Week 47 (22 November - 28 November)

The start of the week was slow, my legs still hurt from the previous week. Unfortunately there was no mercy from the shifu, we still had to go for our run at -5 Celsius which was followed by an intensive warm up and stretching session. We spent the rest of the day practicing kicking and punching combinations with hand pads to improve speed and accuracy. During the evening session we practiced our moves on the bags.

Tuesday morning was more relaxed, after our run and stretching we went for a walk. We ended up on the frozen lake behind the academy. Andreas (new guy from Denmark) and I questioned the thickness of the ice but the Chinese guys just walked off into the distance. We also spotted some donkeys and mules which had been abandoned because of the weather.

Walking on the ice and feeding corn plants to the mules

Telephone cables in the frozen lake and some strange cracks

After spending some time on the ice we headed back to the academy and did some power stretching.

The San Da group

The afternoon session was really brutal and we had to do many sprints and other intensive cardio exercises. In the evening we did some light sparring.

On Wednesday it was the day Daniel was leaving, so I didn't train and spent the morning helping him pack. At about 11:00 we headed off to Siping, Thomas had also gotten back from Belgium so a few of us ended up having lunch at Mr.Lee. After doing some shopping we headed to the train station. At about 15:30 I bade Dan farewell, in about four weeks I will see him back home but it will definitely take some getting used to not having him around. After having a shower at the Jinlihao I headed back to the academy.

 

Shifu handing Dan his certificate, last time standing infront of the academy

 

 

San Da group

Dan and Thomas at Mr Lee (left), Dan and Thomas with pirated DVD's at the Zhongxing (right)

Pirated xbox 360, PS2 and PS3, PSP game downloads, other junk (right)

Communist looking part of Siping (left), Dan entering the waiting room (right)

I took Thursday and Friday off just for some extra relaxing, on Friday there was no power from 5am to 5pm because the power company were upgrading the power grid. Strange thing is that out here I really didn't miss the power much, unlike back home where it can get rather annoying.

Saturday was the first real taste of the winter that I know here. My thermometer was reading -9.9 Celsius, outside just looked like a blizzard. Markus, David, Tristan and I all jumped into the academy SUV which is only 2 wheel drive but luckily the academy driver is the safest driver in China. The kids were shoveling snow on their day off, most without any gloves or face protection, this is a hard life.

The drive to Siping took almost 2 hours but unlike taking a somewhat faster taxi we avoided the usual near death experiences. Siping was even colder than the academy, everybody was in full force shoveling snow and chiseling ice off the roads.

Snow shoveling in Siping, and Fireworks being blown up for whatever reason

I also spotted a crane which had lifted 20 meter long strips of firecrackers into the air and "army" jeeps that were firing extremely loud firecrackers that sounded like flak shells being fired (see the video below).



We split up and did our own shopping and at 11:00 we met up at the buffet for lunch. All of us went overboard once again but at least this time we paced ourselves quite well and ended up staying for just over 2 hours. After the buffet we headed to the Jinlihao, this time I managed to get some photos of the place.

Tristan, I, David, Thomas and Markus after our Buffet lunch

The Jinlihao from the outside

 

Reception

Lockers and changing room, Jinlihao bathrob (everybody at the academy owns one)

Part of the actual bathhouse (picture thanks to Zdenjak), Recliner room on level 3 (right)

After a hot bath and shower I decided to get a body scrub, something all Chinese mobsters and business men enjoy whilst frequenting the Lihao. I must say that before coming to China I would have never let a random overweight guy scrub me down with a glove that has the same texture as a 3M scotchbrite cleaning pad, together with body salts and coconut oil whilst lying naked in a bathhouse amongst a bunch of naked men. In China bathhouses are such a common thing and nudity is so normal. After the scrub I could see a whole bunch of dirt rolls and skin even though I had taken a shower before, the scrub really made a difference. After another shower we went to level 3 to relax a bit in the recliners.

