Wow. Another week of training has really sped by.
So, when Arianne left, she was like, "do you want some wool" and I was like, "what does that even mean"-- until I figured out that she meant yarn. At some point she had gotten some yarn in three different shades of pink, one of which is really violent and a little scary, but the other two are fine. She had started knitting a hat which I might have finished except I haven't a clue how to knit. But I decided to take the yarn anyway because I'm pretty handy at crocheting (April 2008 will tell you as much, when I crocheted a 13-foot Doctor Who Scarf. Whoa, was that really almost four years ago?). Unfortunately, finding a crochet hook is practically impossible in China-- or in Qufu, anyway. Knitting needles? Sure! Cross-stitch patterns? Plenty! But I was trying to explain what crochet was to Nellie, and she really had no idea what I was talking about.
So I decided to whittle one. That was my Monday project, and by the end of the day I had a pretty nice-looking little crochet hook that was just the right size. I crocheted three rows of a scarf and haven't looked at it again since.
Anyway, the days have certainly gotten colder, though the sun hasn't stopped shining all week. It's really weird to have such consistently nice weather, when back home at least half of the days would be overcast or rainy. I remember the last time Seattle had a week of sunny days I started to feel a little nervous, like something unnatural was going on.
I've had several things to divert my time this week. One was the discovery of a site called "Project Gutenberg", which has the e-text of practically any book that has an expired copyright date (something about 70 years after the author's death?). So, all of Sunday afternoon was spent glued to the followings of that elusive English Spy, the Scarlet Pimpernel. For the record, I totally called his disguise at the end.
The other diversion came in the form of Justice League, Seasons 1-5. I watched all of them with my sister several years ago, and it was funny to see how many of them I remembered, or missed, or forgot. No, mom, I didn't spend ALL of my spare time staring at the computer screen. Not that I have a lot of spare time.
Well, let's get to the play-by-play of the week.
Monday classes, as per usual, were (Tai Chi), Basics, Forms, Sanda/Bagua, and Bagua. Learned some more of the 42-Step Tai Chi, learned some more Tonbei (Shaolin Fist form), and practiced my Bagua form which I finished last week. Have I already said how weird it is to be done with that? And at some point I finished the Qi Gong form. The only difficult part of that form is that you need to remember to practice it in the mornings and evenings. I did so for about two days during the week. I'd forgotten that I was supposed to do that until now.
We finally had Calligraphy again, and that was interesting this week because a bunch of the new people came, so the teacher was less like, "go draw some lines" and was more like, "this is the history of this character".
(Calligraphy teacher writes something)
New Guy: That's beautiful! What is it?
Leah: "Bank of China".
Also on Monday, I got a hold of more Dengfeng pictures from someone. She took a LOT of pictures, so I spent some time going through and deleting a couple of repeats.
And that was Monday.
Tuesday was Wing Chun Day. I like Wing Chun. Have I already told you guys to watch Ip Man? Do. It's awesome. So I did Wing Chun for the first two classes instead of Jumps and Rolls...
Yeah, then the afternoon class was Qinan, and we learned some knife defenses. We got to go and choose a stick to be our knife. In some ways we were kind of messing around with it, and that was okay because Sifu was laughing and joking around too, but then at the end Sifu talked to us in a more serious tone about how important it was to be serious and learn these things well. Overall a good class. Sifu was gracious enough to show me where the pressure point on my elbow is when I asked. He has a painful sense of humor.
Once again, reviewed Bagua and learned some Qi Gong.
I did go to Mandarin, but because so many new people are doing it, we're kind of at Square 1.5. I learned a little, but at the end I made Nellie stick around and teach me some more family words. Holy cow, the Chinese people have a name for everyone! And it all depends on where you are in the family. Feng le. (crazy).
And then I stayed up until 9:30, which actually is too late for me. I slept through half of Tai Chi before I got up and did some Qi gong. You know what? 8:45 is my new bedtime. Srsly.
Which brings us to Wednesday. Um… first class, Basics. We did a little more drill-type stuff. You see it in Kung Fu movies a lot, where the students are all standing in lines and rows, doing movements at exactly the same time. That was both stressful and empowering. Second class, forms, and we learned a bit more of Tonbei. I'm really liking Tonbei, by the way. Especially when I'm pretending to firebend.
Now that I've finished my Bagua form, it was about time for me to start learning a new form from Wu Sifu. The timing couldn't have been more perfect, because on Wednesday, Wu Sifu started teaching the Wudan Tai Chi group a Short Staff Form. We all had to hunt down our own Short Staff, and I was lucky enough to find one that had been abandoned a while ago. I also actually found an abandoned long staff, so now I have my own instead of having to borrow someone else's. Wish I could take it home. It seems like the plural for 'staff' should be something besides 'staffs'. Hmm...
Thursday. Finished the Qi Gong Yi Jing Ji form (that spelling is complete guesswork), and I got the order of the movements all written down. Now I have yet another Qi Gong form to remember to practice. Huzzah?
Haha, conditioning. Remember a few weeks ago, when I said that conditioning my forearms no longer hurt? Well, Sifu decided to help me this week. False alarm, guys. It still hurts, and I've got the bruises to prove it. I wonder at what point in his life his arms turned into small trees?
