When my father purposed me to go to china I thought it was just a big dream that would never come true. My sister was here in the same school 5 years ago and she always told me how great it was but I never thought that I would also be going. I am 15 years old so I just finished my middle school so my parents thought it would be a good moment to take a break and have a new experience. Like one month before leaving my sister talked with me about the school. She made sure I knew that the school is not a hotel so I didn’t expect any kind of luxury. Since childhood I have had a good adaptability to very different situations so it wasn’t very hard for me to adapt to the school.
I arrived here with my sister and my father so my sister explained some stuff I had to know about the school. Everybody is very nice and positive. You can choose between three different disciplines: sanda, tai chi and kung fu. All of them are very interesting to learn. The first week is very hard for everyone even if back home you practice some kind of sport. Your whole body pains and you feel like you are not going to make it through the day. All the Chinese kids are very nice and they always want to talk to you so they can improve their English and I like helping them with that. The second week your body starts to get better and you start to learn more different things. I think the first two weeks are the hardest of all because your body just wants to give up at some point.
Training is not easy but somehow I enjoy it very much. Our first training starts at 6:00am and normally it is the hardest part of the day. Breakfast is at 7:20 normally we have some bread, boiled egg and vegetables. We go back to training from 8:00 to 11:00am. After this training our body just wants to eat something so we always look forward for lunch. We eat lunch at 12:00 and we enjoy it a lot. We have a lot of variety in our food, sometimes you will like it and sometimes you wont but here we say that “everything is part of the training”. You also have to eat everything you get because you can not waste the food otherwise you will get in a lot of trouble. I personally think that it is very important to learn how to adapt to different places and different cultures. After lunch we have break and that is something also everyone looks forward to. At 3:00 you either go back to train or you go to Chinese class if you signed up for that. The teachers are very very sweet and they are always looking for some way to help you in anything you need. Training or Chinese classes end at 6:00pm and we have dinner at 6:30. After dinner we have some time to rest before going to free training. I love free training because it is the chance you have to improve your form or anything you found difficult during training. There will always be someone wanting to help you if you need something, it could be a shifu or just another student. Like I said everyone is very nice and friendly. Free training ends at 8:10 and we can go to get ready to sleep after that.
At this school you don’t just learn kung fu, you will also learn a lot about Chinese culture. Chinese teachers always like to tell us stories about the history of China. On Saturdays we have one hour of Buddha class and I think this is also very important to understand Chinese culture. Also part of shaolin culture are the show performances you will get to see and sometimes even be part of. We have an exam every month or sometimes twice a month. A lot of times you don’t just come here to learn kung fu but also to learn more about having a good attitude and pushing yourself over your limit to overcome your weaknesses. Also you will get to know a lot of different people with different stories and experiences to share and I think you can learn a lot about their different cultures. If you’re open and willing to come, I am sure you will have a good Yun Tai school experience and gain a valuable lesson for life.
Lupita
