起来！起来！起来！(12/4)

Grace, one of my Chinese language tutors, suggested that I blog more in Chinese to work on my writing skill.  So, starting today I’m going to start incorporating a bit more Chinese in to my blogs, just for the practice.  Keep in mind that, if you are fluent in Chinese, a good amount of what I write may make no sense at all.  :-D  For now, though, I’m just going to do it for the titles.

孩子的练习 (Kid’s Practice)

Today, since I arrived about 40 minutes early to the wushu guan, I was able to see a bit more of the kid’s practice that is there from 1:00 – 3:00.   I counted 5 different groups, 3 of which were smaller kids, and 2 with teens.  the smaller groups each had about 20 – 25 kids and were doing pretty much only basics.  In fact one line of kids were doing front stretck kick prettymuch the entire time I was watching them.  This one boy that couldn’t have been more than 6 years old and was the shortest one in the whole room was doing some really nice kicks; better than the rest of the kids in his group.  Impressive.

One kid on the far side of the room was getting stretched.  And by “getting stretched” I mean he was being tortured.  Well, okay, he wasn’t being tortured, but he was crying and screaming as if he was.  I haven’t seen kids cry like that since that one time the raccoon got stuck in the copier (name that movie).  It sounded like someone was peeling off his skin with lemon juice and a rusty spoon.  I found it interesting that all the other kids were smiling in his direction.

I also saw one of the coaches kick one of the kids who were messing around.  Not a gentle kick, but not a sanda kick either.  It really impressed upon me the reason why so many athletes just don’t like wushu by the time they are adults.  It is really not that fun for kids in China who train in Wushu — pretty brutal, actually.  We like to think that it is just hard training and work and a little bit of bitter, but for these kids their entire life is basically hardship and discomfort, followed by infrequent bouts of play.

But kids are kids, and even though they work hard, I see a lot of them smiling and laughing and horsing around after class. And I see that the coaches, while they are strict, genuinely care about their students and are harsh only because they really want to help them improve.

But I can guarantee you that parents in the U.S. would have a conniption if their kids went through training like this.

表演 (Performance)

According to our schedule we were scheduled for strength training today.  We started with warm ups and then they played wushu tag.  I started to play, but realized that I was a bit out of my league, so instead I jogged around one of the empty carpets.  Then it was time for stretching.

While we were stretching I noticed some men bringing in long white poles and putting them in the supply room.  I wasn’t sure what they were for but found out soon enough.  After a few minutes some of the athletes in my group brought out big Chinese flags and were swinging them around.  I confirmed with Yue Xiao Yu that some of the athletes were supposed to prepare for a demonstration, apparently to do with flags.

Yue Xiao Yu (12/4)

12/4

Nan Quan Guy (12/4)

Yue Xiao Yu (12/4)

These Colors Run Laps (12/4)

The rest of us were left to our own devices.  Zhang Laoshi still wasn’t there (apparently he was supposed to be out all week — again, information that would have been nice to know on Monday) so most of the athletes took the opportunity to slack off a bit.  It was a pretty relaxed work out.

For myself, I spent my time on two things.

First, I worked on my form and choreography.  I was lucky that Yue Xiao Yu seemed to have some free time because she was able to help me figure out some choreography for my third section.  My form is just about finished now, and not a moment too soon, since she said that she didn’t think it would be a problem for me to switch to morning trainings.  She suggested that I do a lot of small combo training to prepare my form.  I spent a little more time after she helped me to fine-tune a few things and figure out some transitions.

照片和电影 (Photos and Movies)

The second thing I did was use the opportunity to take some photographs and videos.  I asked if it was okay to take pictures and then got some shots of the athletes with the flags and doing some training.   You saw some of the flag ones.  Here are a few more:

Xin Rue (12/4)

Jumping Rope (12/4)

I also got some videos of the training.  Since the training is in the afternoon I get some nice dusk-ish lighting in the room and the sun gives me a nice glare.  Here is some footage of a bunch of the athletes doing their light practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSqC9