Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Yesterday's Recap and Today's Craziness
Yesterday I was so tired that I didn't even have the energy to really explain the day out. So let me do some recapping.
After the morning ceremony we went back to the hotel for a little while to get cleaned up for an afternoon with the monks. The entire group was split into much smaller sections so we could receive training in the various training halls of the temple.
All I have to say is "damn". No kung fu movie is ever going to do it for me again. Now that I've seen and trained with the real Shaolink monks I know, at least partially, what the real Shaolin art looks like, and more importantly what a lifetime of training looks like; they are un-fucking-believable. Yesterday they started teaching us one of their forms that we think is translated as something like "Great Flood".
The form took the black belts the better part of six hours to learn. It's long, and it's complicated. It is, however, frickin' sweet. One of the USSD instructor's that I was training with said that based on the movements and style of the form that it was roughly equivalent to one of our 4th degree black belt forms (ie, meant to be done by people with about 15+ years of experience). Being a lowly first degree black belt now, I didn't feel so bad that certain passages and sequences were challenging. After one of the training segments I decided to wring my shirt out since we were outside and ended up leaving the temple a little present in the form of my water. I couldn't help but think of the Dune references.
Today we finished the form and I'm going to have to work my ass off if I plan on remembering the whole thing. The instructors from Arizona had a hard time picking it up too. To help pick it up better we recorded everything on digital video and we'll play it back a few hundred times until we have it down pat.
Last night also involved an amazing fireworks display as well as a dinner show from the Shaolin Temple's designated demo team. Once again, all I can say is "damn." There was a demonstration by about 15 monks using the whip as a weapon. Their timing was so perfectly synchronized that when they all went to crack their whips together, there was only one perfect crack. I can only imagine how many hours of training that takes.
Tomorrow morning we leave for the city of Xi'an to see the Terracotta warriors and then we are continuing on to Beijing.
Quick pictures (training pictures are in the actual Shaolin Temple's training courtyard):
Me working Great Flood in a low stance section
Me working Great Flood in a high stance section
My "water" present for the Temple
Me and the monk that was teaching me
After the morning ceremony we went back to the hotel for a little while to get cleaned up for an afternoon with the monks. The entire group was split into much smaller sections so we could receive training in the various training halls of the temple.
All I have to say is "damn". No kung fu movie is ever going to do it for me again. Now that I've seen and trained with the real Shaolink monks I know, at least partially, what the real Shaolin art looks like, and more importantly what a lifetime of training looks like; they are un-fucking-believable. Yesterday they started teaching us one of their forms that we think is translated as something like "Great Flood".
The form took the black belts the better part of six hours to learn. It's long, and it's complicated. It is, however, frickin' sweet. One of the USSD instructor's that I was training with said that based on the movements and style of the form that it was roughly equivalent to one of our 4th degree black belt forms (ie, meant to be done by people with about 15+ years of experience). Being a lowly first degree black belt now, I didn't feel so bad that certain passages and sequences were challenging. After one of the training segments I decided to wring my shirt out since we were outside and ended up leaving the temple a little present in the form of my water. I couldn't help but think of the Dune references.
Today we finished the form and I'm going to have to work my ass off if I plan on remembering the whole thing. The instructors from Arizona had a hard time picking it up too. To help pick it up better we recorded everything on digital video and we'll play it back a few hundred times until we have it down pat.
Last night also involved an amazing fireworks display as well as a dinner show from the Shaolin Temple's designated demo team. Once again, all I can say is "damn." There was a demonstration by about 15 monks using the whip as a weapon. Their timing was so perfectly synchronized that when they all went to crack their whips together, there was only one perfect crack. I can only imagine how many hours of training that takes.
Tomorrow morning we leave for the city of Xi'an to see the Terracotta warriors and then we are continuing on to Beijing.
Quick pictures (training pictures are in the actual Shaolin Temple's training courtyard):
Me working Great Flood in a low stance section
Me working Great Flood in a high stance section
My "water" present for the Temple
Me and the monk that was teaching me
# posted by Chris/Stewy @ Wednesday, July 05, 2006 
