The School of Hard Knocks: The Road to Success

Corporal Punishment vs...failure!

2008-04-24T23:38:00.001-07:00

It has come to my attention recently, that there is a very important difference between the East and the West when it comes to teaching methods. This, I think, is key to explaining the reason for the constant output of high quality athletes from China, as opposed to the many so-so, always-the-bridesmaid-and-never-the-bride ones from the West.

Chinese athletes are ruthlessly beaten into a whimpering submission before being spit on and insulted for the rest of the training session if they do one thing wrong.

...what?...don't you think that?! OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a tiny bit, but in reality, students are taught a harsh lesson which they won't forget in a hurry. Why? Two reasons: because it's allowed, and because it works. Wonders. I know.

I may be a glutton for punishment, but I know when something works. Sometimes fear produces the most effective results. When you are too tired to think straight, your pain receptors can remember the consequences of a wrong action. You are forced to remember the tiny details which make Wushu beautiful. Fear has helped me on more than one occasion.

There is no room for laziness if you are kept on your toes all the time, also, for stubbornly slow paced Westerners like myself, a little 'motivation' goes a long way in making sure you move fast enough. I've said it before. I'm never mad at Chang, never question his methods, as I know he is doing what is best for me and my Wushu. I can see and feel it myself.

Earlier last year, there were fears and reports coming from China on the news, from Matthew Pincent, coming from China and it's young Gymnasts in the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing. There was outrage when a secret camera filmed the harsh conditions of these athletes training regimes. Beatings, punishments, tears, shouting, all apparently flouting the human rights laws of today. In China it is deemed OK to do these things, in the West it seems barbaric. Of course China denied these claims, they want to be loved by the world, not hated.

From suffering breeds discipline, and from discipline breeds success. Being hit is to suffer. When you are hit and you suffer, you become disciplined, because the only other alternative is to be hit again and again and again. I'm sure the coaches have many bitter understudies who will be more than glad to continue the beatings well into the night.
From this unparalleled discipline, you will see success. You will see textbook technique and precision. Unnatural feats of strength, power and speed.

This is how the Chinese do it. They treat everyone the same, whether they are weak and lazy or strong and hard-working. Everyone gets the same treatment, it is how they react that is the key. In the West they only employ harsher training methods if they know you can withstand it or if they know you will thrive as a result.
I'm not saying EVERY single Chinese sports person, at whatever level, is beaten into within an inch of their life, but at a certain level it is by no means frowned upon.

Why do Chinese coaches continue to beat their athletes? Because they always used to. It gives results. Why fix something that isn't broken. That's my opinion on the matter.

Yes it hurts...but it works.

Another reason why I can't walk straight...

2008-04-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

If you ask any Martial Artist what their biggest weakness is, after a bit of brain wracking, the humble will admit that flexibility is the one thing that will stop them from becoming a God among men.

Why? All it takes is a little determination and the key word, consistency. Up until now, starting when I was about 14, I stretched everyday for 2 hours. Rain or shine, health or ailment, late or early, I was obsessed with having to stretch the same way for the same amount of time, every single day, no matter how busy I was.

Now I am reasonably flexible. It is for the same reason also that all the Chinese Wushu guys here are supremely flexible, the only difference being that because they started from a young age, they seem to be innately flexible even from cold (not having warmed up).

Now I am in China and the teachers see that I am not a complete oaf when it comes to stretching, they like to employ horrendously intense bouts of stretching upon my already battered muscles.

