Jay (JRS) convinced me to blog about Beijing this summer... here's part 1 of I don't know how many... I said it was going ot be one huge blog, but I lied to myself- it's too much to write at once... here we go...

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Ahhhh....  It's been so long since I blogged anything I don't know how to start... ok- Jump in!

This spring I was sick of having a job again (it's amazing how often that happens) so I bought a ticket to take off in July to fly back to Beijing to stay at Shi Cha Hai and train (home of the Beijing Wushu and Sanshou teams). Here in the US I've been boxing almost everyday in addition to my regular wushu practice, and felt like I needed to do some sanshou to get the rust off my legs. My gym in Oakland, California has muay thai and jujitsu/MMA, and I always watch the muay thai guys and just think of how a Chinese sanshou fighter would destroy them. Well trained sanshou fighters have a broader range of better drilled and executed techniques, better muscle and bone alignment, and are faster. Plus they're great stand-up wrestlers. Muay thai has become so popular here in the US that everyone thinks it's the greatest stand-up fighting skill set you can acquire, and I get really tired of hearing it. Even the owner of the gym (who is a great martial artist- muay thai champion, Krav Maga certified instructor) says that muay thai guys beat sanshou fighter everytime... I know it's an age-old argument that no one ever wins, but I laugh inside because people don't realized how much work goes into professional Chinese martial arts training. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm faster, more coordinated and much more flexible than almost anyone I train with, and it's becuase of wushu training. I'm not talking about general wushu either, but taolu (handforms) which, when well-taught, require such a high level of body-control that anything else is much easier to do. I really don't think any other martial art can say the same- wushu athletes will pick-up any other fighting style much faster than someone from any other art form.... but I digress....

So I got on a train early in the morning the first week of July and, loaded down with gift-packed luggage almost bursting, rode the BART train to SFO to fly in... long plane rides always make me wish I had a Kindle (the Amazon.com digital book thing) because I always finish the book I brought before the plane lands no matter how big the book is. They're heavy to take in your carry-on... maybe I'll have to buy a Kindle soon- they seem pretty neat.

Uneventful plane ride... I like flying over Siberia though- it's so cool to see the unbroken expanse of snow and mountains and nothing. I've usually finished whatever book I'm reading by this point, so if I'm on the window I spend a lot of time watching the landscape.

So blah blah blah I land and the new Terminal 3 at the Beijng airports is freaking huge!!! So huge and cool. You could fit a hotel inside, and that's just the the third terminal. I had to ride a new little rail-train around the airport to get luggage and leave and then went to Shi Cha Hai to get down to business.

Shi Chai Hai was packed due to there being a convention for the Olympic TaeKwonDo judges (I guess everyone was training on judging or something... too bad they didn't teach them to stop kicks to the head- couldv'e save some trouble later on...snicker snicker...) but they fit me in and I went to find Wang Laoshi to say hi and get my gear for training.

After checking in with coach Wang I knocked down Wudi's door to give him a big hug, and kicked it with him and Tiger (Xu MingHu) for a couple hours... then off to bed.

***insert break here to go to wushu for a few hours***

I was a little down this week because so many things piled up on me... I had finals in school, and needed more time to study but work was a person short and really really busy, so I was there till 1:30 am quite a bit (I'm a waiter at a trendy, late-night tapas restaurant in Albany). On tope of that, I have to be at school every morning at 9am, which means being up at 7:20 to get the train to school on time, I I often got only a few hours sleep. There's a wushu tournament and demo this weekend to fundraise for the Sichaun quake victims, so I have to train three rusty forms to compete- jiujiebian, changquan and baji- none of them are that good right now... and we have to get ready for the demo. To top it off, my car broke down and I had to leave it in front of my dry cleaners for two days- and run to work from the dry cleaners (where  I was dropping a couple coats off) 2 miles away. I had to walk to the train (2.5 miles) early in the morning and home after sschool and everything was a hassle. I was feeling pretty bad for myself- I'm not big on self pity (and loathe it in other people), but felt like there was so much going on and I didn't want to deal with it...

