Despite my last post being so negative, life here isn’t so hard.

Sure, I lie awake in my bunk at night, listening to the sounds of students training late in the courtyard, and dream of summer nights back in Kentucky. Nights outside McCarthys and other luxuries like flushing toilet paper seem a world away, and they are.

Still, there is a lot to be said about getting up with the sun (and 4000 other students) and running a couple of miles under the watch of the cloud covered SongShan mountains. I am literally minutes away from the cradle of where all martial arts evolved. It is hard to believe when I look up that Bodhidarma (or Ta-Mo) walked and trained in these mountains.

Our run is followed by lots and lots of stretching. Not the pansy touch-your-toes stuff that you get at home. These are the kinds of stretches that take 2 people and you can actually hear stiff ligaments and tendons creaking! We then march to the courtyard or to the training hall, which despite being new, smells of musky sweat and years of training. For the next several hours we work on everything from acrobatics to forms to weapons.

When all the sweatting, cursing, and falling down is finished, we gourge ourselves on mysterious foods like black eggs, chicken skins in oil, and other things I would probably pass on if given other options. My calorie starved body doesn’t care, and I usually go back for more! I have learned to eat strategically here. My torn muscles are screaming for precious protein to begin repairs, so I pick out the egg, and tofu if any. Meat is an extreme rarity. I eat the plentiful tomatoes and bean sprouts as much as possible for the vitamins, it seems that everyone here stays sick. Finally, there is always rice. As much as we can eat. It fills my stomach and burns quick for the afternoon workout.

When I first arrived, I was convinced that the bumps on my Sifu’s head above his ear were horns that were about to sprout out. Now, I have seen the softer side of him and know that he is at least partially human. As long as I continue to be taught Shaolin, I will stick it out with him and his group.

Around 20:00, we begin our personal lives – about 1.5 hours. I go fetch hot water in a large thermos from the dark, coal-filled boiler room beneath the school. Fetching hot water seems like a romantic notion (as my Spanish friend here put it) but less so when it is raining or your arms can barely lift the thermos. I coax my wobbling legs up the 5 flights of stairs back to my room where I mix it in the sink with cold water to make just enough for a warm shower. Otherwise, the water is a shock to your system and there is little chance of sleeping once you step under the shower head.

I do my laundry in a wash basin wish shampoo and hang it in the room to dry. They have a cheap laundry service here, but clothes take quite a while to dry when hung in the rain outside. Plus, they conveniently located the laundry next to the trash dump. If you do not time it right, the smoke from the burning rubbish drifts across your wet clothes and they smell worse than when you dropped them off!

After cleaning up and writing a little in my journal, I fall into a moldy smelling bed that is pretty much just a mat on a wooden platform. It is hard enough to break rocks, but after training all day, who cares? A quick check of my alarm clock confirms that it is ready to piss me off at 05:30am and then I daydream about backpacking the rest of China in a few weeks. Outside on loud speakers a bugle plays the Chinese version of the retreat, a sad melody telling us that the day is declared over. I have survived another day without injury – and feel fantastically alive!

All this may sound negative, but the bottom line is that none of us would be here if we did not want to be. There is no barbed wire, or armed guards on the roof. We may leave early anytime that we wish, but it is a one way decision. A decision that I think I would regret for years to come. So, barring any permanent injury, I am going to stick it out here.

More than in a long time, I feel alive!

I will leave you a picture of this hard-core monk running straight up TaiShi mountain. He passed me like I was standing still. (well ok, I was…. )