This week’s training has been the most rewarding for me so far.
Since the program started our Shifu has been training students for a tournament in Beijing. So although we did get a lot of personal attention, he was only available most days for one class per day. This week though, the tournament is over and done with and we’ve been getting his undivided attention. Which is awesome, but is definitely the most intense training we’ve had. It’s almost like the first week of the program all over again. Friday and Saturday’s classes were brutal, but I loved every one of them. We worked a lot on kicks and sanda (combat) training. Shifu taught us a new punch, kind of like a hook punch, for close range sparring. It’s pretty funny watching someone his size demonstrate close range combat with the biggest guy in the program. You can hardly see him pressed up against Evan’s midsection, but the instruction he gives is incredibly in depth and you can really see the transfer of power when he’s explaining it. I mean he’s about 5’7” and maybe 55kilos so it’s hard to believe someone his size can generate that much power in a single movement. But I’ve felt it, and it gives me hope.
The focus shields that we usually use here are not like the ones at home. It’s like punching a bag of sand. The first time we practiced thrust punches on them, I was really disappointed because I noticed that my wrists were not strong enough. It didn’t seem to matter how good my technique was, or how hard I punched, my wrists continuously folded. This time we were practicing and I really felt like I was transferring power. My wrists held up through at least 100 punches and I felt like I was getting real penetration of the shield. We’ve been practicing using our whole core section for punching and I noticed a huge difference. Because we’re spending so much time training, it’s not like you see daily improvement. It happens slowly, and so I really get excited when I do see a difference. Its small things like this that help me through the plateaus.
This Saturday we also had our first class on Taoist culture and theory. It was totally awesome! I’ve never really been a religious person, but I am a spiritual one. And Shifu talked about the Tao and how difficult it is to understand. He often makes the point that you can learn the Tao, and you can understand it, and you can know everything about it inside and out, but if you can’t apply it in your life then it’s useless. It’s important to understand it, but it’s also important to utilize it. He’s said it’s like practicing martial arts; at first you learn the forms, and you know the moves and the more you practice it the more skill you have. But if you don’t understand the movements, and the reasons behind them, then what’s the point?
The weather here this week has reminded me a lot of home. Friday and Saturday it was really hot. We were all out in tank tops, sweating our asses off. But since then it’s been cold and windy and rainy and this morning we woke up to a light layer of snow. It brings back some nostalgia and makes me more than a little home sick, but in perfect foreshadowing, this week Shifu also told us an old Chinese story that I really liked.
‘A student decides he wants to train and he goes looking for a master and everywhere he goes he carries a huge sack around on his back. He finds a master and when his master asks him what it is the sack, he tells him, “These are things I really love. My parents are in this sack, so they follow me wherever I go. I have food, and games, and my guitar. These things really make me happy so I keep them with me.” The master tells him to come with him and they go to the river. They take a boat and go across to the other shore. The master says to him “okay, now carry the boat with us.” And his student says “I cannot it’s too heavy.” Then his master says to him, “but it’s useful, we might need it, we should take it with us”. And his student says “yes but I cannot carry it around with me it’s impossible.” His master says “yes sometimes in life you have to leave things behind. Maybe even the things that you love.”
