Poica

When I say that this week has been a hard one, in many ways it's been no harder training-wise than any other week. What has made this week tough is the sudden change in weather. In the UK I'm used to Spring coming on fairly gradually. Last week, it was snowing, the trees and bushes in the farmland surrounding the academy looked worryingly bare and dead and I still wore several layers to train in. Roll on this week, and we've had temperatures that rarely fell below 22 degrees C, the plant life has erupted into beautiful blossoms and greenery, and we've been absolutely sweltering. This is pretty much as hot as British summers get, and it's the first taste of Spring here. I'm kind of glad I'm not staying here for the summer. Wong Shifu ... read more

I must add to last week's litany of injuries a broken arm - this came from a guy doing Mantis called Tom who finished sparring last week with "my hand's hurting a bit". He then walked around all weekend and even trained on Monday before his shifu made him go to the hospital to get an X-ray - we were all very surprised and impressed with his broken arm. This guy is seriously hard. Mantis has since gained some respect from the other styles... This week we've had an influx of new people who have alternately provoked an "ah, being a newbie" response in me and "dammit, they're already better than me". I've decided that the fact that I run more slowly than anyone else in the academy (I set off first, I get back one ... read more

First of all, happy birthday Hannah! Sorry I'm not around for your birthday. You'd better be reading this. Last I blogged was Wednesday, which was a lovely, sunny day in which I was very upbeat and singing a lot. A new student arrived called Antonio from Brazil - he's 16 and staying for 5 years and speaks not a word of Chinese or English. This makes communication fun, and him turning up to the Mandarin class meant that learning the Chinese for various animals turned into animal noises and drawings. We didn't learn as much as we have in the past, but damn if it wasn't the most fun. Unfortunately the weather on Thursday was appalling - it went down from 24 degrees to around 8 overnight, and it was overcast and drizzling. We started the ... read more

So this week started quite well, I got started on my first form, wasn't aching too much, and this led to me stating on Tuesday afternoon "I think I'm getting used to it". Fool that I was, of course. I'd forgotten that aches build up here, and while you may not be in pain on the Tuesday, by Friday you've had 5 days of hard training breaking down your muscles. So here we are on Friday, and I can count 11 bruises on my body, and 5 cuts on my knuckles from all the punching. Oh and it's agony for me to lift my arms above my head. There are different levels of pain here that I've never encountered before. I am used to muscular pain of course, but I'm not used to unrelenting and increasing ... read more

So yesterday afternoon we had power training, which consists of an unrelenting series of weight lifting, frog jumps and punching and kicking the pads for an hour and forty minutes. There was something serious in Wong Shifu's eyes when we came in, and he didn't disappoint. Even though he took it easy on myself and the other Catherine, we were still pushed hard. Frog jumps are particularly tough - we jumped what consists of maybe half a football pitch 6 times. This seems to have destroyed my quadriceps completely. So much so that when I was doing Tai Chi later than afternoon I was completely incapable of the graceful movements I'd managed a few days ago - I was barely able to stiffly lift my leg and swing it around to drop it heavily. Eventually Sarah ... read more