I’m not gonna use names in this because I don’t want to put anybody on blast, Last week I got a text from “friend 1” saying he wanted to introduce me to this amazing kung fu master. At first I was reticent since it was going to be Friday, and I like to relax on Friday night (the opposite of most people?) But I thought hey, China, kung fu, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity right? Friday afternoon I pulled a muscle lifting weights and almost decided to call the visit off, but I thought hey let’s do it – China, kung fu, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity right? We can only wonder what my life would be like had I stayed home that night…

So I take the subway and met friend 1, who drives me to meet the master along with our other friend who joined us. Let’s call him “amigo 2” for clarity. We go to the upper floor of an office building and are welcomed into some sort of Buddhist clubhouse. The walls are red, incense is burning, and Buddhist statues and shrines are positioned throughout. The master is a 30ish, overweight man with a convivial nature who welcomes us to sit, gives us tea and orange slices. Two of his buddies sit with us and don’t say much, plus an overweight, ponytailed, mutton chopped dude is using a computer.

The master starts waxing eloquent on his style of kung fu. He tells us that southern styles were for self-defense, but not many practice true northern styles (like he does). The northern styles were for war. He went into detail about the importance of war to kung fu, how in ancient times you had to kill the horse first, then kill the man, and most people don’t understand what real kung fu is. Now this is all in Chinese, and I’m proud of myself that I understand quite a few of the talking points, but of course he loses me and amigo 2 quite a few times. Luckily, friend 1is very fluent in Chinese and helps to explain.

But sometimes the English explanations don’t even make sense .The master tells us that there are three levels of kung fu: wai gong (external), nei gong (internal) and mi gong. What is mi gong? Amigo 2 and I don’t understand the master’s explanation, and all friend 1 can tell us in English is that it has to do with Tibetan Buddhism, and apparently it changes the physical environment around you when you practice it.

“Here, here, look I’ll show you” the master says (in Chinese) and grabs something that looks like a Christmas tree light. He unscrews the glass top and inside is an assortment of small seeds and flower buds. “See, this isn’t it, this isn’t it, this isn’t it” he says, poking at various bits. “This is it. But this isn’t it, and this isn’t it.”

What?

So we keep talking for quite a while, and finally friend 1 really wants the master to demonstrate some of his kung fu for us. “Which techniques do you want to see? Attacking, defending, stances?” The master asks me. I tell him I don’t know what he should show me. So he makes me and amigo 2 get up and start punching each other. We really don’t understand what we’re supposed to do. Apparently amigo 2 is supposed to punch me, and I counter it in different ways. I move around doing a few different blocking techniques.

“No. That’s all fake!” The master tells me. This seems to be a common attitude among traditional kung fu masters – what you do is fake or useless, but what they do is the best. So the master proceeds to demonstrate. Upon us. It’s a painful demonstration.

He starts off by straight slapping amigo 2 in the face. Just slaps him right in the face. I don’t really know why. Then he makes amigo 2 punch him. And the master unleashes a fury of various strikes to all of amigo 2’s anatomy. This sequence repeats about 20 times.

The master makes me hit a pad that amigo 2 is holding. He scoffs at my lack of power, then makes me hold the pad and hits it. He kind of misses a bit, hitting part of my arm. “See, you can feel that along your whole arm right, not just in the pad!” Well, yes, I agree, I definitely felt that in my arm.

I’m not trying to discredit this guy because he is definitely lethal. He demonstrates his vast arsenal of attacks – including vicious arm breaks, neck breaks, plunging his finger into the area above my collar bone, kicks to the shin, groin kicks (he made contact with my groin), and a particularly lovely “credit card” style kick where he demonstrated literally how to wedge your foot in someone’s butt. Thankfully he showed that one on amigo 2.

Actually he demonstrated most all of this on amigo 2. It starts just being luck of the draw (amigo 2 is closest to the master) and then it progresses to the point where I definitely do not want to be a part of these painful demonstrations. So I sit down and politely yet effusively resist the master’s continuous requests to demonstrate on me. Instead I sit and watch amigo 2 get slapped, tripped and pushed around for over an hour.