One lovely lesson, Chang decided it would be fun if we just stretch for 2 hours, not your run-of-the-mill stretching either. This had a Chinese (meaning painful) twist.
After all the routine stretching on the bar, and the splits and things, he introduced, what would look like to an outsider, as a form of interrogation technique. It felt like that to me too...only with more silence. He didn't appreciate my confession of all the bad things I have done in my life. I think he was a little confused actually. It didn't stop the stretching.
I placed my feet, legs together, on a raised surface, so they were maybe 20 degrees upwards, then my training partner had to sit ON MY KNEES!
ON them.
You'd better believe it hurt like hell. You'd better believe I was questioning this technique every breathless second of the 10 minutes I was in that position. Wasn't that the kind of pressure you employ when you want to hurt someone so much that you intend to break their legs?
Chang's reasoning was that when doing stances, certain stances in particular, the knee should be completely straight. Any sign of a bend would look ugly and not precise. I agreed with him but cursed myself for not coming to China for a practical Martial Art which is supposed to look ugly.
The kind of pain during the 'stretch' was bad enough, but the kind afterwards, when he forced your sore knees to bend, then ordered you stand up straight (I think for his own enjoyment), was unparalleled. I was unable to stand and actually collapsed under my weight.

Other stretches included more suspension of the feet and body in order to intensify normal stretches, all stretches having either one person or two bearing down on you depending on how stiff or flexible you were in that stretch.

2 hours went by with incredible lethargy. It was as if time was Jewish, had a 500-pound girlfriend round it's waist, literally dragging her along the floor only to go and meet her openly Nazi parents to seek their approval in their marriage. It was THAT slow.

It was however necessary. I am as a result, grateful for Chang putting me through hell, as I am after every grueling training session, as I know what he does to us is completely beneficial for our Wushu. Yes it hurts, yes I complain, yes I sweat, yes I screw up, yes I am immobile for a number of weeks afterwards, until I enter his class once more and am frightened into motion.

Stretching is an integral part of the Martial Arts. Why? If you were to ask any person from the street what the first thing they think of is when you say the words 'Martial Artist' to them, and they will probably paint you a picture of a wiry, muscular, probably Asian man, leaping through the air displaying some kind of flashy kick.
You need flexibility when practicing Martial Arts. I'm not saying you have to be able to kick way past your own head. They are some Martial Arts where you do not kick at all. Upper body flexibility is a must too. With a flexible body, muscles can relax, and with a relaxed muscles, you can also contract very quickly, which results in Power. Even if your Martial Art has below the waist kicks only, if you can kick your own head height, your low kicks will be more powerful, controlled, accurate and fast. Unfortunately for me, Wushu requires it's practitioners not only to kick high, but fast, controlled and beautifully as well.

My advice, stretch in front of a TV, or whilst reading a book. Take your mind of the stretch, relax, you will be able to stretch further that way. This technique is good for the long term.
If you are in class and the goal is to loosen up, after your body is warm, you should really focus your mind on the muscle in question, and contract the opposite muscle. This should help the relaxing muscle to relax. Believe me it works.

Right now, I have trouble walking, but this feeling is a familiar one to me and I relish it. It means my muscles have been broken and are repairing themselves only to come back stronger, or more flexible next time. The only problem is that next time they face the exact same fate. I call it 'the circle of strife'...

The 'circle of strife' is what wakes me up in the mornings and makes me smile as I face yet another day of pain. I've learnt to relish it now. It's not like I've got any other choice...

Gravity, and why my knees quiver when I hear it's mighty name...

2008-04-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

The popular saying, "What goes up, must come down", was essentially pioneered by one particular Issac Newton, sitting under a tree one day, no doubt recovering from a particularly hard Wushu session. Why he didn't recognise the effects of gravity earlier, especially being a renowned Wushu practitioner, I don't know.

Gravity is very obviously prevalent when a Wushu practitioner jumps, whether that be in the seeming lack of it, when performed by an accomplished performer, or the smack-in-the-face obviousness of it when performed by an idiot (for example, yours truly).

No more was I aware of it than a few days ago, when my beloved yet thoughtfully merciless Wushu coach, Chang, decided that the focus of this months training was, amongst other things, jumping.
My classmate and I haven't practiced jumping for some time now, so I, at least, was incredibly excited.

Now, the difference between the Western, and the Eastern approach when it comes to jumping, is...well...slight. It's all a simple matter of quality versus quantity.

