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
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