The master would say things like “no, kicking like you do is wrong. See, I kick like this, and it will break the whole leg!” And I’m thinking… DUDE! This is 2012! You can’t go around breaking people’s legs and using the “art of war” to KILL people! You’ll get sued and arrested!

Of course I didn’t say any of that. I just sat in my chair, politely refusing to be demonstrated on and repeating in my head “I don’t care if he thinks I’m the biggest p***y in the world, it doesn’t matter, its fine.”

I’m getting really tired of this. I mean amigo 2 is really getting his butt kicked; I am in constant danger of getting my butt kicked, and for what? At this point it’s almost 11pm (we started at 8), and I say I really have to get back to my dorm. “Ok sure sure, let me just show you one of my videos” says the master. He’s an aspiring director, and he wants us all to be in one of his new videos. Friend 1 chimes in saying “well I have to take them home,” but the master refutes with “ok sure we’ll just watch some videos then you can go.” He instructs the fat ponytail guy to find one of his videos on the computer to show us. Ponytail guy plugs in an external hard drive and starts playing a video. It looks like a home movie, there is a bird flying in the sky, and some kind of village. An old woman unwraps a large bundle of cloth on the ground, and there is a gray figure in the middle. They zoom up on it, and it is an old man. He looks dead, and his body is covered in some kind of gray clay.

AND THE WOMAN STARTS CHOPPING UP HIS DEAD BODY!!!!!!

Let me repeat this….

WE ARE WATCHING A VIDEO OF A WOMAN CHOPPING UP A DEAD BODY!!!!!!

And friend 1 says “ah, jeez, that’s fake right?” The master answers “no, no, it’s not fake, hmm I was gonna show you guys another video.”

I can’t look. I only saw one chop. But let me tell you, this guy does not have access to special effects like that. It was real. He showed us a freakin video of someone chopping up a dead body.

So we REALLY have to leave now. Amigo 2 and I are understandably spooked, but keeping it under control, telling the master he doesn’t have to walk us out its fine, but he insists on seeing us to the door. It was a rather awkward elevator ride. When we finally get out and start walking to friend 1’s car, amigo 2 says “DUDE whatthef***kwasthat!” Friend 1 responds, in a totally normal, thoughtful tone of voice, “yess… I was trying to figure that out too, I’m not quite sure, I believe it was some kind of ritual.” Amigo 2 and I are both freaked out. “Is that their burial or something?” he asks. Neither of us really knows.

And that’s basically the end of the story. We went home. Friend 1 generously drove me home in his car. Unfortunately amigo 2 lived out of the way, so he volunteered to take a cab. Maybe he actually just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. All I know is that I am not going to be that master’s student, and I am DEFINITELY not going to be in one of his videos!

What I saw was pretty horrible. The night started off with a kung fu sermon about war arts, then moved to a painful and extensive demonstration of said arts on us, and then ended with watching a dead man being chopped with an axe.

I was definitely disturbed that night thinking of the video. And also pissed at the master’s instruction methods. But the next day, thankfully, the memory of the video had somewhat faded. And when I started telling the story to a few people… well it seemed pretty surreal. I survived, with minimal physical damage, and thankfully, minimal damage to my psyche as well. I am left with a unique life experience, and a crazy story, which I can now truly preface with “you can’t make this stuff up.”

This morning I headed off to meet my friend Michael at a multilingual kindergarten where he teaches. He practices Shaolin kung fu, and we both filmed on “Tai Chi,” so he wanted to shoot some short Wushu demonstrations together. Problems quickly arose. 1). I got off the subway and couldn’t find the correct bus station. 2). I couldn’t catch a taxi. 3). I found the bus station, but didn’t know where to go after I got off at his stop. 4). My phone ran out of battery so I couldn’t ask him. 5). I asked some guards how to get to his school, and they gave me wrong directions. 6). When I found someone to give me the right directions, crossed the highway, and finally made it to his school, he had gone home.

