Beijing – Day 10: Pierre and Jennifer arrive

The day had finally arrived for two more members of Wushu West to join us in Beijing. But first, we had to deal with some morning training in the upstairs wushu hall.

When we arrived in the wushu hall there were a few of the professional athletes stretching on the main blue carpet; Zhao Qing Jian, Wang Xie and Liu Xiao Lei. Basically, three of the top athletes in the world. On the far carpet was Liu Qing Hua’s group (which included Liu Qi). With the coaches and Patti in the room, I calculated that ther...Read more

Beijing – Day 7 & 8: Training Next to the Pros

First, sorry for the delay. I haven’t had as much time to blog these days. I’m going to recap Day 7 and 8 here. But first, here are a few pictures from Day 6 that I didn’t have time to post earlier.

Here are some nice taro treats that they served during lunch. Sifu Patti asked me to take some pictures of them:

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Beijing – Day 9: More of the Same …

It was another early morning for us today. The first training session was at 8:00 AM in the lower wushu hall. Today also marked 1/3 of our trip completed. Just 18 more days until most of us head back to the U.S. I’m sure it will go by quickly (and yet, ironically, the training seems to last forever).

Everyone was a little out of it this morning, or that might just be my perception since I was having a bit of calf cramping. I took the opportunity to start choreographing a new nangun set while the rest of the ki...Read more

Beaver, Massage, AnD Duck

So, it has been quite a while (at least a year, if not longer) since I have last seen Beaver.  And it has been even longer (4 – 5 years) since I’ve seen his wife, Gemma.  The last time I saw them their daughter was just about 1 year old … now she’s 6.

I saw Beaver at the alivenotdead.com/tom.com party, but that wasn’t really much of a chance to talk and visit, so before they took off for a vacation in Hawaii (his first in 2 years!) I took a cab over to their home to say hi.

It was great to see Gemma and their kids ag...Read more

Beijing – Day 6: Last Day of Quarantine

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Today was the last day of quarantine.  Other than that it was more or less business as usual.

After breakfast was morning practice.  Some of the students are a bit on the tired side, and it started to ...Read more

Beijing – Day 4&5: Bed, Workouts and Shopping

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I’m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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So, since Wushu West is still under “quarantine”, the school requested that we not go out over the weekend, at least not as a big group in an organized tour (i.e. going to the Great Wall). However, ...Read more

alive.tom.com

So, a quick blog about something not necessarily related to Wushu West’s trip to Beijing. Namely the recent alivenotdead.com/tom.com party that I was able to attend.

For sure the best thing about the event was getting to see a LOT of old friends that I hadn’t been able to hang out with in a very long time. Of course it was great to see the alivenotdead.com guys like Pat, Stephen, Boon, Raffi, Olivier, JoJo and Dan, plus some of the other folks that help at the office. And the Alive guys were all there and it was great to talk to them...Read more

Beijing – Day 3: A Look at Training

This blog entry is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I”m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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I checked with the other Wushu West folks and they said that the training last night was a good class. Well, by “good” I mean they got a good workout, so perhaps it didn’t feel “good”, but I’m pretty sure the resu...Read more

Beijing – Day 1: Recap of our arrival

This blog is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com.  However, since I”m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too.  If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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Now that I have switched our blog over to Wordpress, hopefully things will be a bit smoother. But enough technical mumbo-jumbo, it is time to share the adventures of our first day in China.

The last you saw the Wushu West crew we were at SFO saying goodbye to our...Read more

Beijing – Day 2: The Training Begins and Tyler’s Birthday

This blog is being written for Wushu West’s website, wushuwest.com. However, since I”m the one writing it, I thought it might be of interest to other folks too. If you would like to learn more, please visit the Wushu West website.

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This will be mostly pictures instead of words, since it is late and we have training in the morning …

This was the first day of our training. Everyone met in the lobby at 7:45 for mandatory temperature taking. It is a little machine that you ...Read more