My First Martial Arts Class.

Monday 17 March, 2014 

¥3.00           Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥7.00           Lunch (Uni Restaurant)
¥2250.00    Entry fee for Great Wall Half Marathon
¥5700.00    Rent (Four months, with 5% Discount)
¥15.00        Dinner (Shotty black pepper beef jerky-like rice)
¥20.00        Cake (Split for K-L's birthday)

Tuesday 18 March, 2014 

¥3.00           Breakfast (Uni Restaurant)
¥10.00         Laundry
¥7.00           Lunch (Pancake)
¥200.00      Tutor
¥12.00        Dinner (Fried Noodles)
¥2.00          Pineapple

Total: ¥8229.00 ($1567.40)

Weekly Total: ¥279.00 ($53.14) <Not including rent/GWM into this, I need an idea of my general weekly expenses>

Total Spend: ¥15256.20 ($2909.95 AUD)

- - -

Ahhh rent!!!!

This week was the first week of elective classes, and I had my first Wushu (Martial Arts) class yesterday.

Ideally I would have imagined I'd be amazing and doing all those moves from Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer already, but realistically I knew it was going to be none of that. I was very excited to start, but also a bit wary of mǎbù (馬步), as my friend J was scaring us and telling us that our first lesson would be an hour of holding this stance:

The infamous Mabu stance.

Class started at 3:30pm and 60+ people showed up for the first class. Class is held outside right in front of the International College. Our teacher had us arranged in a circle at first to learn the basic moves, "Gong Bu" (bow stance), "Ma Bu" (horse stance), "Pu Bu" (flat stance), and "Xu Bu" (false stance).

My favourite stance, because it reminds me the most of wushu masters!

The false leg stance. You are supposed to put all your weight on your back leg, so you can kick freely with your front leg.

He also taught us the way to hold a fist, a flat palm and the hook. 

Actually our palm move was a bit different as we bend our thumb into the palm.

The teacher making us hold the Pubu stance for ages while he inspected all of us to make sure we had the right technique. Most people just gave up after a while (it's painful to hold!)

Afterwards, he introduced some basic sequences and transitions from the different stances, as well as adding on punches and arm positions. 

What we have been learning is more about conditioning and strength, since we hold the mabu and pubu stances for at least a minute each time. I think it's good for me as I'm not doing very much to strengthen my leg muscles, and it'll be good training for the half marathon run I just signed up for.

Class only ran for 1 hour this week, but it was definitely better than what I expected. My thigh muscles at the moment are crying.