Yes, those are some odds to overcome! Thankfully there were a few teachers still there, I used a land line to call his phone and he returned. We experimented with a few Wushu movements (I was feeling a bit off due to a big workout day yesterday), made some progress, and then he invited me to his home. His wife (who is Chinese) asked me if I had eaten, and when I said no, promptly whipped up some eggs, rice, and a meat dish. What was the meat dish?

“羊蝎子” she said (yang xiezi). Yang means lamb, but what about the other word? “Well xiezi means scorpion.” WHAT!!? “So it’s the part of a lamb’s back, that looks like a scorpion!” Ooooohhh.. the spine. It was now easy to discern the copious bones as vertebrae. It seems like Chinese people treat various animal body parts with little edible material as delicacies (see: chicken feet).

So it turned out to be a nice, albeit tiring trip. At night I went to work out at the gym, and the old coach who looks after it was there. I think he kind of views me as the son he never had. He loves my work ethic in the weight room and just looks at me proudly when I lift weights that seem very heavy to him. Today he gave me a bunch of fruit for Chinese new year. Then he said that from now on I don’t have to pay for membership, and I can be a “coach” in the weight room, spotting people, giving them workout tips and making sure they have membership cards if I don’t recognize them. Sweet deal!

Just an average day living here, but when you’re halfway across the world, nothing ever quite seems “average.”

The first is to make a list of things you want to do the following day. Tracy advises to always “think on paper” which I am adopting; how many times have you had some brilliant idea but forgotten it later? Or lost focus on what your plans or goals for a day were? If I personally had written down all my forgotten great ideas everyone would probably have flying cars by now. Sorry, I’ve just started thinking on paper so you’ll have to wait another 10 years before I come up with that one again. Anyways, write out the tasks you want to complete for the day in an A, B, C hierarchy. For instance, I have A tasks to complete today of various workouts, B tasks of writing emails and studying, and a C task of watching a movie. Don’t do B tasks before A tasks are completed, and no C tasks before B tasks. So if I don’t study some today I can’t watch a movie! Simple way to make sure you get things done.

Another idea is to start earlier and/ or stay later than other people. For instance, arrive at work or practice 1 hour earlier than everyone else, and stay later. This is the kind of thing that can really make a difference if you do it every day. I am committing to arrive 1 hour early to Wushu class every day when the next semester starts.

One of the most important things I am advocating is to make sure to have enough rest, and keep healthy habits. This is important for me because I am often lacking energy. I think making sure to get good sleep every day is huge. Foremost is sleeping early enough – not sleeping in late – to get a full 8-9 hours. Also an afternoon nap can help (especially if you’re exercising multiple times a day). Right now I have a lot of time for this, but a good example might be to take a power nap on a lunch break during the day. Needless to say eating well (complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, fruits/ veggies and healthy fats) is also compulsory for maintaining energy.

Today I had a morning practice/ cardio session on my list as the “A1” task and I was feeling tired, really wanting to put it off. But I realized that if I disregarded this list on my first day of adopting it, it would be easier to disregard it again in the future. I managed to get out and do a little practice and jump rope and ended up feeling good.

Making changes to your lifestyle like this is not easy, but if you really want to get ahead and not live a life of mediocrity it is essential. For me, I want to succeed and stand out in a world where a lot of people are doing the same thing as me. So that’s going to take a lot of extra work on my part. It is the same for almost anybody. The title quote is from the self-discipline audiobook, but I came across another great quote from John Wooden:
“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”

*[Stephen Hawking has traveled in time, being reduced to his wheelchair due to the extreme strain. He is the only man to travel in time (except for Arnold Schwarzenegger, who traveled to the future thus becoming the Terminator)]

- I feel that Kilograms are too heavy. One kg is 2.2 lbs. And the smallest kg plate in the gym is 2.5, so I have to add at least 10 pounds every time I want to go up in weight when lifting.

