My big brother will be leaving the Retreat Center next week to return to Portugal. I'll be sad to see him leave. Who else will beat me up?

4/21 - 4/23

Monday - 4/21:

Work:
Patrick and I finished laying mulch down in the garden then finished filling the trenches we made last week for the water pipes. Afterwards, we went to the cabin and planted a few bamboo trees outside.

Taijiquan:
Tom twisted his knee while practicing Taijiquan applications on me this afternoon. He tried to throw me over his leg but his foot got stuck on the mat. I landed on his knee. Although it was an accident, I feel guilty for being the one who broke him. My best training partner here is now out of practice for a while. I hope he heals quickly.

Shaolin:
Ma bu, stances, and staff conditioning were all the same as usual. Reaction training was different though. Tony had to finish working for his job, so we were missing two. Luckily Justin came to train with us. We worked on the usual: turning from the waist, turning the body, top cover, top repel, top free. I was still frustrated about the whole incident with Tom and I think it showed. My punches had more intent and were more penetrating than usual. I also didn't pull them as much. Poor Nick. His shoulders were already bruised from last week's reaction drills.

Other:
Justin gave me the nickname of Zebra because of the stripes on my pants.

Tuesday - 4/22:

Training was the same as Monday except when Dr. Yang taught a couple of chin na for us to practice. For reaction training, I was still feeling bad about yesterday and may have took it out on the guys a little too much. We trained in the morning because it was raining a lot outside. Dr. Yang said that since he still owed us free time from before, if it continued to rain throughout the day, we wouldn't have to work. So.. we got the afternoon off (kind of). After lunch/break, we had our "free time" where we went to Dr. Yang's house to paint his bookshelves and watch a Chinese drum performance DVD with him.

Wednesday - 4/23:

Work:
No fun. We had to move gravel from the edge of the house to the future parking lot. What would have taken us a week or so to finish was completed in about an hour. Kurt, one of the workers for the house, had a tractor. He basically did the majority of our job and made things a lot easier for us. All we had to do was get to the places the machine couldn't reach.

Taijiquan:
Jin manistestation. Although we only practiced for 15-20 minutes, it's hard work. Getting the right motion of the body, the whip of the arms, and the flick of the wrist is difficult. I think I'm beginning to get it though. I hope to get all the patterns down in a few weeks. This way I can begin to practice my Taijiquan form with jin, for October's competition.

Shaolin/Reaction:
Again. Ma bu, stances, and staff conditioning in the Shaolin section. I had to miss reaction training today to make dinner.

First Complete Month

We've been busy for the past week. Work has been taking up a lot of time and energy. We have been preparing the whole area to look nice for Dr. Yang's seminars.

• Digging for the garden's water pipes
• Cutting and burning trees to clear the land and make it look nice
• Smoothing out the roads and starting a parking lot

Training has also been physically challenging. Taijiquan hasn't progressed much, besides application. Tom and I are only at Brush Knee, but we're beginning to coordinate with our breathing as well as adding feeling. As for Shaolin, we're now up to 12 minutes of Ma Bu (horse stance) and are still continuing with our daily staff conditioning rituals. Stance training is the same, running through all the basics over and over again. Reactions have begun to become more intense. We're still only doing the top two corners but we're starting to punch faster and harder at each other. I can't even count how many times Tony has hit me in the face. He's the only one I can trust to go fast and still control his hits... although he has hit me pretty hard quite a few times. Nosebleeds and bent glasses are all part of the training though.

As of today, I will have been here for 4 weeks. Time seems to go by quickly now for some reason. It seems like I've only been here for a week or two, but it's already been a whole month. Just 10 1/2 more weeks to go until I'm home.

At Last, A Free Day!

We finally got a full day free today. Dr. Yang let us leave the Retreat Center by ourselves, so Tony drove me, Tom, Patrick, and Mike to Eureka and Arcata for the day. Nick, who just arrived on Thursday, decided to stay at on the mountain with Dr. Yang. We gave him a lift from the cabin to the house.

Tom and Mike were playing around and fighting for almost the whole trip to Eureka. I'm glad Tony didn't get hit and steer the car the wrong way.



We explored the town a bit, got some food, and went shopping. After walking around for a while, we decided to go to Borders to find some books and CDs. I ended up buying the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas book and the Into the Wild DVD. As a group, we bought Dr. Yang a CD, The Very Best of Chopin, and a DVD, Farewell My Concubine.

At 5:00 PM we drove to Arcata to go climbing.


After climbing for two hours, we went to get some dinner. Mexican food, yum. We didn't get back to the mountain until around 10:15 PM. What a great day. Relaxed and fun.

They're trying to learn Chinese. Apparently singing their lessons doesn't help very much.

Some pictures of the garden and greenhouse. Neither are finished yet but progress is being made. Glenn left this afternoon and the work is almost finished. Hopefully Dr. Yang will finally start letting us get our free time back soon.

