wu life 228

WU LIFE 228


BACK ON TH BLOCK

i am back in wudang now. the week long fiasco over in shanghai has ended, and i am now peacefully back in wudang shan, ready to wrap up my last two months of training.

the 20+ hour train ride back wasn't too bad - the last five hours were especially entertaining. i was in my usual idiotic form, joking it up with the locals, singing ridiculously loud nonsense songs, breaking personal space barriers, and playing with the keikis.. the chinese folks seemed to really get a kick out of it, and sam, who made the return trip back with me, seemed to really enjoy the laugh as well. it was good fun.

once back in town, sam and i immediately treated ourselves to a bowl of hand-cut noodle soup from one of the local hole-in-the-wall grub spots in wudang. all the locals immediately recognized our return and gave us big loving welcomes.. sometimes i forget how famous we've become here. after the noodles, a big group of us went to the massage parlor to get our feet soaked in herbs and massaged with oils. when all that goodness was over, i ran down to pay the first bill i had payed all week. as generous as sam has been to me the whole while in shanghai, it was nice to finally pay a bill myself again,.. ahhh, the simple pleasures.

the next day was our first day training. sam, who was especially feeling it after a hectic last two days in shanghai was burnt out,.. and myself, who had been sick 6 of the 7 days over in shanghai, was feeling a little off too.. so both of us decided to take it easy and give our bodies time to simply appreciate the healing space we were in now. the following day, however, found the two of us feeling much better, and the intensity of our training was a reflection of that. ahh, it's good to be back.


TEACHING THAI MASSAGE

the local massage spot that we frequent displayed a little interest in learning thai massage, and i, being the pseudo thai masseuse master that i am, offered to teach them. i really love thai massage,.. apart from chinese tui na and hawaiian lomi lomi, thai is where it's at. i was lucky enough to learn a table thai set back in berkeley, and a few of the advanced students and i, worked it into a floor routine, so i have a pretty good grasp on the material. anyway, i showed a few of the girls at the massage spot and they were stoked.

so now, i'll be teaching them massage three days out of the week.. plus, i also started teaching tui na to one of the apprentice instructors here as well for another two days,.. so that makes five days of massage a week for me. this is really good, because teaching massage always means receiving massage, and i'm always happy to catch some touch. the other thing is that it is a good break from all the kung fu i've been doing, and it will give me some practice before i get back into the massage business when i head back to the states. it's all working out nicely.


BAGUA PALM CHANGE

bagua zhang, eight trigram palm, is composed of eight transitional palm strikes. i have already learned two, and i am currently learning the third. this particular movement is really ridiculous. it opens with a block that rolls into a low groin strike. from there, you step into a double wrist break, before opening the opponents defense and thrusting your toe into their throat with a stabbing spear kick. after that, you step back and block another opponent's attack and then grab their balls and throw them over your shoulder. as devastating as that sounds, it is a really beautiful expression of twisting and torquing movements that start high and round, then end low, like a coiling, crouching dragon.

sadly.. for a person my size, such movements are really difficult to execute, which is why i've been in such pain these last three months trying to learn this set. however, i am slowly getting the hang of it and it is coming a long nicely. of course i am no where near mastery, but my body is constantly changing, and i feel in time i will have a strong grasp on this set. i love it.


FIN

alright, that's it for this week. i'm glad to be back in the mix here. just think, in 8 more weeks i'll be heading back to the states - that's so fast. as much as i love it here, i am looking forward to burritos and sandwiches. till next week, aloha.

-zi rong

wu life 227

WU LIFE 227


TOO BAD SAM TRIPP HATES DAVE WEI

shanghai still sucks,.. but sam tripp has been the best host times ten thousand, million, billion, trillion.

sadly, i had a head cold for the majority of my stay here. i think between the typhoon i endured to get here, the recycled train air, all the dusty climate control, all the second hand smoke, the pollution, and the city grime,.. i put my immunity system through a rough ride. funny though,.. it seems that every time i come to shanghai i come down with a little bit of nastiness. even when sam comes to visit me in the wu, he seems to host something from here that gets me all nasty too.. shanghai and i just don't get along.

sam the saint, however, wasted no effort in making sure every thing i could possibly need or want was taken care of. each day we are eating amazing vegetarian love food, each day there was tons of fresh water and watermelon, each day we shared amazing and enlightening conversation, and each outing was a public display of tremendous idiocracy. daniel reid would certainly approve,.. such good fun. the craziest part, was that aside form my initail trip here, sam has fit the bill for every single expense. it was really hard to receive such generocity, but sam demanded that i give in to the love. such a good brother.


VISA TROUBLES VANQUISHED

sam introduced me to a gentleman by the name of magic. his name is magic because he works wonders with the visa. i simply gave him my passport, and told him to fix it.. no crazy paperwork, no physical examinations, absolutely no red tape what so ever. five days later, after an express order, my visa was complete. beyond that, i now have the connection to get year-long, multi-entry, business-class visas.. i should never have another issue with immigration again. have i mentioned that sam is a saint?


GOOD TIMES

despite the nastiness that is shanghai,.. i still managed to enjoy some amazing times here. the first big thing was checking out a beautiful temple on the 15th. we got to see monks holding a service and everything,.. it was really nice. sam and i also checked out a reiki group and got hip to some really interesting reiki juice.. that was also really cool. we also checked out a beautiful buddhist family and had an enlightening conversation the mom.. simply amazing. OH, and we also got to fire the grid and participate in a worldwide healing meditation.. that rocked too. then last night, we got to have a little fun at the reggae night downtown.. skank nasty.

today, i need to pack up and get ready to head back to the mountain. if all goes well, sam and i will be on the 26 hour train ride back to the wu this sunday. then,.. by monday we'll be back on the mountian stacking chi.

that's it for this week. thank you all for the love.. i will be sure to respond to all the lvoe letters as soon as i get settled back into wu life.