Until my time in China, any kind of jump training in any kind of class environment consisted of repetition of a particular jump or jumps until I managed to get the jump(s) in question, or collapse in a muscle quivering heap on the floor.
Any kind of coaching was covered with the mantra "HIGHER! JUMP HIGHER!"

My previous assumptions that the West was the more modern, more thought through, more scientific hemisphere has been challenged. Jump training in China, is smart. Smump training, if you will.
Smump training happens to be my arch nemisis.

Wushu is a particularly draining sport, and any kind of energy is savoured, but at the same time devoured as it slips silkily through your fingers before the coach has even looked your way. Smump training, it seems to me, sets out to quell any hint of energy, by stopping just as a great surge comes my way.
I love jumping. The feeling of floating, of using a great amount of effort and throwing your body up in the air is addictive, especially when you reach such a level so as you do not need to use much energy at all, so you are left with a feeling of weightlessness and elegance unparalleled by any pathetic mortal.
So just as I am akin to a rabid Hyena on heat, running about, falling over on purpose, making loud noises etc, Chang decides that we take a 1 minute break. "WHAT!" I incredulously cry every-single-time he suggests such an absurd statement. He never gives us even a smell of a rest when we are doing ANY OTHER kind of training. I have known torture since I have met Chang, but this is ridiculous!

He drives a steak through my heart for good reason though. This is where jump training becomes Smump training. During the rest, we are not sitting, but standing or walking, so as to keep warm. The rest is also only for a short time. No lactic acid for me 'bucko', not this time...
Another factor worth mentioning is the pace of the jump. I'm not talking about quickness, which rest assured is breakneck at the slowest, but of speed of progression. In the West for example, you may be shown a jump, then told, "Right, now you do it".
China, on the other hand, shows you a jump, then shows you the jump broken down into tiny, minuscule little chunks. You may think this is mind-numbing and boring, but that is where you are mistaken. Every little phase of a jump requires extreme concentration and power throughout the body, especially the waist, and is easier said than done.

By the end of the jump, by that I mean, by the time you are doing the jump in it's entirety, your head is positively swimming with little tid-bits of information which swarm around and violently assault the voice in my head saying "All you have to do is just jump higher!", so that I don't hear it at all.

As a result, my progress had been amazing. To top off an already mentally draining session, if it wasn't enough already, we end with some gruelling power training for the legs which manages, somehow, to demotivate you even more than you were after the jumps.
Let it NEVER be said that Wushu DOES NOT build Character.

Normally in the West, I would have covered all the jumps in a small amount of time, then moved onto something else.
In a single 2-hour class, we covered 1 and a half jumps. I felt that was a little too much too. So much to think about. I know this will not last as, once I get the jumps, it will be a matter of muscle memory.

Jumping is a popular pastime of many sports people, there are not many sports where a good, hearty jump, would not come in handy, especially in aesthetic sports where jumps must be technically correct as well as beautiful AND high.
My advice to anyone wanting great jumps, especially for Wushu...pace yourself, I know it's hard when you get excited, adrenaline rushes and the feeling of wanting to fly takes over, I know, I experience it all the time, but trust me...you'll see.

Subscribe...if you dare...to care...

2008-04-21T03:01:00.000-07:00

Hello anybody and everybody who is interested in who Beren is and what the HELL he is doing whilst he is in China.

If you know me, you'll probably be asking yourself "Why the %µ^$ hasn't Beren set up one of these things from the start?"

My all encompassing answer comes in the form of one word...competition.

My life up to now has been full of adventure, excitement, sadness, joy, laughter, curiosity, loneliness, love, food, busy-ness, pain, energy, hardcore sex and sweat, but it has not seen such a goal as it does now.

The aim of this blog is to notify you all into the hectic life of one preparing for a Wushu competition in the land of it's birth.

Be prepared for a LOT of complaining, discovery, tiredness, hungriness, heartache and joy.

Join me, if you will, as I hop athletically aboard the train heralded by a slight, wiry, strict fiery-eyed Chinese guy, and watch as I try to complete the impossible, standing in front of a large group of Chinese people trying to do what they do best...don't laugh.