Week 2 (11 January - 17 January)

On the 11th (monday) it was a special day to honour the kids and all of their parents came to watch them perform. We also watched the kids perform and it is amazing to see kids as young as 7 doing backflips and other crazy moves. The kids also have a 1 month holiday now so they can go home and spend some time with their family, it is the only holiday they get.

Every 11th of the month there is a test day on which all foreigners must present the forms they have learnt, because the kids performed on this day we had test day on the 12th. Luckily I didn't need to perform anything because my form isn't finished yet. Also my upper hip muscle really hurts, it is the same pain I experienced from a previous injury plus my knee is also still extremely painful, probably from all the running out in the cold.

On Wednesday (13th) the shaolin group had to go for their weekly run, we had to run to the nearby village called Yehe which is 10km from the academy, so the total run is about 20km at -25 celcius. I ran together with my friend Chima from Trinidad, at about 6km from the academy there is a sign at which point we decided to turn back. The bottle of water I was carrying at frozen solid, my eyelids and nose were covered in ice crystals.

Before

After

Later that day training continued like usual and in the evening we had a line up and a huge lecture. Somebody had decided to defecate next to the toilet and the headmaster wanted to know who had done it. Personally I don't believe any of the western students would have done such a thing, it became a huge joke. In the evening I spoke to Steffen, a student from Norway which was leaving soon. I told him I would move into his room and buy most of his basic necessities, his room is also upstairs and faces the sun, so it is warmer and has a much better view.




Thursday 14th, I started learning a new form and had to buy a shaolin dao (training sword), the training is going well and I can notice that my stretching has improved already. However I am still concerned about my knee and hip which are still rather painful.

Friday 15th, today we only trained half the day which is normal for friday, in the evening there was a very rare sun eclipse which we observed. The weekend was really boring, I played some pool in the pool room which they ocasionally open but other than that I was too tired to do anything else and just wanted to rest and let my body recover. The weather is still nothing close to optimal, daytime temperatures range from -20 to -25 celcius but the sky is always blue which is a great.