Diary entry 6 - What a week is

Diary entry number six: What a week is

A week is painful.

A day goes like this:

5:30 am --Jogging. Sometimes up a hill, sometimes five times a round a castle.
6:00 am --Chi gung and Tai Chi class
7:00 am --Breakfast
8:30 am --Morning lesson
10:00am--half hour break (Which is pretty much pointless.)

10:30am--Second lesson of the day

12:00am--Lunch

3:00 pm-- afternoon lesson

6:30 pm--Dinner

7:30 pm -- Tsing Yi classes

That's every day. But what's cool is what we do every day in the lessons.

Monday- FORMS, but they suck. I hate forms.
Tuesday- We take out all of they soft mats and do gymnastics and acrobatics. FOR THE WHOLE DAY. It's immense. Shifu just tells you to do something and you do it again and again until you get it right. Amazing things, like flips using only your head and somersaults and all sorts of crazy things. I LOVE Tuesday.
Wednesday: Samba and sparring, we put on sparring gloves and hit each other, and foam shields for a whole day.
Thursday: For the first half of Thursdays we have games. (We play some wacky shaolin Basketball.) In the afternoon we do weights until nobody can lift anymore or somebody breaks down.
FRIDAY: JESUS CHRIST FRIDAY!! Friday is when Shifu shows that in fact he does want us all to die, and makes us do horrible things. which are:

POWER STRETCHING: Where we bend as far down as we can in a stretch and then
he pushes us down again and again for about two minutes. we also have to do
a back bridge for about five minutes, that doesn't sound too hard, but try it.
THE STAIRS: We walk up and down the longest staircase imaginable ten times. As fast as you can, no rest. It takes us about one hour. Climbing the temple wall: (Self explanatory.) MORE STAIRS: Stairs 2:the revenge of the stairs. You crawl up, and down, you
climb up backwards, you climb down doing pushups... really it can't be described....
but I love it all. And I love it here.

A lot of people are leaving this week, the academy wasn't what they were expecting. In our minds we've all concocted a idealistic version of how the East is, and then when people find out the 'Yes, YOU HAVE TO WORK AT IT', it suddenly loses it's appeal. It really isn't for everyone.

China has the hottest weather I've felt. I'm exhausted just standing in my room. So JOGGING is hard work. I always keep my shirt on though, The more you sweat the more weight you loose. It's just better for you. Apparently winter here lasts for 6 months. Even monks only train for 3 days a week in winter because it so tiring.

I can't wait!

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