The gong fu school I

Okay, so you might be wondering why I haven't posted anything. The reason is that I can't access blogspot.com, it seems that it can't be accessed anywhere in China.

Anyway, I'm surfing through a computer in Japan (from china) and it works perfectly fine. I ended up in a different Gong fu school, since I heard some bad rumours about the one I chose.

The school is quite large, and consists of maybe 100 chinese students, age 5-20. Most of them are probably poor, and was put on the school by the parents so that they could make something out of their lives. Some will join the police force or maybe military force. Some will be Wu shu teachers, and one or two might be film actresses or stuntmen.

We train 7 days a week, but were have sunday afternoons off and 4 days at the end of every month. There are 4 western people at the school, and we train directly under the shifus. We don't train the same things as the chinese. They mostly train modern wushu, while we train traditional gong fu. The difference is that Wu shu is most for show and consists a lot of acrobatics and fast moves, but lacks force and power. Traditional gong fu is slower and less beautiful but consits greater force and can be used for fighting.

Some students train Sanda, which is pure combat fighting. I will begin to train that in a couple of months, but now I'm focusing on Gong fu and Tai Chi.

The reason the chinese students train Wu shu, is because the chinese goverment loves it. It is beautiful for sure, I'll make sure to post some pictures soon.

Rethinking everything I believe

I have spent 3 great weeks in Japan visiting my brother and his girl and felt much comfortable in there. Now I am in Beijing, China. My master plan is to study Shaolin Gong fu and Qi gong here for a year. Not in Beijing though, but in mainland China.

I knew that China and Japan are very different. But the culture shock was bigger than I imagined. The air, city structure, culture - everything new.

Went out to have something to eat when arriving here. I live a bit downtown in Chongwen, and at 11.00PM most restaurants were closed here. But I found a small local place that was open. Ordered some meat dish which I probably don't want to know what it was. It looked and tasted unusual I can say. Some chinese guy took a photo of me eating it, so it was probably something hardcore. Mc Donald's was closed.

Spiritually, I realized that my next step is to rethink everything I believe in. Demolish all the everyday rituals, systems and recipes I follow. Reconsider everything. Go back to the basics. I realized that I have so many ideas and beliefs how things relate, and those are keeping me from developing the way that I want to.

I have lost something, and there is something right in front of me I have yet not found. I need to rediscover.

Again breathing air from someplace behind.
Rising memories dwell in new air, while the air battle.
Assured of it's strenght, the air roars for another battle,
for it has already won.
Like the lion roaring to be filled, rising.
Moving on,
surrendering to victory,
surrender to now.

Winter is slowly developing to spring.