So far I'm enjoying myself here at the Retreat Center. Training has been great and working hasn't been too bad. Lack of rest is starting to get to me though. The people here are pretty good too. There are only four students right now. Tom, Mike, Patrick, and myself.

During work:
Mike: Where are you from again?
Glenn: Vermont.
Mike: What states are Vermont close to? Canada?
Glenn: ...

Tomorrow will be my third complete week at the Retreat Center. Only 11 1/2 more to go until I'm back in Andover. I'm starting to feel a bit homesick.

Work:
We almost finished up the garden today. All the beds have been double dug and topsoil has been put on each. We've also filled in the spaces between with logs and the wood chips we got from this weekend. All that is left to do is to put up the fencing around the garden, finish up the greenhouse, and add the irrigation system. Once we finish with all of that, we'll finally get to plant more.

Training:
Taijiquan is basically the same. We got to put the mats out today and work on applications with take downs. The throws are a bit different than what I'm used to. My body had to twist and turn differently and it felt weird. I think I get to start Taiji Saber and Taiji Sword soon. I believe that Dr. Yang is waiting for Daniel from Chile to arrive before teaching those. From what I hear, Daniel is thinking of starting his own YMAA Retreat Center in Chile and wishes to refine everything he knows about Taijiquan and Qigong. We did stances again in Shaolin. I think we increased our Ma Bu time to about 7 1/2 minutes today. It didn't seem that long though and I believe that stances are getting a bit easier. Staff conditioning is also becoming less painful. We stood in a circle today, facing inwards. I was across from Tony and when we circled the staffs, it looked really cool. My staff would circle one way and Tony's the other, but we would be going at the same speed. White Crane training we worked again on the top cover/repel drills. Tony had us practice solo today, doing both short version and long version for each. We did each single and them double before working with a partner. In addition to cover/repel, we also played a few reaction games. Slaps and Follow the Leader. For slaps, one partner holds their hands out, then has to remove them before the other partner can hit them. As for Follow the Leader, Tony would stand in the front of us and raise either his left or right hand. Depending on which hand was raised, we would have to turn in that direction, working on waist training as well.

Other:
Glenn leaves tomorrow to head back to Vermont. We'll miss him, but I hear he may be back again in the near future.

A Little Update

Taijiquan:
Me and Tom are now up to White Crane Spreads Its Wings the first part of the taijiquan form. We have not gotten very far in learning, but we have improved greatly. Dr. Yang says that he can definitely see a difference from when we started in March.

Shaolin:
We did our usual ritual of holding Ma Bu for 5-6 minutes. Afterwards, we worked on staff drills. Learning how to slide the staff and developing a feeling for the weapon. We also worked on Ma Bu walking. Left and right, jumping, 180s and 360s regular and jumping. Tom and I made a game out of it by mirroring each other and trying to fool the other one into making a mistake.

Work:
Our job for the day was to work on the garden. We received our first shipment of topsoil to put onto the beds. For the first part of the day, Patrick and I worked on setting up logs around the beds and then creating paths between them made of the wood chips from the weekend. After lunch, did continued to do the same, and then worked on spreading the soil out and making everything even. Throughout the work day many conversations came up. We somehow got onto the topic of Disney movies and childhood books. During the "Alice in Wonderland" conversation:
Tom: What was that monster called? A Ju-Ju? A Chu-Chu?
Glenn: Um. A Jabberwocky?
Tom: Yeah, that's it!
Some time passes.
Glenn: ...A Chu-Chu?

Reaction Training:
We're still slowly building up our White Crane four corner drills. Cover. Repel. Right side Cover/Repel, Left side Cover/Repel, Mixed Cover/Repel. The drills are getting easier, but once they speed up, people get sloppy. We just have to keep working until they become reaction and we won't need to think about what we're doing.. while keeping good form.

Sunday Work

"Even God rested on Sunday."
Yep, but not us. No free time this weekend because we got the chipper. Lots of trees to cut down. We worked for 5 straight hours this morning and still have another 4 or 5 ahead of us.

Tom's mother and grandmother came last night. They made lunch today and will be making spaghetti for dinner. Yum. I can't wait. I guess we're going to be having a little party tonight too while they're here.

During break
Mike (sleeping): *fart*
Tony (walking in): ..Who farted? Mike?
Me: Mike.
Mike (waking up): What?
Me: You just farted.
Tony: *nods*
Mike: What? No I didn't.
Me: Yep. It's rancid.
Mike: I don't smell it.
Tony: What? It's like surgery.. on the nose.

During dinner
Dr. Yang: Ah. I'm drunk.
Mike: What? Do some drunken style kung fu!
Dr. Yang: Noooo. How about some drunken muscle grabbing? *pinches Mike's shoulders*
Mike: OWW!

