Shaolin life in China: Week 44 (1 November

Monday morning I woke up feeling recovered and enthusiastic and we were also blessed with higher temperatures.

sunrise at 6:15am

Our morning session consisted of the normal warm up and then practicing kicks for about 1:30 hours (various kick types for 30 seconds each leg) after which my legs felt like jelly.

By the afternoon the sun was shining and the weather was pretty good, we practiced with some sparring. In the evening we spent the hour kicking and punching the bags some more.

The main highlight on Tuesday was that we got a new student. A guy from Denmark (22), staying for 3 months. He has never done martial arts before so he might be joining San Da but he isn't sure yet.

Below a video of the kids shaolin shifu doing a back flip:

On Wednesday I felt like I had more energy than usual which meant that the training would be more intensive. At 8:00am we went for a fast pace 4km warm up run.

frost on all the corn and lakes partially frozen

warm-up run back to the academy

After we got back we had to do 5 200m sprints and right after each sprint we had to do one of the following: 30 jumping squats, 20 jumping push ups, or 40 push ups, we only had a minute rest between each set. After the sprints we had to do 6 sets of 40 leg raises, 5 sets of 30 back raises, it doesn't sound like much but the intensity was high and we felt broken. In the afternoon we practiced punching and kicking for 2 hours with the hand pads to improve reflexes and accuracy. In the evening we did weights, I also noticed that my knuckles swollen even though I had been wearing gloves.

Thursday started the same as Wednesday, same warm up etc and we spent most of the morning improving punching speed. Lunch was slightly more exciting than usual, we had noodles which were a great change, because food during the week hadn't been too exciting. In the afternoon we went for a walk. Lately there have been quite a few fighter planes in the sky but they are extremely high so I don't have any good photos, but I've checked online the aircraft is a Chinese Chengdu Jian 10 which is a tactical fighter, quite surprising to seem them out here in the middle of nowhere.

(left) 4 planes flying in formation, (right) a close up of the same fighter [not my photo]

We also discovered that a ski resort is being built behind the academy and the farmers are burning the harvested corn plants before the snow falls.

the main sky slope behind the academy

corn plants being burnt

Some of the kids have been getting colds, so the doctor comes around to the academy everyday and gives them glucose and sodium chloride drips, some kids are even on 3 different drips for up to 3 days. Never seen the use of drips for a basic cold but it seems to work without the use of any conventional medicine.

Friday morning we had pretty good weather about 12 degrees and only a slight wind. We usually go for a 9km run but we decided to run to Yehe post office and back which is about 17km. I must say that I find running long distances has a lot more to do with the mind and mental focus than fitness. For example if you have never run 10km before you will think its tired some and maybe difficult to keep going (even if you are fit enough), but once you have run 20km (even with the same fitness) you will think 10km is easy because you tell yourself "that's nothing I've done twice that before" and its the same with pretty much anything in life. Anyway after the hard week of training our bodies were pretty tired but despite that we did the run in about 1hr 40mins including stops to take photos. In the afternoon we just did some weights.

Dan before the run, corn cobs waiting to be collected

rice being harvested, some houses on the way to Yehe

Beginning of Yehe, a guy crushing blocks of coal into smaller pieces

some village houses on the way back to the academy

3 white baby calves, Dan in front of the red sign

at the end of the run

our shifu training kids some San Da in the afternoon

We decided to go to Siping this weekend to buy a train ticket for Daniel to get to Beijing. When we got to Siping we were told you can only buy tickets 5 days before if it isn't a holiday season. After doing some shopping we decided to go to the Buffet to have some different food and add back the lost calories from Fridays run. I think I had about 5 plates of food, including 1 plate filled with cake and fruit.