- On the subject of kilograms, I weigh about 81 (178 lbs). One of my tae kwon do friends asked me “hey how much do you weigh?” I told him “about 81” and he paused strangely and said “oh… you must mean 81 pounds, right?” he couldn’t fathom that I actually weighed that much in kilograms.

- I’ve had plenty of guys asking me for exercise advice at the gym. In the US I don’t feel that strong, but at the gym I frequent here they think I’m Hercules. So they ask me for lots of advice. And I tell them “ok do this exercise for 4 to 5 sets.” The most I ever saw a dude crank out was 2 sets when I told him that.

- So… what should I do when I kind of feel like I’m being sexually harassed…. By a dude? This one guy at the gym makes me really uncomfortable. Like he keeps trying to touch my muscles and today he just sat and watched me do military press for a while with this creepy smile on. I don’t know what to do to get him to stop…. well I kind of yelled at him and told him to do 4 sets of pec flyes when he kept asking me how to work his chest. So he, in turn, walked over and started watching TV.

- I heard a song called “Swap Meet Louie” by Sir Mix-a-Lot at the gym today. It’s a 90s song about fake Louis Vuitton. I never thought I’d hear that song in a Chinese gym. Then again, I never heard that song until I was in a Chinese gym.

I’d seen the restaurant at the Beijing Airport before, and I had a strange fascination with it. It’s just so random, right in the middle of the airport! Kenny Rogers freakin Roasters! I was determined to try it some day. Well, arriving several hours early for my flight, I had the perfect opportunity.

I actually don’t even know any of Kenny Rogers songs. I remember going to a Kenny Rogers Roasters when I was a little kid, and I was pretty sure these restaurants don’t even exist in North America anymore. In fact I wikipedia’d it and there is only 1 Kenny Rogers Roasters left in the US.

So what is it doing in the Beijing Airport? Apparently it’s pretty popular in Asia (once again according to wikipedia).

I ordered the “breakfast sandwich”… a hamburger bun with a fried egg, a piece of lettuce and a tomato slice. Oh, and I got a free cup of lemon tea. Thanks Kenny. I needed the tea man.

So actually the meal was a complete ripoff. But for some reason, I actually kind of want to go back. I mean I need to experience the real taste of Kenny Rogers chicken right? Any pun there is NOT intended.

After my paltry KFC-based Thanksgiving, I decided I needed to be somewhere with friends and family for Christmas. My favorite time of year, I needed to be in a place where I could really feel the vibe of the holiday and relax for a bit. Luckily, I knew that Hong Kong was just such a place for me, where friends abounded, the air was less smoggy, and there was a statue of Bruce Lee. Prime Christmas destination!

Although the plane ticket was a bit pricey, I was able to survive thanks to the extremely generous hospitality of my friend Jon and his family. I consider Jon the #1 Hong Kong patriot, for in our days at USC together he would preach the values of Hong Kong’s martial arts, often take me to eat Hong Kong food, and speak Cantonese with me. I don’t speak Cantonese, but that was of little consequence to him. All this convinced me that I needed to go and that there was so one better to show me around than Jon. After a brief layover in Taiwan’s beautiful airport, I arrived in HK and met Jon’s family, who I would be staying with for the next few days.

Even though I arrived there Thursday evening and left Monday afternoon, I did a huge amount. The first night I joined Jon, his girlfriend Julie and his family for winter solstice dinner, which they described as “the Chinese Thanksgiving.” The food was incredibly high quality, mostly seafood, with enormous amounts of the best oysters I have ever tasted. I’m usually not a huge oyster guy, but this was a once in a lifetime oyster-thon that I had to take advantage of. These things were delicious! I kept telling Jon’s parents that they would wake up the next morning to find a giant oyster on their couch instead of me! Later that night I was also able to see my friend Vivien (who had recently visited Beijing) and take in some of the amazing nightlife Hong Kong has to offer. I felt like I was walking on a movie set, the steep streets and bright lights were that mesmerizing! I myself don’t really enjoy going to bars, but I was content purely to walk around and admire the setting.

