Wow, it's gotten very hot! This week we definitely started SUMMER in Wudang. It's been super hot and humid and miserable. I always hate summer here and all I can say is that I really hope this one passes quickly.

On another note, I'm reading a history of Chinese martial arts and it starts waaay back with the Shang dynasty (1600 BC -1046 BC) and there are some interesting things in there. One of the cool things I read about was the martial dances that became popular in the following Zhou dynasty either to get everyone pumped up for a coming battle or in court to relive past successes. From what I've read these martial dances consisted of weapons forms and martial choreography to music. I never knew that the pairing of martial arts with music had such a long history. Makes me think differently about performances done to music. Here in Wudang we use the same 6 songs for every performance and all the other schools use those songs too, it's so boring! If I wasn't so bored of these performances in general, I'd try to get a few new songs added in there to spice things up a little but they all seem perfectly happy to just continue on doing things the same over and over again. China's weird like that.

What to write???

I'm feeling a little better this week, though still very tired. I want to thank those of you that left comments, they really helped comfort me when I needed it. I still wouldn't say I'm 100% but reading what you guys wrote cheers me up quite a bit. I'm so lucky to have wonderful, supportive family and friends in my life, it's easy to forget that when I'm so far away but you guys made the distance seem much less significant. Thanks!!

This ended up being a really challenging and yet revealing week. We all go through tough periods here where we question why we're still here, what are we really learning, is it worth all the suffering and this was just one of those times for me. These feelings can be hard to express but I'm going to try anyway:

4 years ago when I came here for the program, I had all sorts of expectations, dreams, and fantasies about what it would be like. I think this is natural. Over the course of my time here, these have all been taken away layer after layer to reveal a clearer and clearer view of the reality of the situation. Even though this process has been very painful and I resisted as hard as I could, I really value it now. I will never again be so innocent and trusting as I was then and though it seems people always mourn the loss of these qualities, I would rather have my eyes wide open and see the truth.

That being said, sometimes it's really difficult to keep going when you can see so much. This week in particular I was feeling so down thinking about how little I've really learned, how far I have yet to go to reach most of my goals, how much time has been wasted, and all that I've missed out on while living here. It sometimes seems like when I get like this is when classes become harder, maybe that's just my perception of things or maybe it's some weird coincidence. It's also so shitty that there's no-one to talk to that's not embroiled in the same process. I miss my family and friends so much at times like these and that just tends to make me feel worse. So now not only am I unhappy, I'm homesick too.

I don't regret coming here and I don't think I would be any better off to be somewhere else (in the long run anyway). I'm reminded of a book I read called The Passionate Journey about a Japanese woman's search for satori (awakening or enlightenment). In the book she remember the time she spent with one of her first teachers and his wife. At the time she felt like she wasn't learning anything, that her teacher ignored her, and that his wife actually hated her. Decades later though, looking back she is so grateful to them for everything they taught her that it brings tears to her eyes.  I really hope that my situation is similar and that I can look back and laugh about how I thought I wasn't learning anything useful. I try to remember that story in times like these.