Week 16 (19 April - 25 April)

This morning it was wet and rainy so I ran to the T but skipped the stairs, running along the lake is too muddy. On the way back I just had a walk around the castle. It rained for the rest of the day and we did all of our training hall in the kids training hall. I think the shifu is trying to avoid having the headmaster or headmistress around checking up on him. Later that day I also found out the Chima, Thomas, Josh and Rahul want to leave, besides Chima the others are just lazy and don't train anyway so I can understand half their reasoning. Also I think that these are just empty words and as usual none of them will stick to what they have said.

Tuesday morning was extremely foggy, I decided to run the stairs despite the mud.

In the morning Clemente, Umit and I went to the headmaster to speak to him about making changes at the academy. Most students told us they will support us but told us we will get nowhere. The idea was to take a neutral approach and instead of demanding changes we would make suggestions on how the headmaster could have his demands met if he would help us with our. At first the headmaster refused to listen but after some time we finally listened to us and was happy with what we had to say. In the end we came to a conclusion that a student representative body would be elected from the 3 most senior students which would be responsible for aiding the communication between students and management. Another major point was the implementation of harsher rules with specific reference to students not training and lacking discipline.

The 3 representatives were
Clemente for Taiji
Prashant for Baji
Umit for Shaolin

A few extracts from the document we compiled:

"We hope that the students who act against the rules can change their behaviour and become what they wanted to become by coming here, a martial artist with a strong body, great mind and powerful spirit. "

"We are not here to share our old habits, we came here to get rid of them. We cant call friends those that make us drink and smoke instead of train, true friends here are ones that motivate and help you become a better person!"

The "new" (old revised) rules make specific reference to:

Having no alcohol or cigarettes in ones room
Attending and being punctual for all line ups
Coming outside and at least going for a walk at 5:30
Attending all training sessions
Attending and participating at the test day on the 11th of each month
Maintain a clean and tidy room

Failing to comply would lead to escalating punishment starting off with push ups 20 then 50, then goons 1 broken stick then 2 then 3 finally followed by expulsion.

Even the students that had broken the rules were happy to hear that they were being enforced more strictly as they were unable to take action themselves.

Later that evening we played basketball with the kids and afterwards just practised out forms.

21 April, today all students were formally introduced to the new rules. The training was hard, we did the stairs which meant a lot of sprinting, frog jumps, jumps, hops, bear crawls etc.

On Thursday 22 April we had another intensive day, the main highlight was Rahul getting gooned by his shifu for being disrespectful.



Friday was an exciting day, after breakfast there was room inspection. At morning line up there was a speech because Thomas was late for line up plus he had left training early the previous day without the permission of his shifu. He had to do 50 push ups and an extra 20 for being late. He did the 50 but when he was told to do the 20 he just walked off because he felt intimidated. They told him they would expel him but he returned shortly after. He got 3 hard goons plus he had to do the 20 push ups. In the afternoon Rahul overslept and was late for line up and had to do 20 push ups. Later that evening I went for a walk with Thomas, Anoushka and Jill.

Nirup had asked Clemente if he could bring a girl to his room on Saturday, Clemente asked the headmaster which told him that this was not allowed and he would be punished if he would be expelled if he would do that.

Saturday morning we all got woken up at 7am because the cleaner had found some beer bottles in the upstairs bathroom, the headmaster wanted to know who they belonged to, we ended up waiting 20 minutes and nobody confessed, so the 3 representatives had to do 50 push ups but in the end almost all students did push ups. The headmaster then said that no students are allowed to have any beer bottles or cigarettes in their rooms, even if they drink or smoke outside the academy grounds. Nobody objected except Nirup which was quite aggressive in his response, after and hour we were finally allowed to go back to our rooms. Afterwards the representatives had a meeting and during this time they spotted Nirup with a girl in his room. The headmaster didn't hesitate in making a decision, he expelled him immediately. The headmaster had been looking for a reason to expel him because of past incidents and behaviour.

I went to Siping with Umit and Thomas to relax at the Jinlihao.

Umit and Thomas with their new purchases

Baby chicks for 1 RMB

On Sunday Rahul, Josh and Deepak got really drunk in the restaurant outside the academy. When Rahulshifu, during all the commotion they also found cigarettes in his room so they told him he would be gooned on Monday.

Translators: Belle (left), Linna (right)