The next day, I went with Jon, Julie and some other USC students to Oc

Red Pandas!!

ean Park, an awesome combination of a zoo and theme park. We rode a few average rides, but the best part was seeing all the animals! Did you know there is such thing as a Red Panda? Those little guys are awesome! The best animal attraction was a breathtaking aquarium; it combined a huge variety of sea life with a flair for entertaining presentation that was like none I had ever seen. There was also an acrobatic performance, a Christmas choir with a tree lighting “celemony” (as the MC enunciated) and a festive lightshow on the walkways of Ocean Park. After we were done, we proceeded to possibly the best combination of two activities I could fathom: a karaoke buffet! Load up on all the food you want, then take it to your private room and sing songs! My friend Andrea also came to join us for the evening.

The next day was filled with more trips to the world’s largest cast iron Buddha statue, a temple, and a fishing village where we partook in the eating of many delicious street foods! Just thinking about it makes me miss it! We were joined again by Vivien and also by my

Dim Sum lunch with Chen Laoshi, Jon, his sister and girflriend!

friend Karen, and wandered a ginormous shopping mall to end the excursion. After a hearty sukiyaki dinner at Jon’s home, we were supposed to go check out “sneaker street” which sells tons of Nike shoes… well that was the plan until I passed out around 8pm. The combination of food, walking, and staying up late the night before really did me in!

The next day was Christmas! We had a family lunch at an Italian inspired restaurant with high quality, all you can eat antipasti. The main course was a delicious burger, and there was also a dessert. I definitely made the restaurant lose some money that day with the amount of food I consumed. Afterwards we made it to sneaker street and I bought a pair of Nike Dunks that caught my eye, along with a matching jacket and a Bruce Lee t-shirt from a nearby bootleg emporium.

The evening held a Christmas party with extended family. There was a lot of food, and generous libations flowing (partaken in by everybody but me haha). And guess what followed after the dinner? Karaoke! I wowed the crowd by singing a Mandarin song, but then the old guard took over and Jon’s uncles produced a rather unique, and…stirring rendition of “I Did it My Way” by Frank Sinatra. Definitely a memorable night lol!

Me in the 80s!

The next day was my last in Hong Kong, so determined to maximize it I met very early with Andrea, where we enjoyed a pancake breakfast (my request!) Andrea had an awesome Polaroid camera with her and she snapped a photo of me with my breakfast that –

combining the elements of the photo quality and my fluorescent pink 100% polyester jacket – looks straight out of the 80s! Afterwards she took me to the last major spot I wanted to visit, the statue of Bruce Lee! Located on the waterfront of Kowloon, the area is known as “Avenue of the Stars” and they have stars just like the Hollywood walk of fame except of famous Hong Kong personalities – naturally including Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and yes, Bruce. The statue was pretty awesome, a famous landmark and a tribute to a man who truly changed the world.

Lunch was the long awaited Hong Kong specialty, dim sum! I ate with Jon’s family and we were also joined by one of my favorite teachers, Chen Laoshi! (Laoshi means teacher in Chinese ) After teaching

What I actually looked like in the 80s

me in 3 different classes at USC, her life’s work was clearly accomplished and she is now living in Hong Kong. It was great to be able to

see her again! As for the food, as expected, it was top notch, the largest improvement I noticed over American dim sum being the freshness of the ingredients.

After the lunch, it was about time to head to the airport. We spent a little time relaxing at Jon’s home, then his mom drove us all there and I bid goodbye. I want to thank the Li family again for being such wonderful hosts, they definitely made my trip! Hong Kong is a very exciting and beautiful place, and I hope to visit again someday!

Here are some precious moments from my most recent experience!

