I’ve now got a Skype account, as the Academy computer has Skype on it, if you want my ID or whatever you need to add me to your list then drop me an email (I don’t really want to stick it on the interweb for all to see)

There was a thunder storm on Sunday evening, it was damn impressive but unfortuantely it took out the internet connection. I think a surge destroyed the modems. Anyway there is only one computer that works on the internet now and it’s in quite a lot of demand.
I’ll post some more soon, probably at the weekend as we go into the local town and there’s a cheap internet cafe there.

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.

I tried putting on a little update from Hong Kong airport, but after the second failure I was too cheesed off with the ipod touch keyboard to bother trying again.
I’ve arrived and had my first night – didn’t actually sleep so I’ve got no idea how I’m doing with jetlag etc.
Training starts tomorrow at 6 am so that’ll be a kick into the new life. I think I’ll be going to bed at eight in the evening or something.

My plan of travelling light didn’t quite work, my 45+10 litre pack is completely stuffed to the brim. I was hoping to have some space to put stuff in that I buy. I have to give myself some credit though. Included in my pack is eight t-shirts three pairs of shorts and two pairs of track bottoms that I won’t be needing after I’ve finished in China. And they take up quite a lot of space!
I did however manage to fit six t-shirts in a compression sack and then compress them down into a solid block of cotton. Which is good 🙂

Yep, my departure from the currently very wet and chilly Plymouth retreat can be measure in hours. As the day of departure looms I increasingly get asked if I’m excited, scared, nervous or any other host of leaving emotions. Truth be told I’m not really feeling anything. I have a lists, a list of things I need to do and a list of that must be packed. I’m working through these lists and making sure that I complete everything that needs to be done before my flight is all that’s on my mind.
Neither of my lists includes ‘get nervous’ or ‘start to worry about…’ so I’m not.
That being said I do feel intensely under prepared when it comes to my physical fitness. I was starting to hit the gym hard when I had my operation, and that completely threw a spanner in the works. Fortunately I got back to yoga and Capoeira pretty damn quickly, so my anaerobic fitness and my flexibility haven’t declined (although I would have preferred for them to increase). My CV fitness is going to let me down I think. Not much I can do about that now though.
Perhaps I am slightly worried in that respect, it would certainly explain why I find myself holding my breath randomly.
Thinking forward I’m predicting that I’ll be back to a good level of fitness (in comparison to my past) after two weeks. And I’ll be definitely noticing some marked improvements on that after a month and a half (half way through).
Lets see how my predictions fare :).