Whacking in front of the Americans.

October 19, 2011. Written in Dengfeng, China.

Monday was my first full weekday to spend at the Shaolin Kungfu school. At 5:20, Hanwei's alarm clock rang like nuts. For a moment, I thought a huge bomb had exploded. Michael and I got out of our beds right away, and left Hanwei still snoring peacefully in his bed. It was still dark outside, but the whole school was already lining up at the center square. We started running on a path that should lead us to the top of a mountain. But, while other groups went to the top of the mountain, my group (the Sanda group) didn't, and started all sorts of exercises halfway, like sprinting, jumping and kicking. By the way, it is interesting that only the Sanda group somehow do not shave their heads and some of them even have long hair. It is almost as if they are the only ones who are free in choosing their own hairstyle.

After an hour and a half of training, we came back to the school and had some breakfast. The master of the school approached me, and Michael translated. The master told me that I could ask whatever I wanted if I had a question. I told him that I had problems with a certain side-kick they do here, and while hearing Hanwei's snoring in the background, the master explained me about this kick.

During the afternoon practice, I noticed that the master and Michael were not there. Apart from that, except for the Sanda team, most of the students were wearing their traditional wear, whereas normally they are just wearing T-shirts.
I was doing some mittwork with my Sanda class, and like before, there seemed to be no end to it. After about one hour, the master and Michael came back with the school van, and an American camera team inside. Michael told me later that they were making a documentary on Shaolin Kungfu. When one of the Americans asked Michael about "that foreigner over there", he told them that I was a Kyokushin fighter who had lived 8 years in Japan.
"So many good stories here!" the American said.

In front of the American, the students started to show all sorts of traditional forms, acrobatics and fights. It was obvious that they were doing this especially for the Americans, because it was very different from their normal practice.
The Sanda team was now going to punch some sandbags, but before doing so, we first had to hang them on some bars, which was not as easy as it sounds. The bags fell off the bar quite easily, and we had to stop punching often, but maybe we were better off that way since the training was exausting. Whereas in Japan (and in most parts of the world for as far as I hear) we do rounds, here they just keep on whacking and whacking. There are no rounds or whatsoever, and you just have to keep punching the bag for hours and hours. Everyone took off their T-shirts, and while receiving hits from the teachers stick, we kept on punching.

After the training was finally done I had my dinner, but again I had difficulty holding my chopsticks. The master and Michael had left somewhere with the Americans, so me and Hanwei had to spend the night just with the two of us. When Michael is there to translate, it is great fun to be with Hanwei, but now we felt the hugeness of the language barrier between us. When Michael came back at around 9, we both felt a huge relief. That Michael must really be a treasure to this school. He can translate and help all the foreigners who come here feel to comfortable because he is so helpful in everything. He is going to leave for Beijing for a couple of days, and it is going to be a challenge for me to get along on my own in the meantime!