I'm writing this post from a hotel room. We've been practicing for this big stage show/performance in the city near us and so we're staying here instead of driving an hour each way from the school. We did that a few times and didn't get back until after 11pm. This is much better. We also don't have to get up at 4:50 am which is really nice. These performances are generally really stressful and though this one has certainly had it's share of that, it's better than most. They're definitely feeding us enough! The show isn't until Thursday so we have a couple more days of this. Then 2 or 3 days of training, then the holidays (Moon festival and the PRC's b-day) so things aren't going to go back to normal for a while. I always really look forward to getting back to the routine after something like this but I'll just try my best to enjoy it while I'm here and try to stay calm.

whew, tired legs!

The weather had really cooled off this past week or so (which is awesome) and as a result we're training a little harder in class. It's fine with me, summer is so hot that we generally take it a little easier and it's still exhausting. Now that autumn is here, we can get back into the swing of things. I'm actually enjoying myself again! What a concept. Well as a result most of us have some sore, tired muscles. Feels kind of good.

We're doing some performance thing soon. Yuxu gong (the temple we train at) is turning 600 this month and there's going to be a big celebration. Of course they want the token foreigners involved but at least we're doing some kung fu in this one! haha. Well we're going to be practicing for that and also preparing something fun for the full moon festival party here at the school so things should be pretty exciting around here in the next few weeks.

Updates to follow.

I'm not sure what to write this time.

We've started learning a new empty hand form. It's really cool and quite a treat after so many consecutive weapons forms. I didn't realize this but apparently it was made by our grand master, which makes sense because it kind of has a little bit of everything from our system. It's fun to learn and very long so it'll be grueling to drill later on but that's ok. We're getting pretty close to finishing the forms, hopefully we'll be done by Christmas. Here's a link to a video of Shifu doing the form:


Xuan Wu Chuan


Speaking of Christmas, I'm really starting to get excited. Can't wait to come home this year!