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.