Shanghai (12/15): Yang’s Festival of Nandu

First of all, I really need to start sleeping a regular schedule. In Shandong I had wushu every morning at 8:30 and breakfast was at 7:00, so I got used to waking up consistently at 6:30.

Well, here in Shanghai I have wushu every afternoon at 2:30. You can imagine what time I have been going to bed and waking up. I end up chatting with people online (stupid time zones) until almost 4:00 a.m. and then wake up around 11:00 a.m. It makes me feel so unproductive. I mean, I’m still awake and asleep for the same amount of hours each day, but I don’t see much daylight so it feels like I’m missing out on half the day (when in truth I’m gaining back half the night). I’ll have to do something about that next week.

In any case, after waking up today I putz around for a bit and then took off for wushu class. As per my post from yesterday I had a plan of what I was going to do in class, but it got circumvented by what I call “Yang’s Festival of Nandu”.

The typical class usually starts off with basics, then some nandu which leads in to forms. After 10 or 20 sections they take a break and then either repeat the same cycle or do their nandu training or something else. But I can typically rely on a good 30 minutes of taolu training to focus on my forms. Today was much more nandu-centric.

Another thing to note is that Yang Laoshi does things based on rotations. He’ll say “20 combinations” and the kids will do 20 rotations of going up and down the carpet doing various combinations that they need to work on from their forms. Or he’ll say “100 nandu” (like i mentioned yesterday) or “10 front stretch kick” which is 10 times up and down the carpet with front stretch kick. Today was as follows:

10 combination rotations

20 outside 720’s (similar to the “100 nandu” except they have to complete 20 outside 720’s. They’re kinda small so it takes them a while

100 nandu (as per yesterday’s post) - but he was more of a stickler today so it took them longer.

Then we got to do taolu. But only 10 rotations. And it wasn’t full sections. More like half sections or the parts that they need to work on. So I worked on my intro and beginning of the 1st section for 4 rotations, then worked on my section 2 to 3 transition combinations for another 4 rotations. I threw in some yells in the last of each of the 4 rotations, which (for some weird reason) received applause from the kids. Maybe they like my yell or something.

After that we were told to work on the problem areas of our forms on our own for 10 minutes. Then we did stretching and class was over. So, didn’t get to do a whole lot besides basics, combinations and light forms. But I did pull one of the nanquan kids aside and learned 2 sections of his nangun form, so it wasn’t a total loss. They actually have a pretty nice form which they learned while I was gone so I’m happy to be learning it. It looks like a varation on xie fu yan’s form.

Oh .. and I did wall-sits too.

At the end of class the boys were all sitting around writing in some wushu journals about their workouts (looked like some sort of weekly or regularly scheduled task they were supposed to do as part of their training) and I took the opportunity to take their pictures and get their names down. So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to my classmates — 5 boys who’s collective age is only slightly older than my own. (slight exaggeration).

Fu Xiao Hua.

Fu Xiao Hua is one of the two boys who practice nanquan. Originally when I first saw him training he was doing changquan, but after a while they switched him over. Personally I think it was a good choice because he seems to have a better overall grasp of nanquan. When he first started his nanquan wasn’t as good as the other kid, but I think they’re pretty much equal now. He is the kid I learned the nangun form from today, and he’s also the kid I taught the beginning of my nanquan form to. It’s fun to see him doing my choreography and making it his own.

Zhu Ke

This is the little changquan beast of the group. I think he might be the youngest of the group, but he isn’t too shabby when it comes to the long fist. He’s been getting pretty consistent with his 720 inside mabu too. Out of the whole group his changquan is the best. But then, there are only two of them who do changquan so I guess it’s not that big of a stretch. He’s quite good though and always leads our lines of basics and forms. He’s like Li Jing from back in the 90’s — always the first person in the line to do the move. He also is the one who keeps track of how many times we’ve gone through a particular rotation and lets the coach know when we’ve finished with one task and are ready for another.

Ning Tung Hui

This is the other nanquan kid. He has really good posture and his movements are very clean. You can’t see it in this picture but he has a very nice smile and his teeth look like a toothpaste commercial. He is one of the quieter ones of the group and seems a bit harder to approach, but he’s basically a good kid.

Zhang Guan Xiong

I used to call him Red Shorts Junior, because he reminded me of Red Shorts (Liang Chao), but that might have been because he was tall, lanky and was practicing Liang Chao’s changquan form. This is the only kid (I think) who is actually from Shanghai … Pudong to be specific. During the last Shanghai kid’s competition he competed for the PuDong District. His specialty is taiji quan, jian and qiang. I have to say that his taiji is actually quite nice and he was taught the form of the current National champion from Fujian which he does a decent job with. Of all the boys his wushu is the most mature and it shows when he’s doing his form. His eyes are super expressive — especially during his straightsword, which has some really nice choreography. Since he’s the oldest of the group of 5, he tends to be the most bossy too. Oh, and he has the best English of the 5 (which isn’t really saying that much since the other 4 know none at all).

Mung Bi Fa

And finally the little brother of the group. His wushu is not as good as the other boys and he can’t land a 720 mabu to save his life (but then, neither can I) but he really has a lot of pluck. In the recent competition he competed with the youth compulsory and did a decent job of it too. He sort of reminds me of a young Yang Laoshi and I imagine that this might be what Yang Laoshi looked like when he was a little kid. He’s kind of shy, but always has a smile on his face.

And there you have it. I left out Liang Chao since most of you know who he is (Mr. “Red Shorts”) and I’ve spoken about him before. Plus, he’s not one of the “five boys”.

But the 6 of them and myself are pretty much the whole class. It’s nice having a dedicated group of kids to train with, and they keep the class interesting. They’re serious about their training, but not tooo serious (they are kids, after all) so it’s a nice mix. I think the thing I’m most looking forward to is seeing how they end up developing 5 or 10 years down the line when they’re all professional athletes kicking butt at Nationals.

I’m leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow morning so I won’t be back until Monday night and my next wushu class won’t be until Tuesday. Then I will have 4 days of wushu before Peter W. comes to visit me and we head down to Xiamen for a few days to hang out with Pat, et al. and have another X(iamen)-Mas.