Then I got on the BART train Tuesday morning to come home from school, and there was a woman with her whole face burned off. Literally- I don't know if she was in a home fire, or assaulted and burned by someone, but she was the most disfugured person I've ever seen. Her head had no hair at all, and was a pink spiderweb of cracked skin and freshly healing scars. Her pupils peered out from and eybrowless face and melted skin. She had no lips so her teeth were not hidden even at rest. The worst was her nose- there was none- just a pink hole that showed right into her head- smooth- totally gone... It was terrifying and heartbreaking. She used a walker and didn't look anyone in the eye. She was probably a pretty girl once, who liked to dress up and recieve compliments and phone calls and requests for dinner dates. I don't know what her like is like now, but who she was is gone, in a sense. I was proud of her for being there on public transit with her mutilated face uncovered- maybe she is ashamed of her looks now, maybe not, but she is facing the world with her scars and little eyes and no nose and walker and not hiding.

I could go into detail of all the things I thought and am still thinking- I've been thinking about her every day... suffice to say... it's not that bad, whatever we think it is. This poor woman's life is now worse than mine by far- whatever she endured didn't break her. I have to learn not to pity myself. I doubt she knows she taught me a lesson and shamed me in my own eyes, and I don't know if I could bring myself to tell her if I had the chance, but I'm glad she was on that train the other day, though I'm sad she had to be what she is now  to teach me a lesson.

I just got home from a long afternoon (almost 7 hours) of wushu and quick, late dim sum dinner with friends afterwards, and logged onto AnD. I accidentally clicked on my blog posting about the Wushu World Championships, and ended up re-reading it and enjoying the photos I posted a couple weeks ago when I got back to the US. It made me happy to look back, knowing I've been somewhere this year, and done something that involved risk, and come out better for it.

Fighting in Thailand in January and February came with its own package of worries, but they were easier to face head-on than those of going to China. Both have a big language barrier, but the fear of being lost, kidnapped, murdered or just plain beaten to death in the ring  in Thailand were a few, in addition to worries about what I'd contract from mosquitos that my vaccinations hadn't covered. Mostly valid fears, but mostly avoidable. As for the fighting part, you just "man-up", train hard and do it. Thailand was a lot less expensive, too. How do you go to China multiple times in a year though, when you have no money, and you're not making any while you're gone, and there are still some bills to pay at home? The fear of being destitute, of going without, of losing our hard earned credit ratings, etc etc... are valid. You need good credit to buy a house or new car or extended credit line with your carrier. I'm young and have no mortgage though, so fuck it. Besides, right now having a mortgage sucks worse than not having one.

In my case, I just left. Packed and got on the plane. Went and trained. I'll deal with it when I get back. I'd never done that, though I've always lived by the maxim, "Go Big or Go Home". Time to live up to the bumper sticker. Besides- you should do those things in life that scare you. They usually end up not being as scary as you thought, or not in the same way, or not until you look back and realize, "Oh my god, how the hell did I get through that? I should've been killed or lost?!" You grow as a person each time you face a fear- like a plant with a new flower. Jump out of planes (with parachutes), bungee jump, ask the cute boy/girl at the coffeeshop out, order a dish you've never had, drink your coffee black, spin the globe, pick a place and go. The parachute opnly works if you jump, and you'd be suprised how often that cute boy/girl at the coffeeshop says, "Yes, I'd love to have coffee somewhere else with you..."

I'm coming home to bills that need paying, credit that's not nearly as good as it was a year ago when I left, a bank account that's considerably less than even two months ago, a new, stressful job, a house literally in shambles from a water leak that destroyed two stories of the north wall in the San Jose quake in November, and a myriad of other issues like a slipping transmission in my [really really old] SUV...