During the half hour before the lunch whistle is blown, I finally posted the sign-up list for Secret Santa. It's hard to fathom that Christmas is only a week away. Here, there's so little hype that December just feels like winter instead of Christmas Month. Apparently in most parts of Europe Christmas isn't nearly as big a deal as it is in America. That seems kind of weird to me. As a Christian, the most important part of Christmas is celebrating Christ's birth. But no one else has mentioned that this is part of their Christmas tradition, so… I dunno. I know I'm gonna watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional on Christmas Eve, and of course I'll ask if anyone wants to join me. But anyway, I'll write about how Christmas went next week. The update will probably go up on the 26th.
Lunchtime, I totally forgot about my laundry until like 15 minutes before class started (I blame Superman), but I managed to get it hung up to dry before I had to scurry out and run around the ponds. You know, I keep forgetting to talk about that part of class. Although the classes are an hour to an hour and a half long, half an hour is always taken up by warm-up. Because it's gotten colder, we often run three laps around the ponds in the morning (those are starting to really freeze over, by the way). Then we head over to the steps, stretch our legs on them, and then do a leg stretch with a partner. For that one, you stand against the wall, and your partner lifts your leg as high as you can go with both legs straight, and then hopefully a little higher. I can definitely see that I've improved in that one. My leg used to only go up to, like, waist height, but now I'm nearly at shoulder height. Then we do a series of warm-ups where we move around our joints starting from our neck down to our ankles. After which, we partner up again and sit on the ground while our partner pushes us in different directions: one where you sit with the soles of your feet together and your partner presses your knees down to the ground (my least favorite), one where you sit with your legs stretched out straight in front of you and your partner pushes your back so that you touch your toes and your head eventually touches your legs (my favorite), and one where you stretch your legs out into a straddle, and your partner puts his feet against your ankles so you don't move and then pulls your arms so you bend forward. Then we do horse stance for three minutes.
Short Staff was pretty fun. I was kind of nervous at first because Wu Sifu showed us a whole lot of movements at once, but he repeated it enough times during the next hour that we all (mostly) had it down by the end of class. Short Staff is pretty cool. Very practical. It really reminds me of my Wudan sword form, though of course it's not nearly as pretty.
Thursday evening, Sifu taught us Shaolin Theory (with Nellie translating). It's a 'new' class that we're going to do every week from now on. This week we learned mostly about the history of Buddhism and how it relates to the Shaolin Temple. Like, Dharma, an Indian Buddhist guy, came to China and meditated in a cave for 9 years. One of the Chinese guys was all like, "why is that guy meditating in a cave for 9 years" (I'm wondering the same thing), so he went and became his disciple. I saw that cave, actually. It's halfway up the mountain next to the Shaolin Temple. I think I mentioned it a few blog posts ago. If anyone wants to hear more about Shaolin history or anything about life in the Shaolin temple, let me know-- I took pretty good notes, and I know a 15th Generation Shaolin Warrior Monk.
For the first class on Friday, Sifu had us review all of our forms. That included 5-Step which I thought I had forgotten and Continuous Fist which I wish I had forgotten. Not because I don't like it, but because when I learned it, I always practiced it with my stance too high, so if I really wanted to be good at it I would have to re-learn it with a lower stance. Ah, me.
And then Power Stretching is always fun. Ha. Ha. I feel like it's actually gotten more painful. Seems like if you're closer to doing the splits it should be less painful, right? Usually we do Power Stretching in the training hall because that's where the mats live, but this week we took them outside because it was so nice and sunny. The people in the other class, who were also outside practicing their forms, seemed to find it amusing. After power stretching we always do warm-up kicks because if you don't use the muscles that you just stretched, then they just get weaker. Stretchier, but weaker.
Friday afternoon is a free period, so I did a variety of things. I went to the training hall, and a few of the guys had stacked up the mats to practice Parkour, so I did that for a little bit. I actually improved a little. It was going well until more people came in to do it/watch, and then I just got self-conscious and did some stretching in the corner with some of the girls. Then I went and started right into Short Staff. That second afternoon class is becoming kind of hard because at 3:30 the sun is getting low in the sky, and it suddenly gets really cold whether you're moving around or not.
Saturday all I really did was watch Justice League and go into town for my weekly shopping. I went with one of my roommates, and we walked along the street next to the Confucius Temple, where they sell a bunch of souvenirs. If anyone wants anything like a wooden scroll or an ocarina or a stamp with their name carved into it, let me know-- I've gotten pretty good at haggling. I'm glad Qufu is sort of a tourist spot. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get any lame Chinese souvenirs once I left Beijing, but this is not so.
… And that was my week.
Hope everyone has a great Christmas!
<3,
Sarah
PS: This week's title was from Fiddler on the Roof. It sort of applies because the time seems to be passing really quickly, and also the sunrises are getting really pretty. We hold Tai Chi in the training hall because it's too cold outside, and when you look out the window, you can see the sky turning shades of pink and orange through the black silhouettes of tree branches.
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