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Beijing – Day 3: A Look at Training

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I”m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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I checked with the other Wushu West folks and they said that the training last night was a good class. Well, by “good” I mean they got a good workout, so perhaps it didn’t feel “good”, but I’m pretty sure the results will be “good”.

As part of this blog I will be posting up some interviews with the Wushu West students to get their impressions on their time in China training in Wushu. The first one was with Miles. I caught up with him during breakfast and he said a few words about his experiences on the first 2 days of training: (click the link to view the video)

http://picasaweb.google.com/markmoran2k9/SummerInBeijing#5354243391488497794

Miles talks about his first impressions of China

Today we had class in the morning. This time around it was taught by Xu Ming Hu (a.k.a. “Tiger”). The class started with the standard warm-up and then went right into stretching and basics. Tiger was able to “help” a few people with their splits and soon enough we were going through lines of kicks, stances and techniques.

This time around we also worked on our forms. Since I was mostly gasping for air the whole time, I didn’t catch a lot of the action, but he seemed to be giving everyone lots of corrections on their forms. The great advantage of having him coach us is that he can show us effortlessly the correct way to move. These younger professional athletes really are quite amazing! I will try to post up some video of them in future entries so that you can see what I mean.

At the end of class he had us play basketball for 20 minutes, which was quite a bit of conditioning. Usually playing at the beginning of class is a good warm-up, but playing at the end of class — after having done forms and lots of basics — is quite another story. We all left the class tired and exhausted, but in high spirits.

As usual we all had lunch and for myself I took a nap. But based on the sounds of giggling and smiles on the faces of the Wushu West kids, I think they were having a good time hanging out and enjoying their time together. Let it never be said that the endorphins caused by exercise don’t have a positive effect.

Shahaub eating his greens

James has some residual lettuce

Miles loves his cucumber

After dinner (where Shahaub, James and Miles made sure to get their greens and we all ate much too much watermelon) it was time for our evening class. Since I am only training in the mornings, I’m able to snap some photos and video so that you all can see what the experience is like. First, here is a link to a video where I show you the current training environment in the Multi Purpose Hall:

http://picasaweb.google.com/markmoran2k9/SummerInBeijing#5354233577017701234

As you can see, they are getting some good training. I also took quite a few pictures which you can see here. After training everyone went back to their room and it was time for bed. Another day of training tomorrow!