That said, I don't care. Well, I do, but not the way I would have a year ago. I've gladly traveled beyond comfort too many times to take it seriously. In Thailand I was ravaged by hundreds of bug bites, slept in terrible facilities in the cities and jungles, ate dishes I care not to know from whence the meat came, made friends with nice and no-so-nice people from all over the world, survived bouts in the ring with Thai boxers, and came through a bout of staph aureus that swept like wildfire through our training camp in Phuket that left many, many people in the hostpital under intense medical care and quarantine. I made last minute and stand-by flights on tightly run schedules that I coordinated literally as they were happening, and got to Beijing in time to ring in the Spring Festival...

I can handle the bills if I work hard and spend wisely- it's just money. My credit will take time to get better again, but it's not terminal... the house is set to be back together by the western new year, and I can get a new transmission somewhere if mine totally fails. What I can't handle is living a life of mediocrity- not gorwing, reaching, striving every day to be better. The marriage of adventure and and open heart make you able to take on anything and not only just "get through", but thrive in adverse conditions, especially with loved ones all around you- parents, siblings, coaches, friends and lovers. You learn to use that difficulty to grow spiritually- take a roadblock and jump up on it to see farther you did before. That zeal, combined with a practice as physical and spiritual as something like wushu changes you in ways you don't understand until you look back at yourself, and go through old photos, and wonder how *why* you did it, and thank god you did. I push myself in each and every class- when I'm teaching the beginning and intermediate class I give them everything and hope they understand that. When we're training with our group, I push hard- condition hard, observe inensely and intelligently, and learn everything I can from our coach so that I am always improving. I don't ever want to come back from a class thinking, "Boy, I was mediocre." I don't ever want to wonder what that trip would've been like if I'd gone instead of killing myself for a few hundred extra dollars of working here... If I'd decided to stay and make the four thousand dollars I probably would've if I hadn't left in October, I never would've stood in front of the Bruce Lee statue in Kowloon that I've wanted to see for years, or gone to the top Hong Kong with Mark to look out across the city, and ridden a Turbo Ferry to Macau to see the hotels and Qing dynasty artifacts, or hung out with Zhao Qing Jian and Jet Li or practiced sanda with Chin Siu Ho...

My mom started martial arts this year- qi gong and aikido. She's a 55 year old nurse with a bad shoulder and arthritis in her hands who never thought of being a martial artist until I told her I wanted her to practive taiji to help the pain in her hands. Now she practices in her living room at home. My dad lifts weights everyday and is stronger than he was as a defensive lineman in college- he looks like a 30-something bodybuilder. You'd never know that his elbow was trashed from decades of carrying heavy paint buckets all day long as a painting contractor, and his back hurts every day from a teenage driver rear-ending him in his truck years ago. My sister started pole dancing last year after becoming heavier than she wanted to be, and has become a fantastic athlete and performer. Her participation in the pole performance community has even led to her founding her own company doing costume design, which is what she went to college for in the first place- full circle. My younger brother is one of the best MMA fighters I know, and an incredible athlete and person- one of the most loving people I've ever known. Each of them somewhat timidly approached the idea of doing something they thought they might like, dipped a toe in the water, and then jumped in and never looked back. None of them are looking for fame or fortune in what they do- just the love of the play. It's not any easier for them to do what they do than for anyone else, but if they hadn't overcome the fear of injury or humiliation ("I'm too old", "I'm too fat","I'm too small","I'm too broke"), none of them would've discovered how much they can love something new and how much of themselves they would find in a place they hadn't thought of looking.

Point being- it was nice to look back again and see what a difference a year can make. What a difference wushu and a loving coach can make to see yourself as you never did before. 2007 has been a killer year. In 2008 I think I'll go skydiving because the idea of flinging myself out of a plane scares the shit out of me.

Jiayo...

So...

I don't really blog... I like blogs, and there are several I read and subscribe to:

allnewyear.com, narom's blog is always fascinating, Wu Di does a great job on keeping current in both Chinese and English, Ian Bogost does a great one on trends in gaming and technology that is always philosophical and illuminating, Wil Wheaton (http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/) is a sensative and touching gamer/nerd blogger, Mike @ mywushublog.com keeps me updated on classes and movie reviews when I'm abroad (which is pretty often this year) ...