-zi rong

wu life 226

wu life 226


SHANGHAI SUCKS

well.. as luck would have it, my visa could not be renewed in wudang. i was all ready to go back to california but a long conversation with saintly sam tripp kept me in china. sam demanded that he pay for ALL my expenses: travel, food, visa - all i needed to do was go to shanghai and receive the love.

so that was it. at the first moment available, i got on a cab to shiyan,.. then got on a bus to wuhan.. then got on a train to shanghai. probably the worst 30+ hour travel experience of my life. it was typhooning the whole way there and my neck and back were solid stiff from the stress and tension. upon arrival, i was a stressed wet mess.. all my luggage was soked, my body ached all over,.. it was all bad. arrrg. i hate shanghai.

sam the saint, however, was more than compassionate. he dropped the warm reiki hands on my neck.. took me to the crib to get washed up, and immediately fed me with the most delicious indian food to have ever graced my pallette. from there, amazing conversation filled the next few hours until it was time to eat again.. but this time it was buddha veggie goodness. wow.. sam really knows how to make a brother feel loved. the following day it was more buddha food, and a trip to the temple. ahhhhhh.

amidst the love, shanghai still sucks. animals being slaughtered on the sidewalks, smog as thick as yogurt, streets like sewers, crazy mouth-breathing people everywhere,.. my goodness. my body trembles just thinking of it all. to counter the nasty,.. i've upped my meditation and standing practice. my god, shanghai is so horrible. i cannot wait to get back to the mountain.

at any rate, i turn in my passport today to get my visa extension. it should take a week to process. from there, i'm heading back to wudang via 26 hour train ride,.. then it's back to practice.

thank you all for the love and support, i will do my best to keep you all updated as to the happenings. till next round, be tall.


- ZI RONG

wu life 225

WU LIFE 225


BAGUA BEAT DOWN

i have now been at this bagua thing for just over two months. the first month was strictly circle walking and static standing postures. the pain i experienced was so unbelievably unbearable.. my body felt like it was shedding its exoskeleton.. but slowly, layer by layer, i tearfully pealed away the dead layers of auric onion that funked up my being. by the end of that first month i felt as if i had a new body - all of my joints were fluid and soft, my posture was taller.. and best of all, my circle walking was rather champion (but still crap by my self set standard).

so there i was, enjoying the headway i made, and then shifu smacks me with palm change one,.. the first real movement of the bagua set. from there, i faced another round of ridiculous pain. my thighs, my hips, my knees, my spine.. everything hurt. luckily, relief came much faster after this series of motions, and after just two short weeks i had managed to acquire a satisfactory level of proficiency in this movement. ahhh, i love bagua.

so here i am, feeling relatively comfortable in my bagua circle space, mud walking around and around, palm changing to and fro, and shifu decides to share the second palm change with me. now this one is pretty cool, but of course.. very painful to execute. i've been on this motion now for the greater portion of this week, and the pain is only getting deeper. my ankles feel like they are going to explode, my knees feel like they are going to internally combust, and every torquing step i take feels as if i'm going to twist right off at the hips. i love it.

bagua has become my new passion. i drive myself mercilessly till buckets of sweat pour off my body and salt rings develop around my pants and shoes. new students that are unfamiliar with my drive stare in awe as i rip circles out of the tiled temple floor.. as the old sage confucius would tell his students.. 'practice as if in fear of losing this gift forever.' gong fu is my life - and i practice to live. quite frankly, when it comes to traditional gong fu, i really can't see it any other way.. to quote another sage.. 'the wise want practice, children want candy.'


VEXED ABOUT MY VISA

so there's some light-weight drama going on for dave wei here in wudang. i turned in my passport to the local government to get my visa extended.. a very standard procedure.. but sadly i was faced with some complications. so as opposed to getting my three month extension, i'm only getting 15 days! i plan to make my way to the government head quarters soon to plead my position, but i have a feeling that i'm going to get the 'foreign face' treatment. even if the local authorities do admit fault.. which is highly doubtful, i'm still going to have to repay for this visa that i already paid for! so ridiculous.

on the light side of things.. i'm champion no matter where i go, be it here in china or back in the states - so in that regard, i'm prepared to go home if need be,.. but i am happy to say that i have a contingency plan. BROTHER SAM TRIPP, my immaculate reflection, sensed a disturbance in the force and knew that there was trouble on the home front.. once we communicated the situation, within one hour, he had arranged a visa for me in shanghai. so in the likely event that the wudang fuzz gives me strife, my brother for life has my back. ahhh, to be loved.


SHAN SANG YI TIEN, DI XIA YI NIEN

shifu just rips my brain apart sometime.. ''a day on the mountain is a year down bellow.''

'time is relative to your perspective. think of the mosquito that barely lives a week,.. then think of the mountain that sees the four seasons as a single day. here on the mountain, we practice hard, we follow the tao, we really enjoy life - people that follow the normal path only waste away. now that you have been here for this long, go home and see how everyone else has aged,.. all while you have grown younger and softer - you can only help normal people by continuing your practice,.. hopefully, they will see you, and change their perspective on their own.'


BACK TO PRACTICE

well family, it is a little hard for me to get back in the habit of writing. shifu has really been keeping me busy here. thank you all for your continued support and love, i will make my best effort to keep you all in the loop.

oh, and if you happen to have the time, take a moment to enjoy the new michael moore film, SICKO. forget transformers, or any of the other booty movies out there,.. go see SICKO. and then after that, go exercise, cause the american health care system is more interested in saving money than saving lives.

i love you all,
-Zi Rong