been reading a lot more classics. At home I usually read non-fiction but here I'm more interested in a well written story.

Well hopefully I'll have more to report next week.

Our meditation room is under construction. The entire third floor (which is where the meditation room is) is being renovated and so we can't use that room. I miss meditation. Especially since we now have training for 2 hours in the evening instead. To me it seems like ant-meditation, we feel more tired and sore after class than we did before. I can definitely notice that in general we're much grumpier too. Overall, it's rather unpleasant.

I remember how hard meditation was at the beginning, sitting in one position for a whole hour was like torture but now I really crave it. Kinda funny. Hopefully it just continues to get better and better with more practice.

I've been knitting a lot but accomplishing little. Started a sock, got about halfway through the toe and decided I hated it. So I started knitting a lacy shawl instead. After numerous mistakes and having to undo it and start again 4 or 5 times, I've finally got it figured out (for now anyway) and I'm having a good time. I guess that'll have to relax my mind until the meditation room is done. I hope it's not much longer now.

Sometimes I feel like I'm too old for this stuff!

Last week we did a bunch of conditioning stuff. Jumps, duck walking, one legged hopping, squat thrusts, etc for 4 days consecutively and boy am I sore. The day off did help but I think it'll actually be an other week or two before I'm all better. Watching some of the younger students recover really makes me realize that my age is starting to catch up with me. I guess I am turning 30 this summer so it shouldn't really surprise me. Oh well, with age comes wisdom. Right? haha

So I'm back to "normal" life again. Mel and I had a safe trip back with no problems. We spent a few days in the city of Xian to check out the terracotta warriors and a few other cool sights. Xian is really cool, I will definitely be heading back there someday. It felt really good to get back to Wudang though. I feel comfortable at home and here, not really anywhere in between though.

We trained for about a week and then had a few days off again for Chinese New Year. It actually worked out very well, we got back into it but then had a few days off to recover from sore muscles before more practice. Chinese New Year was crazy as usual, lots of food, fireworks, and karaoke with very little uninterrupted sleep. It was fun though.

One thing I'm not enjoying is the renovations that are happening on the floor above our room. It is really noisy which is especially annoying in the afternoon between classes when we sometimes like to take a little nap. That floor is also where our meditation room is and it really sucks trying to get to it through a hallway full of debris in the dark, not to mention all the dust. Well I just hope it won't take them too much longer to finish.

The actual kung fu training is pretty good, despite the aforementioned sore muscles. I think we all really needed a break and now everyone seems to have a pretty positive attitude. Shifu hasn't been pushing us too hard yet either so classes are a nice combination of work and play, spending lots of time on individual practice and basics. I'm liking it! I have a lot of flexibility goals for the year and a few others that I'm mulling over. Certain things are hard to quantify, like wanting my side kick to be faster while maintaining proper technique. So I still have some thinking to do.

My major new year resolution was to stay more positive and not let small things get to me as much. So far it's going well, I can usually notice myself getting mentally worked up and control my thoughts. The problem is that sometimes I honestly enjoy being in a bad mood. I know it sounds strange but I think I have some belief that not getting angry about things means I'll get walked all over. Once in a while it feels good to me to be the person that everyone walks on eggshells around. I just hope I can learn to be more constructive about the things I want to be different. Thats why a positive attitude should help, I can keep a clear head and work on changing the things that need it rather than just steaming futilely.

I leave to go back to China in a few days.

On the one hand I really don't want to go back, it's so cold sometimes with no indoor heating and I'm really enjoying the food and modern luxuries of Canada. I am glad though to be getting back to training. I've been sitting around for about a month now and I'm pretty tired of it. It'll be great to use my body again and I feel refreshed and positive about the practice again. I really needed a break and now that I've had one, I'm really happy to start doing some kung fu!

Well I have missed a few weeks of journaling due to a combination of business and my computer being in 'the shop' but I'm still alive and kicking.

It's been really nice to be home. I was really missing Canada, being away for so long makes one appreciate how great it is here. The air is so clean and fresh! It smells fantastic. The food is great and I'm really enjoying spending so much time with my family and friends again. All in all a good time.

I have really been slacking and hardly doing any training at all. A little stretching, a little qigong and tai chi is about it. I am trying not to beat myself up over it though. The purpose of the break is to rest and come back ready to train hard again so I am doing my best to just relax and enjoy myself. The last year has been very challenging and I know the coming one will be too so I will make the most of this time without guilt.

While I am home I can actually upload a photo! This one is of me in front of a precarious overhang on the mountain. If you've seen the new karate kid movie, you'll recognize it as the place with the snake scene.