Work, Package, and Pizza

April 5
This morning we trained Taijiquan and Shaolin for 3 hours, then worked for 2 hours. Again, we had to take down trees and drag them to the grass opening next to the garden. After lunch, Glenn drove into town to get a wood chipper for all the wood. We were supposed to have half a free day today, but because Clay (another Retreat Center helper) had the brilliant idea of renting the chipper for the weekend, we didn't. For the whole afternoon from 3:00 to 8:00, we worked on moving and chipping trees.

By dinner time, everyone was upset and exhausted. Moods were lifted however when we discovered Glenn was going to make us pizza with the oven outside. We got to design the pizzas which was fun, too.
Outside oven

Glenn, Me, and Patrick

My pizza design


April 4
Work this morning consisted of taking down more trees down so that garden could get plenty of sunlight. Patrick, Mike, and Tom worked on doing that while Tony and I tried to remove the giant buildup of wood we had going by putting them into the two giant bonfires which we had set up. In the afternoon I went to go help the others in the tree massacre. By the time we were finished working, the grass opening next to the garden was filled with fallen trees. As we packed up and headed back to the cabin to change for training, Dr. Yang called us back. It was time to plant. I'm not exactly sure what we planted. I know there was some Chinese cabbage and some radishes. Other than that, I have no clue.

I helped Dr. Yang cook dinner today. We made curry chicken.. lots of it. We prepared the food pretty quickly so I could go outside and train reactions for 15 min. Towards the end, I was working with Tony. He decided to make things more realistic and started throwing multiple punches and picked up speed. I got hit in the face and got a bloody nose.. right as it was time for me to go back and cook. We had bloody curry chicken for dinner (not really).

I also received my package today. A water bottle signed by my students in Andover, filled with their notes. I have to say, it made my day, but also made me miss home. Anyways, thank you to everyone for your thoughts and messages :)

April 3
Angel left and flew back to Boston this morning so there are now only four students at the Retreat Center. Training has been the same. Taijiquan and Shaolin in the morning, White Crane reaction training in the evening. In the Taijiquan session, Dr. Yang has been emphasizing getting a "feeling" while practicing. It's difficult because I'm so used to external styles. He says I am starting to get it though. I have found the Taijiquan sessions becoming more and more fun, probably because it has caught my interest for some reason. We usually do a 1 1/2 hour session, with 30 min for spine/breathing exercises, 30 min for form training, and 30 min to learn applications. Applications in Taijiquan are difficult for me to do, mostly because I am still learning how to use my body structure to set my opponent up within movements. Although it can be frustrating at times, I enjoy learning and training it. After Taijiquan we have 1 1/2 hours of Shaolin where we practice basic stances and build up strength with staff conditioning. As of now, we're holding Ma Bu (horse stance) for about 6 minutes a day, and then reviewing all 10 basic stances. Staff conditioning has remained the same. We're still doing 35 of each drill (up/down, clockwise circles, counter-clockwise circles, and "smiley faces". As for White Crane reactions, we're reviewing the top two corners within the Four Corners exercise and trying to perfect them before moving on.

Since Glenn arrived yesterday, we've had a lot of garden work to do. The topsoil came today so Glenn showed us how to mix it into our garden beds. After we did that, we added logs around the beds and then put mulch around them for support.

Beginning of April

Mike, Patrick, and Tom practicing staff conditioning drills

The past few days have kind of been a blur. We spent Monday and Tuesday mornings working to prepare Dr. Yang's organic garden for Glenn's arrival from Vermont today. Glenn is the "garden master." According to Dr. Yang, he's the guy to turn to if there are any questions regarding planting/growing stuff. In order to prepare the garden, we had to build a surrounding fence and then double dig eight beds inside of it.

Because all the work had to be done as soon as possible, Dr. Yang rearranged our schedule so we had less time for break. Instead of alternating our working/training sessions, we had to work 5 hours straight from 8:00-1:00 and then train 5 hours straight from 3:00-8:00. Training this way was pretty exhausting. Taijiquan from 3:00-4:30, Shaolin from 4:30-6:00, reaction training from 6:00-7:30, and then stretching for the last half hour before dinner. Taijiquan wouldn't be too bad because it was slower and I concentrated on my breathing more. However, once we got to Shaolin training, things got bad. After a day of digging trenches and moving soil around, my body did not want to function. Stance training felt like death, holding stanches and moving around. Staff conditioning training was even worse though. My arms were sore enough from working. Moving a heavy staff up, down, and around, made my forearms feel like they were on fire. During our cool off period, we had a movement where we had to wave our arms in and out. Tom looked up at everybody and said, "Yeah... just imagine yourself swimming through an ocean of pain." That pretty much summed everything up :P

We went to Dr. Yang's house for story time last night. He told us about himself, his White Crane master and also some stuff about his master's master. The stories were all inspirational and made me think about how kung fu has changed over the past century as well as the one's potential in the martial world.

Finally.. I apparently have a package coming from Andover. Hopefully somebody goes to Miranda to get our mail soon. I can't wait to see what's inside :)