At about 15:30 we headed to the train-station where I bade farewell to Thomas, Tristan, David and Markus. Thomas is going to another academy down South, Markus and David are going back to the UK for X-mas and Tristan is traveling for a few days with Markus and David. So many farewells in such a short period of time. I don't know when next I will be seeing these people that I have spent much of my time with in the past year.

Sunday wasn't very eventful but the academy is very "empty" Umit and Sam left to go on trips so now there are only 5 foreigners here at the moment. In about 4 weeks I will be home so the next few weeks will be spent making the best of the remaining time which means hard training despite the depressing cold weather.

Week 46 (15 November - 21 November)

My week didn't start off well, I was still feeling awful. I spent the entire day in bed which was extremely boring. Tuesday wasn't much more exciting, I still didn't feel better but I decided to go to the training hall and at least do some stretching and get some fresh air. But the air wasn't that fresh, almost all kids had colds and instead of resting in their rooms they had to sit in the training hall, so they were just coughing and spitting all over the place.

Wednesday morning it was -7 Celsius and extremely foggy, the morning run was quite rewarding because the trees and surroundings looked significantly better than usual.

Training was pretty hard, we spent most of the day just working on kicks and punches. Wednesday evening we all decided to go to Yehe for dinner because Deepak was going back home to the UK after his 16 month stay here. Drinking is against the rules but I guess this was a special occasion. Everybody had a good time, some more than others, most students never drink so it was quite a funny sight seeing them intoxicated. I was tempted to try some of the Baijiu which happens to smell like Acetone but I'll wait a few more weeks before I have some alcohol again.

As for food we were at a Muslim restaurant because it's the only place where they serve lamb so we had 3 plates of fried lamb and onion, 6 portions of vegetable fried rice, 3 plates of fries, 4 bowls of noodles with lamb, the food was very good.

On Thursday quite a few students were hungover but we had to train anyway. The morning was pretty intensive. Afternoon training was torture we had to do frog jumps (backward and forward ones).

By Friday the temperature had increased to 14 degrees so all the snow started melting. My quadriceps felt like they had been stabbed and peeled off my bone structure, this is why I dislike frog jumps because no matter how many I do, my legs always hurt so bad. By 8:00 it was raining and the weather was really miserable but despite the weather and my painful legs we had to do our 9km run. When we were done we were soaked and covered in mud. Daniel had a bit of a cold so he didn't train but he removed the stitches from his eye and there is barely any visible mark/scar.

Saturday morning Dan and I went to Siping to buy his train ticket which did not work out because they told us to come back the following day. We bumped into our shifu and he offered to buy the ticket for us on Sunday, he also invited us for lunch, so we went to Mr.Lee.

 

I spent the rest of the weekend resting but my quads were still extremely painful by Sunday evening. The weather report also made mention of a 16 degree temperature drop by the middle of next week plus some more snow, so lets see how that goes.

Week 45 (8 November - 14 November)

Because the sunrise is later our schedule got changed, now we only need to get up at 5:45am and only have 30 minutes of training from 6:00am until 6:30am. So at 6:00am on Monday it was about -2 and it everything outside was covered in snow. Quite a change and judging by the sudden temperature change this snow is staying until the end of March.

Morning training at 6:00am

Afternoon line up at 14:00 (heavy snow fall)

Seeing everything white like this brings back all the memories from when I first got here, now the true winter life begins and I must say I am glad I won't be spending another winter here. Our morning training session was as hard as usual, the new student also joined sanda as he believes it will be more beneficial for his short stay. We spent the entire 2 hour session kicking and punching the bags. In the afternoon we had to do:

10x sets of 30 squats with someone sitting on our shoulders
10 x 40 angled sit ups with 2.5kg behind our heads
10x 100 dumbbel curls
10x 40 pushups

In the evening I could feel the pain in my buttocks and hamstrings so I just spent the session stretching.