...I'm just not the type the put my brilliant and introspective thoughts on paper or in binary...

However- I was in China *again* this fall for 6 weeks (October and Nov), and had a nice trip. I'm not going to wax poetic or write much at all except to say that I love Beijing. I visited Mark in HK for a few days and now he owes me a meal, and Macau was nice, but I prefer to watch their wushu team to anything else there (I live too close to Vegas to care about the rest of it.) I spent January and February training in Thailand (muay thai) and most of March, June and July in Beijing doing wushu and sanda (and a little tui shou and traditional chin na), punctuated by brief trips back to the US to make a little money, make sure my car still runs, and pass gifts out to family members...

This mid-November I had the honour to accompany the US Wushu Team during the 9th World Wushu Championships in Beijing for a week, as I was living at Shi Cha Hai training with the Beijing Sanda Team. I checked out of SCH and into the Beiyuan Hotel in N. Ring 5, and spent 7 days dining and travelling with the taolu and san shou athletes- some wonderful people. Being with the ream during the opening ceremony on a Sunday evening was overwhelming- I believe over 80 countries participated in the games, and their flags and uniforms were so diverse- we literally swam in a sea of windbreakers and trackjackets from all over the world.  There was so much energy in the room- the emotion emanating from this diverse crowd of humans was touching- we were all there, athletes, cometitors, coaches, judges, spectaors- because of a love of something bigger than ourselves- everyone you met eyes with was thinking the same thing, or something close to it... "God (or whomever) I love wushu, I love martial arts, I love ____ (insert country name here). Thank you... I want to train, I want to perform, I want to be better tomorrow than I am today." That's really what wushu is about for all of us. I know there are athletes that do it for a living and get tired of it, but even they enjoy it, and most of the people there are like me- lovers, amateurs- people who find improvement in themselves and their relation to the world through their involvement in Chinese arts...

Places I didn't even know had kung-fu had teams showing up! It was really wonderful. The opening cermony included hundreds of little kids doing forms together,

a 1,000 person Yang taiji demo,

and the Beijing SCH boys leading a wushu great wushu demo (sans Wu DI, who was off competing in Guangzhou).

The US didn't show as strongly as I'd hoped, but we got two people in to represent the US in Beijng 2008 at the Games.  Enough talking... there are plenty of people who will blog about it I'm sure. I just wanted to put some pics out, and say that I was homored to be there and see so much in credible taolu and san shou (the san shou guys get really burnt when you refer to taolu as wushu- they feel left out... whatever...)

Anyway. here's some pics...

Jet and Coach Patti- the Ultimates- reunited - if you don't know who Hao Zhi Hua (Patti Li) is,

get on wikipedia or www.wushuwest.com and check her out... she's my sifu... The other one is named Jet Li (or Li Lianjie). He does movies and charity stuff...

15-year-old Colvin Wang (east coast US) made it to the 2008 Games with jian and chiang- he's a really talented and respectful player with a great future ahead of him. This is the profile I got when I told him to look pensive.

The greats from the first generation Beijing Wushu Team, with Cheng Haikun, one of the heads of the Chinese Wushu Federation (and me on the far right)

one of the greatest photos I'll ever have:

yeah. that's me (not Jet, the other guy)...

The Great One:

He is amazing to watch on video, but awe-inspiring to see live and close up. Every movement is practically perfect...

Tat Mau (Paul) Wong and Sifu Patti- the legends of American kung fu:

The American 2007/2008 Wushu Team

Me and Coach Patti-

American and Chinese Sanda players:

American taolu:

Anyway... today is Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for so much- the focus wushu has given my life, the life my sifu has opened the way for, the coaches and athletes from all over the world I've had the honor to train under in martial arts and acrobatics... life is good, and gets better everyday. I'm very proud of the US players- everyone did so well. I'm thankful for my teammates in Berkeley- regular people like me, who have kids and jobs and mortgagesand bills and they still come and train and get better and better every week... it's inspiring...

I can't wait to get back to China, but I'm glad to be home.