Week 31 (2 August - 8 August)

This morning Chris joined Sanda, like Umit he will only take part in the morning session and train shaolin the rest of the day. After warming up and stretching we set up the matts and the carpet. We did some intensive sparring with kicking and punching without pads. No head punches or knees were allowed. After about 40 minutes all four of us had some kind of serious bruise or injury. Umit had a huge lump on his leg, Dan's toe nail had cracked, Chris had bruised shins, the shifu had some skin missing from the top part of his nose and my shin was bleeding again.

The rest of the day I practiced kicks and take downs with Dan. In the evening we watched Top Gear.

Tuesday morning we had to run to the bridge and back, the pain from my knee was terrible but I just kept pushing. For warm up we had to do the usual kicks and stretches. Afterwards Dan and I had to do 1000 different punches and the sweat was just pouring down. Afterwards we had to do the thing I hate most, the holding knee up exercises with a brick resting on my thigh for 3 minutes. Then we had to do the holding leg up exercise for 2 minutes each leg. Afterwards resting on our forearms in the push up position for 5 minutes (I could only do 2 minutes), then holding a handstand for as long as possible while resting against a wall.



In the afternoon I had to do some intensive stamina exercises like 100 squats, 100 push ups then do 10 push ups and sprint 50 meters, 10 squats then sprint, knees up for 10 seconds then sprint about 10 different combinations. After that we had to practice some sparring, accepting kicks and using them to take down the opponent. Sanda pads are like bullet proof vests, they stop the major damage but the blows still hurt every time. After training my knee was really painful and I had to change clothes again because everything was drenched in sweat yet again.

On Wednesday the weather was still bad, overcast and rain, no sun light or clear to be seen. My knee was hurting really bad so I didn't do any running or sprinting. Instead I did back, stomach, chest and arm exercises. After that I also had to do some punches and my arms were trembling until afternoon training. In the afternoon we did a number of different arm stretches, this was followed by one of the most intensive torture sessions I've ever experiences. First we had to 50 push ups with our arms close to our chest then 50 with our arms spread out. Next we had to hold up hour body weight with one arm whilst holding the other arm straight up in the air, easy for about a minute but we had to do it for 5 minutes on each side. Then we had to hold the push up position for 5 minutes followed by 10 minutes holding our bodies up with our forearms. The floor was drenched in sweat and we both experienced extreme muscular discomfort. We had to spend the rest of the training hitting the punching bag in a number of different ways.

In the afternoon the rain had stopped and we just went for a walk which was a nice way to relax a bit.

I woke up extremely tired on Thursday because I struggled to sleep, it is strange that even though I was so extremely exhausted and tired I just couldn't fall asleep. It had rained overnight and everything was wet, my entire upper body was extremely fragile and painful I just went for a walk because my knee was still aching. At 8:00 training was intensive like usual, after the standard warm up we had to do 200 normal punches, 200 hook punches and 200 upper cut punches. All punches had to be fast and we had to ensure that we were blocking with the hand we weren't punching with. After the 600 punches the floor was drenched in sweat and we had to spend the rest of the time sparring and practicing what we learnt. I must say I found it difficult to apply especially when hitting a person that I don't really want to hit.

In the afternoon we had to do 100 normal push ups after that we were told to do 100 pull ups, something I know I can't do. After 10 slow and painful pull ups I had to stop, after that I had to stop after every 5. I did 55 in total but Dan helped lift my body weight for the last 15.

 

On Friday Dan and I went to Siping to buy some supplies (mainly nuts and dried fruit) and relax a bit, Siping was also under construction and will remain like that until the end of November. When we got back to the academy we also received a nice package that our dad had sent us, it had all kinds of supplements and Biltong.