Let me start off with the most important word: COLD. We estimated that the temperature was -10° C(14° F). When we were outside filming, my feet felt like two blocks of ice. I literally had no feeling in them and it was difficult to walk. As soon as we finished a scene, we would all rush to one of two places: the makeup room, where we huddled in a tent around a tiny space heater, or the bathroom, that had radiators. It was a toss-up:  shiver around an overmatched heater, or walk around in a bathroom that smelled like crap.

Whilst spending ample time huddled around said heater, we started telling a lot of jokes. Being an international gathering, the jokes often had such diverse topics as Sino-French relations and Ukrainian spies. I’m happy to have added a few new jokes to my repertoire!

I also witnessed an enlightening conversation about the mind-altering effects of Tai Chi and standing meditation. The mental sharpening and internal power described in particular by Paul and David was fascinating, and definitely made me want to get involved more with this aspect of the martial arts.

But then we would be called out to film another scene. And after standing in the biting cold for extended periods of time is when the process of mental decomposition began.

To protect our hands, in between shots we would put them in this small front pocket in our knee-length pants. I think it started with me rapping about putting hands in your pants, whilst dancing doing the reject. I noticed every time they yelled “cut,” Paul, like a ninja, immediately had his hands in his pants in the blink of an eye. He started singing little ditties about “hands in your pants” and this got to be pretty entertaining.

But when I got really pissed was when this one costume guy started trying to button my front pocket flap closed! How was I supposed to put my hands in my pants now!? So I resorted to what anybody else in the situation would do: juking him. I physically evaded him with a series of stutter steps and head fakes, and this worked pretty well, to the delight of my friends. Until the camera started rolling that is, and I was frozen in place (pun intended!)

I wasn’t the only person getting a little teed off… the “colorful idioms” were really flying on that set, most prominent among them f-bombs. One particularly delightful time was after waiting for the camera to get set up, we filmed a take of us marching, escorting one of the lead actresses… and she tripped up some steps. All 8 of us collectively groaned as the take was ruined!

 Of course among the many benefits were lavish meals of Chinese cup o noodles (方便面) and later fried noodles. The food man told me I could only have one serving of fried noodles… so I asked an assistant on the set to get me another. Then I took another from a bag in the make-up room. Then I took another from said bag as we left around 4:30am. As I ate it on the bus home, I think the cabbage was actually starting to freeze.

No doubt the expletives will fly again and the noodles will be plentiful when I return to film once more later this week! Rest assured, this time I will wear as many layers as humanly possible. Tune in next time to find out how many pairs of socks it is physically possibly to simultaneously wear on my feet!

Ballin w/ the instant noodles!

Getting inspiration from stories of Walter Payton gutting it out every day in the offseason, or Stallone going through grueling regimens to prepare for his films made me think I could do the same thing, but it is NOT easy because your body needs time to heal from muscle damage and general fatigue. As my interest in training and nutrition has grown, so has my desire to explore natural ways to help the body recover from exercise. So here I present a list of various methods that I’ve been using to preserve my body like a mummy after I work out!

 - Post-workout nutrition: After a tough workout (I’m not talking about 20 minutes on the elliptical), your body needs carbohydrates and protein. Directly after the workout, more carbs than protein (some say 2:1 ratio, some say 4:1). After a 2 hour Wushu class, I go home and drink a serving of chocolate milk (one of the best refueling drinks). After weight training, I drink juice w/ a quarter scoop of whey powder. Sometimes I drink papaya juice which has the enzyme Papain which may help w/ muscle soreness.

- Heat and cold: I recently started rubbing ice on my muscles after tough leg workouts to curb inflammation. I did it after yesterday’s squats and felt pretty fresh for Wushu class later in the afternoon! At night I use a heating pad on sore muscles to increase the blood flow and nutrients there.

- Supplements: Nothing crazy, but I take a multivitamin/mineral every day, calcium, fish oil, and a scoop of whey protein. I also take Emergen-C joint health formula a few times a week. Every morning I drink 12 ounces of cold green tea w/ ginger that I brew in large bottles – it is a source of antioxidants and also aids in relieving inflammation.

