First month.

Report of the first month.

At the end of the first month my physical report can only be positive. Apart the kilos I've lost, how many I do not know but I feel them, now I can do things that only one month ago were impossible. I finally managed to run to the top of the hill and back without stopping (about 8km with a height of 100 meters), I made the "long run" (about 15km) and I went from 100 to 300 abs. I gained a lot of flexibility and I'm glad, even if sometimes my back hurts. My Tai Chi improves a bit every day. We'll see where I will arrive at the end of the three months. At the moment I've just destroyed my shoes.

The Children Day

At the end of the first month we also had the children's festival. We have a kind of partnership with a primary school and we went to give them a show yesterday. Welcome like rock stars! Our bus was besieged by children and our teachers were like bodyguards who made us into classrooms to rehearse.

For this festival we have prepared some kung fu shows (obviously), but we were also asked to give rein to our imagination. So someone sang, others danced, others did funny skits. It was a great day and it ended gorgeously, as it had began...releasing autographs for the kids...it will never happen again!

People coming, people going. 

At the end of the first month I had to say goodbye to some guys that I've grown close to, including my roommate Sigi. His four months here are over and he is now going back to his home. Have a good trip my friend, it was a pleasure meeting you. We were the Tai Chi couple and during the breaks, while the others were resting in the sun or doing stretching, we often read our books. For celebrating the departure of some of us, our teacher took us out to lunch in a small restaurant (Chinese of course), where we could enjoy some local specialties that typically we do not eat at the school canteen, especially chicken and pork. And behind us the cook was preparing hand made noodles. 

New students will join us soon, but for now we salute those who leave.

Among the people who come there is also the police. Today, June 1, Children's Day, during the “meditation class”, we found ourselves in front of a group of policemen who wanted to "make some pictures of us". I admit that at the first moment I thought it was because of my evading local law in terms of access to the internet ... like going to Facebook and other sites banned in China! Instead it was just propaganda to bring the police closer to the people, and they wanted to take some pictures with the friendly foreign students of the school.

What else? For now I can only confirm what wise shaolin teachers always repeat. The first few weeks are the hardest, but then the training becomes much more enjoyable.

That weird thing is the Dragon fruit...and I've eaten it.
Now I'm really going to be the Dragon Warrior!

PS. About Buddhist wisdom. One day we spoke of the Chinese government and one of the teachers told us: "Yes, because we are not like your countries. Here we have only one party. So everything is faster"...maybe it will turn out that he's right...

 PPS. From today I have the personal trainer of Tai Chi...and now who is going to stop me anymore?!?!?!?