stardom awaits

Wednesday afternoon Master Wong had a surprise for us. Somehow he had secured parts for nine of us (which grew to 14) as extras in a Chinese television drama titled East Dongfeng, which will be about the Korean War.

We stayed in a hotel that night--which I'm pretty sure was still under construction. But the top floor was done. The next day we woke up at 4, then drove to the coast. After getting on a huge ferry that took over 30 minutes to turn around, we sailed to a stunning island in the pacific ocean.

The scene was a meeting between Truman and General Mcarthar. We played members of the staff. I got to be a general, looking stern in the background. The hats were fantastic. One fellow student even got a speaking part--though he'll be dubbed over into Mandarin.

It was a very long day but the experience was too random and unique I loved it to pieces. That night Master Wong, dissatisfied with the dinner the film company offered us, took us out to a karrow (basically barbecue) place--where I had the best mushrooms I've ever tasted.

I've got my first real Sanda match on Friday. Full contact, even. I also picked up a minor pull in my tricep today. I'll fall a day or two behind on my pushups, which is becoming a much larger deal the more I do.

ten to six or nine to five

Waking up yesterday, I had very little motivation to train. As I was dragging myself around after breakfast, I just felt lazy and a little sleep deprived. It's understandable, I have been going hard for 5 weeks now and the weekend often just reminds me of my lazy possibilities. But there I was anyhow, begrudgingly putting my on shoes.

Then I thought to myself: if I was at home on a Monday morning, I would be going to some job. Some piece of retail toxic waste that would be far easier but far more soul destroying.

I practically ran downstairs, grateful for where I am.

ahoy hoy

I started staff (well, pole) on Friday. I'm very excited, as I got to see someone perform what I'll be learning and it's fantastic. Lots of spins and intense strikes.

So that morning I get my staff and was shown the flower: a slight variation on double articulation. Then I practice that for an hour and a half. Tomorrow, I'll get shown the first one or two moves of the form and I'll practice those in a similar matter. While I was spinning my staff, I realized how different my approach to training is here. I have certainly practiced one form for that long, but not just one more, especially so consistently. But the devil's in the details and I'm improving at a pretty incredible rate.

In other news, I've got a new goal with my pushups. Right now I'm doing 4x40 knuckle pushups, 40 tiger claw pushups (but in a sandpit; I won't spoil the surprise about what these look like), 40 fingertips and 40 on the back of my hands for a total of 280. On November 1st, everything will go up to 50--raising then by 10 every month, with a new type of pushup being added in the new year. I'll do that until April 1st, where everything will be at 100 for a total of 800 pushups a day. Then I'll just raise the knuckles by 25 in May and June, for a total of 1000 by June. Assuming I can cut it, I'll do 1000 pushups a day for 40 days, so on July 11th, I'll give myself a birthday present of 180,000 pushups in 9 months.

Yeah, let's see what happens.

hip to the jive

An overextended tendon in my hip (or something like that) has been bothering me since my first week but it came to a head last week. I decided to take it easy: no kicking on the right leg, and very few low stances. It was an annoying, but good decision. Part of me wanted to just try and train through it, which is the usual advice from the Masters. They don't really care about an injury until you're absolutely floored by it. But I figured I knew my body better and that it was better to tone it down for a week rather than have to take time off for good.

I'm healing quite well now, thankfully. Common sense prevails.

I've already graded the basics, which went well. I might just be grading on Thursday, for a form called Tombei. It's intensely different than anything from Kempo, which makes it fun. There is a flying spinning cyclone at the end--good times. Actually, no. Bad times. But the rest of the form is fast and furious, with some wicked stances.