- General nutrition: For every lunch dinner, I try to make sure I have a meat, a vegetable and a starch. I eat sweet potatoes every day for the starch category, and also mantou (steamed bread). I keep fresh fruit, nuts and peanut butter in my room for snacks. Breakfast is “coarse grain cereal” (I think this means whole grain…) w/ skim milk and a hardboiled egg.

-  Rest: I try to get 9 hours of sleep a night. I also try to take a nap for an hour after Wushu class, but I usually can’t fall asleep so I just lay down.

These are pretty low-tech methods that anyone can use! Elite athletes use similar methods but with better quality. You may not need all these methods unless you are doing a lot of exercise, but if you are really trying to gain an edge in your training and maximize your training volume, habits like these can help your body feel rested and recovered for the next day. Feel free to ask any questions or post suggestions in the comments!

- Gave a nice stiff-arm to a cigarette smoking man who walked right into me through the blanket door at the supermarket today.

- If this doesn’t make sense to you, you must not know that stores in Beijing have plastic strips for doors in the summer, and when it gets cold in the winter they swap them with thick blankets. They say it keeps out bugs. You know what else keeps out bugs? ACTUAL DOORS.

- The barber here always leaves my bangs extra long and I have to remind him to cut them. Is he trying to make me look like the next Jay Chou or something?

- My Wushu teacher has twice now given us the most useless piece of advice ever. “Ok ok listen, you guys know Michael Jordan right? Now when he jumped, he stayed in the air for like 4 seconds. Yeah, jump like that!”

- This guy named James Chau on the English language news channel annoys the heck out of me because he HAS A LISP!!! He also has a British accent…

- I’ve been having a periodic, continuous dream where I am in a math class. Every time I am confused as to why I have to take a math class again. Last night’s dream was the test, and I was NOT prepared! Every time I wake up I have to remind myself I graduated college and am in China.

- Back to people running into me, if you are walking towards someone here, at least 50% of the time it ends in an awkward side-stepping confrontation as they don’t know where to go. I just started plowing through them if they don’t move to the left when I’m CLEARLY going right. I’m like the Herschel Walker of walking.

No life doesn’t really work like that. The only memorable interaction I had with the old man at the convenience store was when he asked if I was from Holland… and when I said I was American and didn’t look like a Hollander, he countered with “Well America has every kind of people right! Like Chinese people, and even people from Holland! So you could be!” Well you got me there store-man.

This title refers to my process here. I follow the “process oriented” mindset where a hard worker beats a lazy talent. This is kind of the American ideal… that everyone gets to where they are by hard work. But what’s easy to forget is that hard work = long work and success is not instantaneous.

So I’m training here, doing Wushu 5 days a week as well as 3-4 days of weight lifting, a Tae Kwon Do class, and the little things (riding the exercise bike, practicing new techniques at night, etc). The hardest part is trying not to exceed my body’s capacities and slip back into exhaustion for a few days. This has happened a lot here. Either the pollution, the food, the physical training, or really everything causes me to get really tired and not be able to work hard like I want to.

It’s a process of continual adjustment: changing workout schedules, changing sleep habits, changing meals and post-workout nutrition. There’s that word again, process. It’s all about the process. It’s a continual adjustment until you can get it as right as possible. And then randomly your situation changes, and you start the adjustments again.

The most important thing I realized is that I’m not going to see the changes until I’m done here. I’m not going to notice big improvements until it’s time to return home and I look in the mirror and see how my body has really changed, or I do a Wushu form and see how much easier and better it is than before. It’s going to take my entire stay to accomplish this.

So I have to look around me and not  try to lift 500 pounds by tomorrow. My goal is to change myself as a person – you get to the point that you don’t have to try to do anymore, you just do because it’s a part of you now. These are changes that will last, that will be permanent, that change your personal culture and DNA. And the only way to win this race is slow and steady.