Well, I’m nearing the end of my first week and it feels pretty crazy. I need to try and get some pics up so you can get an idea of how beautiful this location is! One perfect moment I had was on Wednesday, I was just getting back from the morning run, wind chimes by the kitchen were tinging away and in the background as I walked towards our accomodation the nearby mountain had it’s top wreathed in cloud.
As for the lessons they are going very well. I’ve been told my animal form which is swallow. Apparently the Swallow is the most flexible of the birds and the form specific to my animal will be good for my health. Taking fire to my heart and water to my kidneys. Or something like that. I won’t get to learn it for a while I suspect. At the moment I’m going Qu Gong three times a day, once in the morning after the run (which I didn’t go on today) and once before each training session. I’m also learning bagua which is a circular internal form in the morning and I’m learning an internal staff form in the afternoons which I should finish tomorrow.
I should explain that I’m on the internal course which means tai chi, bagua, and Qu Gong. The other options are external and white crane. External is all about building up external muscles and power and white crane looks a bit weird to me but the people doing it sware by it… each to their own I guess. The internal matial arts are all about deflecting energy, defending and counter-attacking. It’s very cool 🙂 This does mean however that the idea of me coming out of my three months looking like some kind of greek statue in stature are less likely.
Unfortunately I’ve got sunburn on my feet. Completely stupid mistake on my part, I put on my sun cream, walked up to the training area (I really want to get a picture up of this area soon, it’s fantastic) then took off my shoes and started training.
Hopefully my feet will be healed up enough by tomorrow for me to wear shoes as we’re all supposed to be going to the local town in the evening.
People are nice, food is nice but very samey and our master is brilliant, I may talk more about him later.