Adventure in Shaolin wk1

The flight to China went pretty smooth... I arrived in Hangzhou on schedule and after clearing customs and a little search for the domestic flights terminal I was on my way to Zhengzhou. Got a little delay on my flight to Zhengzhou due to bad weather conditions but the taxi that the school arranged waited, so that was no problem. KLM has quite OK airplane food btw. Be aware, I do not have an expensive taste, but I actually liked it.

When I arrived in Zhengzhou I had a fun suprise. I was looking for a taxi driver with a Mr. Derks sign, but instead I noticed a western looking white guy. It was Bart, a guy who I trained with in Arnhem and Nijmegen a couple of years ago.
He turned out to be coming to Shaolin Temple Traditional Wushu institute for a couple of years in a row already and he was now here for a couple of months. Bart can speak mandarin which can come in useful here...

We drove from Zhengzhou to DengFeng (or Xishilipu village actually) and a little later we went to DengFeng to get some dinner. When we returned I went to bed. My bed took some getting used to because it was literary a wooden board with a blanket on it, no matras or such...

After a good night of sleep I woke up at 5. According schedule (on the internet) but apparently far too early because I was the only one awake... Around 5.45h the first school kids started coming out and a couple of minutes later Sifu came out somewhat agitated at the kids that they were not yet training. Not much later everyone was 'kicked'  out of their bed and training started. After an hour of running, push ups, Ji Ben Gong (basic kicks and such) and stretches the training was over, not to intense, good warming up for the rest of the day. I already noticed that the kids here behave like school kids, just as in our western schools... if they get a change to do nothing they will :)

Now time for breakfast. Not to bad, rice with (over)cooked vegetables and some fried bread sticks. Second block of training started after breakfast. I noticed that there is lots of attention for movement dynamics and body structures, little less for 'stances' and 'accuracy' of movement which you see in modern Wu Shu.
Legs and hips are getting tired after this second block of training. After the training we had lunch and a long break. Then the 3rd block of training started. Roughly 3 hours later it was over and immediately after we had dinner. Do have to say that all 3 meals tasted the same. Sifu gave me the tip to use much less energy when training, he predicted my legs would be ruined within a couple of days.

The last training block Tyson (our coach) asked me to relax, to give my legs a chance to adjust. So I practiced Qi gong and Tai Chi and did half an hour of stretching. Legs are tired as hell so was not a bad choice...

 Average look after training

IeZe (or however you write his name)
my chinese teacher during meals 

Tyson, our mysterious teacher. He learned himself english with books of riddles, saying and phrases... resulting in a 'master yoda' a like way of talking.

The day after this first training day the pain in my muscles was not to bad... better as what I expected. We started the day with running again, a lot further this time. After that some stamina and power training on the highways and in the ditches aside the road.

Second training was less fun :(, sore muscles finally kicked in. Never the less I trained the full block. But did a bit more Gong Fa (basic concepts) and lots of stretching. Started learning some Taolu (forms) aswell.
3rd block of training I went on to train on my own. My hip feels pretty ok till now. Last training block I again took it easy, mainly qi gong and stretching.

Next night my body was really sore and the 'wooden board' 'matras' was not really comfortable any more. Did not sleep much this night. Next morning my body was really sore... I discovered muscles that I didn't know they existed.
First training in the morning now consisted of running again, but this time to some restaurant... here we did some exercises on the nearby stairs, frog jumps on the stairs, on legged jumps, etc. 2nd training we had private lessons from Tyson again. These lessons have the same daily structure. First stretches, then some Ji Ben Gong, then Gong Fa practise and dragon steps and then Tao Lu practice. 3rd and 4th practise of the 3rd day were a disaster. My body is objecting and everything is sore and tired.

4th day my hip started acting up, which is really shitty because here all movements come from the hips... Tyson told me 5-6 hours training is really the max I should do... when my body has adjusted I could do more. So I skipped the 3rd training block and went for a walk exploring the environment. 

In the evening I was invited to come and drink tea with Sifu and a couple of his friends (producer and some crew of a movie they are going to make).
The rest of the week was pretty much the same regime. Hardly slept, woke up tired, muscle pain eased up a little. 3rd and 4th block I trained fairly relaxed. Never the less the pain in my hip got worse, and by friday also my finger went numb... which was not good, would I have a hernia instead of piriformis syndrome in my hip/back then? Also started taking some pain killers.
Saterday I took some rest to give my hip a chance to recover, but I have a bit of a depressed day this day... would this already be the end of my training here? Sure hope not....

Later on the day Sifu took me out for a ride and we went to a building site where he was building a new school. The old school will be making place for tourism in the coming years and on this place he will have a new school. Very cool to see and very cool to see how proud Sifu was of his new place with the beautiful view on the mountains.

(not the view from the new school... but still pretty nice view of the mountains near by the school)

First week was a week with some ups and downs. Basically trying to get familiar with the training regime, finding out how far I can push my body and my hip injury... Lets see how next week go's

Amituofo!