Well the 2nd week of training is already at an end! Since Monday, my Sifu has been teaching me a Dao sword form and the "sword flower" (a pretty way of swinging the sword around). I have also been tarting around with the goon staff. It has been BL**DY hot for the last couple of days which can only only be a good thing! On a slightly less positive note, I have lost all of my hair. The story goes something a little like this; I bought some clippers in Si ...

After only 3 days of training here, I seriously cannot believe how much I have learnt! (Mostly about the true meaning of pain!...) On Monday morning we did a 2km warm up run before some fairly dynamic stretches. All at 5:30 in the morning! After a fairly hearty breakfast (the fairly crappy food here hasn\'t got to me yet!) we then commenced our first training session in our groups. I am in the traditional shaolin forms group, the others being wu shu (acrob...

I have just arrived in the Academy, but efore I say anything about that, I may as well fill you in about what I have been getting up to since I left the UK on Wednesday. The last 3 days have been spent living it up in Beijing. We arrived on Thursday morning and made our way over to our hotel (watching our 1st taxi driver being arrested and our 2nd one ripping us off in the process). We proceeded to unpack a little, had a quick nap because I got bugg@r all sleep...

Well then, for those of you who don't really want to read too heavily about what I'm getting up to, but feel obliged to at least visit the site; I have summarised below my travel plans for the next 5 months. On Wednesday 5th April, Matthew Robinson (shifty looking fellow that I have intoduced to a few of you-> has silly highlights in his quiff and gets on very well with sheep...) and myself catch a flight to Beijing. We stay here for a few days, where we ...