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One of the skills that I’ve been training here is Straps (also known as Pitiao). Wang Laushi has been teaching me for a few lessons before I was officially enrolled in the school. He has a habit of shouting alot, not in an angry or aggressive tone, but just loud. Unsurprisingly this has earned him the nickname of “Shouty”. His favorite line it seems is “ing wen jiang, very good!”.
Yesterday marked the end of my first week of official training and my second week at the Beijing Circus School.
My progress seems to have stagnated this week. No big improvement in Feicha, nor straps, nor tumbling.
In fact I managed to strain my back from straps on Thursday. And yesterday I rolled my right ankle in tumbling class. It’s so frustrating that it happened while I was walking on the tumble strip (which is just a bunch of scatter mats covered with a long carpet).
I went though the “jian mian” (see/view face) session this morning. The school wanted to see where I was at physically and what skills I already had. It was pretty simple, a few flexibility tests and a quick demo of other skills that I had. It all went well except for my subject choices.
First, the school refuses to let me do Aerial Silks or Lyra. They initially didn’t even want me doing straps.
The school has finally gotten my medical results and I am to be interviewed/tested tomorrow morning. Looks like formal classes will start soon. But I’m still not going to hold my breath for Aerial Silks classes to be open or available.
Today has been a good day for Feicha. I began consistently nailing a Feicha throw into a something like a Steve (both while turning around and standing still) from a vertical Feicha propeller today.
Today was gloomy, both the skies and my mood. Ended up going over to Coolgers for some tea and Internet access.
Still feeling tired, frustrated and overwhelmed, I decided that my contact staff skills have stagnated for far too long. So, I went to the Home Of Poi forums and MCP’s site to see what new in the staffing world these days.
I downloaded a whole bunch of tutorial videos from MCP’s site to watch when I got back to school.
I’m still not an official student here yet. I might actually be enrolled proper in the coming Monday or Tuesday. But so far I’ve been able to observe (and at times participate at varying levels) a few classes. A number of the teachers here are pretty cool with me trying to sneak into classes to learn despite being jerked around by the school administration.
Also, I might end up doing Lyra instead of Aerial Silks here.
Today, at my second unoffical straps class, I held my first side planche! I wasn’t really expecting it but it happened. Basically during class, we start off by doing 5 set of holds. 10 seconds of front planche (Chinese style, palms facing inwards and arms bent), back planche, meat hook, and 30 seconds of side planche.
Needless to say, the teacher was impressed, holding a side planch in just 2 lessons.
One usually finds cool enclaves while on travel. One such place is a little cafe tucked in the upper levels of Meilainmei.
It seems also that the staff here love acrobats. Which is great for us since we get discounts. And there’s wireless internet access here.
Awesome!
It’s my last night in the 3 person dorm. I was going to move into the spare room at my friend’s apartment for a few days, but received word that a single dorm has become available. I really couldn’t be bothered to move twice in as many days so I opted just to stay in the 3-man dorm for 1 more night. I think my friends were a little disappointed. But then I didn’t have a change of clothes and toiletries when I was met up with them earlier today.
I’ve just finished my 2nd day at the school. I thought as soon as I turned up at school, I’ll get to training pretty much in a day or 2. But no, the administration here is appalling!
First, they insist that after my 7 days of “quarantine”, I must still be subjected to a medical examination that takes about 3 to 4 days for the results to get back. Surely this could have been done before I even got to school.
Temple At The Base Of Huashan Today we caught the bus from Xian to Huashan (aka Mount Hua). After an few hours we were dropped off near to the base of Huashan. After picking up some additional supplies we proceeded to walk towards the mountain.
At the foot of Huashan is a Daoist temple. If not for the few direction signs scattered around the temple, you’d think that you’d travel back in time.
After grabbing food at the Beijing West Train Station, we started to board the train to Xian. We didn’t manage to get a sleeper cabin, just seats. Looks like this is going to be a long trip. 11 hours in fact.
Beijing West Train Station The train station was sheer bedlam. People sitting around outside, some were sleeping on the floor. And this was just outside the station.