Back from the Break, Training with Kids (11/20)

With Ruhi’s help I had kept Wu Ya Nan in the loop with my illness and about how I was stuck in Anhui.  But now that I was back in Xi’an and feeling better I really wanted to get back in to the wushu guan and start training again.

I was especially looking forward to being there when the top-level Shaanxi Wushu Team members would be training.  Nothing quite like seeing some ridiculously awesome wushu to motivate you when you train.

The good news was, they were all there.

The bad news was, they were not actually training today.

Wu Ya Nan greeted me as I walked in and brought over my weapons bag.  I had asked Wu Di to bring my weapons (nan gun and nan dao) to the traditional competition in Jiangsu and i had also asked Wu Ya Nan to bring it back with him after the competition.  It had been so long I had almost forgotten, but it was great to see my trusty friends back in my hands again.

WYN first introduced me to one of the head coaches for the Shaanxi Wushu Team.  I didn’t quite understand, but I think he was the guy who was either the team manager, or the head coach.  In any case, a person in a high position.

After meeting the coach I asked WYN where I should train (i.e. with which group of athletes).  He spoke with the shorter coach (I really gotta learn their names) and then told me that normally I would train with them, but today they were doing some sort of performance / testing so they wouldn’t be training today and I would have to train on my own.

It turned out that today was one of those random days where the coaches measure the physical ability of the athletes — standing broad jump, flexibility, strength, etc., — and then compare it to previous results.  I had seen this sort of thing with other teams before, of course, so it wasn’t totally alien.  Unfortunately it meant I was up to my own devices.

Now, if I know in advance that I will be training on my own I’m usually pretty good about writing out a workout plan ahead of time so that I have something to follow.  But when I suddenly find out I’m training individually, I tend to draw a big old blank.  I realize that I should just have a default self-training program that I revert to, but I don’t … so, oh well.  Maybe next time.

I warmed up and stretched and then walked through a few basics.  Then I walked through my nanquan form.  After that I grabbed my nangun and walked through my form, trying to figure out a few of the combinations and choreography.

During my nangun practice Chu Feng Lian (80’s generation Fanzi Quan specialist) asked me to let some of her kids work out on the carpet too.  (Why she would need to ask me anything and not just tell me is beyond me, but it was very nice of her.)  There was a guy (who looked a lot like Jay Chow) coaching them and after a little while I decided to just tag along at the end of one of their lines and work through my form combinations.  It worked out well, since they were working on form combinations too.

I actually managed to break a pretty good sweat and get a good workout.  I was also prepared with my video camera so towards the end of class I managed to capture a bit of the kids’ training session.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ue7vx1O0_c

I have a 2 day break and then I’m back on Monday, this time training all out with the pro’s (I hope).  I still feel a bit of a lingering cold, but sweating and training helped me feel better and I think it helped me heal up a bit quicker too.

Next week I’m going to start preparing a bit better for my training, with specific things I want to work on for each day.  I would really like to finalize the choreography on my forms by the end of January and also focus a lot on getting back some of my flexibility (splits, head-to-toe).

Yay!  I’m training again!