I’m back from Qingdao and because of the cold I caught these days, finally have time to write a little something (pictures are already up in the gallery Qingdao 09. My trip was really nice, most of the time I lived with my Shi Bo (Gongfu uncle) Yu Bin, who’s now proud father of a cute son. Our days were mostly very healthy waking up a t 6am for training, breakfast, relaxing/training, lunch, working, dinner, long talks about Gongfu and going to bed early at 10pm. Everyday I would learn a lot, but not forms (not counting the new Bashi (8 stances) we have in our family), but the very basics of energy and fighting. My notes for each day would be longer than they’ve been in years, learning about the small details and some traditional training methods of our family, but also clarifications of our history and theories. Even found out why our Beng Bu differs so much from other families.

Yu Bin gave me a task, which concluded writing an article about how traditional Gongfu (especially Tanglang Quan) should be trained and I’m happy to tell you, the first draft is already finished. For now it’s in German and will be posted here on this blog, but I’ll be working on a translation as soon as I finalize the German one.

We also talked about how to get the abstract theory and basics that are inherent to Tanglang Quan more clarified not just for students in our family, but for everyone out there. So (hopefully) starting soon, we’ll post more and more translations and explanations of the basic theories like 12 keywords, 5 principles, 7 long 8 short, 12 soft 8 hard on the website of the Wan Fu Qingdao School in the philosophy section (under training). Some are already online – thanks goes to Yu Bin’s Tudi Felix, who besides his job, managed to translate all those for the website. For now it’ll be just these bits and pieces, but maybe they’ll find their way into a book of sorts, but keep in mind all of these won’t make you a better practitioner, a good teacher and hard work does!

Yesterday in the morning we (Hanno and me) arrived in 青岛. 于斌 was already waiting for us at the trainstation and after some food and watching his pictures of 西藏 (Tibet) and 杭州 (Hangzhou) while having a good 崂山茶 (Laoshan tea) at his place we got some cheap and good accomodation right around the corner. In the afternoon we had our first training at the parking lot of the hotel. While Hanno got his 小翻车 (Xiao Fan Che) corrected, I was bound to start learning 拦截 (Lan Jie), which according to my 师伯 is the oldest 套路 (form) in 螳螂拳 and therefore called the mother of 螳螂拳.

After training we got invited to 火锅 (hotpot) with some chinese friends of my 师伯 and too much beer. So training today in the morning was accompanied by a little hangover. At noon we (together with a korean taekwondo master and two men from chinese customs duty) got invited to lunch by some co-worker of my 师伯. The rest of the day is still not planned out, but it’s also good to have some time for relaxing (and writing blogentries) right now.

So I’m back in Beijing for more than a week now. Not much has changed – only some new buildings and the lack of restaurants I used to go. The weather is really nice and the air I got used to quite fast.

I’m staying with german friends (Hanno and Marcel) who live close to 五道口 (Wudaokou), which is my old neighborhood, so I can easily find my way around. They’re pretty cool folks so I’m most probably staying with them longer than planed. We get along quite well – training and partying together.

The first day already started quite nice. I arrived at 11 am and after getting some food and fixing my mobile, we already had Taiji training. Afterwards we invited my teacher to 火锅 (Hotpot) and had some beers. Then we went to meet some people at Lush and had more beer and some absinth And as it wasn’t too far we moved over to Propaganda for some dance action. Even this club hasn’t changed much, stll HipHop music and full of Koreans… ^^ and it was still fun, so that we were home at about 7 am.

The next day at 9 am my good friend 费艾 (Fei Ai) called me and wanted to go shopping. I was already awake so I joined her to a tour of 西单 (Xi Dan). Afterwards her parents invited me for dinner, which was very nice, even if I was really tired. In the evennig we went out with about 8 chinese friends to 三里屯 and partied till about 2 am. This made me get over my jetlag pretty fast.

So what else am I doing here? Besides one day I attended Taiji Training everyday (yesterday even twice). 张老师 (teacher Zhang) has imrpoved a lot and his teaching method, too. He now tells me lots of background info and corrects every movement very detailed. At the moment I’m working a bit on my 一路 (first form) and started out working on my 二路 (second form) intesively again, which this time really feels a lot better. I’m getting explained a lot of the 发力 (fali/fajin) movements and some of the ones I never got before, now are working at least a bit. We also did some 推手 (pushhnads) yesterday.

We also had the Birthday of my 太极 (Taiji) teacher on Monday. We just had ordinary training at the BLCU campus when one of the guys told us that it’s 张老师’s Birthday. So we asked him to get some food after training. He was happy to hear that and invited some of his friends and some other close students to have a small dinner at a restaurant not far from his place. As we were a bit early he invited us to see his home, which was a really interesting experience. 张 lives right next to a train station not far from 五道口 (which he finds very comfortable, but should also be very noisy). His home is a small hut with two rooms, made completely out of concrete. There is no flooring and there are only public toilets and showers. He lives there with his wife and two daughters (one is 5 years old the other one just 6 month). He even told us that he’s paying 700 kuai a month for it and that he can’t afford anything else cause of two kids and his only job being teaching 太极. But he’s still happy having anything he needs and doing the thing he loves most.

At the restaurant – as usual – we had lots of great food and also lots of beer and 二锅头 (Er Guo Tou). One friend of my teacher, who is a tailor mostly doing gongfu and taiji uniforms, had the great idea to outfit all attendees of the dinner with a specially made taiji uniform for free (advertisement purposes), so he took our heights and preference in color one by one even calling his wife/girlfriend to get detailed measures of us. The night ended with most people really drunk (not me) at about 2 am.

Also I feel my chinese has imrpoved a lot. I don’t have any trouble communicating with anyone and most things I wanna express get understood pretty ok. I even talked to some people about politics and other “deeper” topics.

Till now, I haven’t met up with too many people, as lots of them are working or attending classes, but that will hopefully change soon. Also I’m planing to visit my 师伯 (gongfu uncle) 于斌 (Yu Bin) in 青岛 (Qingdao) next weekend. Really looking forward to that one. This weekend I’m most probably meeting up with Rene (my kungfu brother over here) and also with some of the other gongfu teachers I know (and maybe don’t know).

Pictures of the first night

Pictures of the second night

Pictures of Zhang Sheng Yi’s Birthday