On Tuesday it had stopped snowing but it was much colder, it was about -5 and the warm-up run to T was very slippery and I had really sore buttocks from squats. After the run we spent the morning punching and kicking, after wards we had to wrestle the punching bags which basically involved running and grabbing the punching bag 400 times after which I had blue shoulders.

Morning line up (left) and morning run (right)

In the afternoon the sun came out but the temperature didn't increase much, however some of the snow started melting. Training was pure torture, we had to do consecutive fullspeed sprints for about 30 minutes, after each set we had to either do jumping push ups, jumping squats, knee up or normal push-ups right after the sprints. When I started to see gray I honestly thought I was going to faint but it worked out fine. Right after this we had to do 10 sets of 30 sit-ups with a 5kg weight behind out head, we had to help each other hold our legs down.

Afternoon run

Wednesday morning we had to run to the bridge, the trees and surroundings looked amazing, everything had a layer of ice on it. Training was less hard but we practiced some sparring and other exercises.

Morning run

As with every other month the 11th is reserved for test day where we demonstrate what we have learnt. Both Dan and I decided to spar against each other even though we were extremely tired and exhausted from the hard week of training. It was Dans last test day so we thought we would make it a memorable one. We decided to have 3x 1 minute rounds and after only the first minute I noticed that my legs felt like lead and my entire upper body was just exhausted but we kept going. By the last round Dan almost knocked me down and my last punch which was a upper cut ended up gashing his eye (see the videos below).

right after the sparring session

Our Shifu: "Competitors during the fight but brothers afterwards"

The cut was a bit too wide for just ordinary plasters so we had to go to the hospital in Yehe. After the doctor had a quick glance at the cut he told us to get the things we needed. What he meant was that we had to buy the injections, stitches, anesthetics, painkillers, disinfectant etc from a counter. After doing this (the total was 105RMB, 45RMB for all the medicine and 60RMB for the consult and stitching) we handed the plastic bag with all the stuff to the doctor who then took Dan to the "Rescue Room". The doctor did ensure sterile practices with his work however most of the room was definitely far from sterile including some of the scissors he used to open some of the packaging. After the stitching we had to go upstairs to the drip room, in China people get drips for everything. Dan got an injection to check for an allergic reaction but after waiting 20 minutes we decided to leave. During this 20 minute wait we saw several people smoking, despite the no smoking signs and even a little kid urinating into a dustbin. The hospital may seem a bit extreme but if put into context of how remote it is, I think we were far better off than we would have been in a similar situation back home in South Africa.

Dan and or Shifu with the doctor writing down the list of required tools and medicine 

Dan waiting for his stitches in the rescue room, a nurse giving an injection after the stitches

Dan sitting in the drip room waiting (left), a Chinese patient smoking and on the phone whilst on a drip (right)

After the hospital we headed back to the academy, both of us took the afternoon off, I had quite a headache from the sparring session. In the evening I went to the training hall and as I started running I saw some commotion amongst the kids. As I went to go have a look I saw one of the kids bleeding out of his head, having many head injuries in my life I could tell that this was a serious one so I ran to the office to tell them to get ready to take the kid to hospital. I asked for a first aid kit but all they gave me was a roll of toilet paper. Somebody else got a cloth and I carried the poor kid to the car, I went to go wash the blood of my hands and went to my room. I had a headache and also I had seen enough blood for the day (I don't know how paramedics do it on a daily basis).

Friday morning I trained pretty hard even though I felt a slight cold coming along. In the afternoon I wasn't feeling good so I took the rest of the day off.

Saturday morning I woke up in such pain and agony, I had a sore throat, sore bones, runny nose and a cough. Outside it was snowing intensely and between shoveling snow the kids also built some snowmen. I spent the entire day in bed which was very boring and it also made me realise how hard my bed really is.

By Sunday I was feeling a bit better but still spent the entire day in bed, the weather had cleared up a bit but the temperatures remained low so the snow didn't melt.