One week and half.

First of May. It is clearly Spring. Bees are buzzing around the garden of the Shaolin school with their little paw full of yellow balls. I'm picked up by the headmaster of the school, who was waiting for me at the airport of Zhengzhou, and arrived at the school on board of his brand new Audi… Audi that he parks next to a rusty minivan. I understand that the truth I’m going to face is the one of the rusty van, not the one of the Audi car.
I reach the school light… my backpack was lost in Beijin.

The first approach with the school disappoints me. The village is very small (as I expected) but built like the ugliest of the megalopolis (which I didn’t expected). Life conditions are “essentials”. Shared room, two beds (plus one matrass used as couch) wardrobe and a little table. Bathroom with cold water. Tap water drinkable but not suggested. In the morning there is no water at all! Enormous high-tension pole at about 10 meters from my room window and a nice antenna disguised like a tree is just in the hill behind my room. Hygienic conditions are… Chinese! I spent my first free day in the attempt to hygienize bathroom and room (especially the bathroom…it really needed). Globally the school does not give you the “kung-fu” air I thought. The beginning is disappointing.

Luckily my roommate showed to be a very nice person. Sigismund, Danish, nickname Sigi, is the only one here studying Tai Chi except me. He is about 10 year younger than me (errata corrige, he is 19) but we immediately understand each other. I discovered soon to be one of the grandpas of the course. Older than me only Pieter, Dutch, but he left after only one week after I arrived and now I rightly have the title of Old One of the course. Globally speaking the “western” students show to be all very friendly. I like the social relations here… I start to motivate myself again.

There are about twenty students coming from all over the world. Some stay for one month, some for more than one year. And there are the Chinese children. They attend a mix of traditional elementary lessons and kung-fu lessons. They exercise in the courtyard with us and with their incredible elasticity they embarrass almost all of us… luckily there is also some that remind me when I was a child… and therefore is neither elastic nor agile. Masters are good, qualified, understanding and helpful. I am motivated!!

Let’s start training.

The impact with the truth is hard and painful… ten years over the average of the students and at least 10 kilos more than what I should have. These change my descending from the skies of the dreams into a disastrous fall on the sonly ground of the truth. Wake up at 5:50 am, training starts at 6:00. “Warm up” with a “light run” over the hill behind the school. About 15km and 100m difference in height. Breakfast at 7. After breakfast other 3 hours training and then lunch. And so on until evening. Last “free” training, and therefore lighter, after dinner, from 7 to 8. At 9 I collapse in my bed. The day after it starts again. About 7 hours training every day. Six day a week. Excluding the Chinese course, the Buddhist meditation, the free morning for laundry, there are about 36 hour training per week… Thursday, after one week from the first day, I was good. Friday I was not able to run. Saturday better.
Tomorrow we will start again.
May the Force be with me!!