The Training:

Our training here at the camp is more similar to a Shaw Brother’s training montage than one would expect. I’ve been learning with the other guys under Master Sui for the past two days. So far he’s taught me three or four stances I rotate through as I become exhausted in one pose. All of the stances draw on the same muscle set for a low crouching motion, so as the day moves along I am forced to assume them for shorter and shorter spans. He also taught me an exercise that practices leg trapping, where we lock our feet like a hook and sidle it around the leading foot of the opponent. It’s quite clever, you can easily twist into the basic stance of the style and unbalance them. That is assuming you can assume the basic stance. It consists of keeping one’s lead knee over one’s lead toe while the foot stays parallel to one’s body. The rear foot extends straight back into the ground, in line with one’s lead toe, perpendicular to one’s body. The body balances between the two feet and stays straight up, hypothetically. It’s a devilish stance, but it offers a lot of utility and protection. Master Sui says that in actual use it’s not required to keep the feet at such queer angles, but it’s best to do it that way in practice.

I have plenty of time to observe the others as I practice stances, and it’s pretty cool. Tom has only been a few weeks longer than I have, so he’s still a beginner too, but I can see he and Lion practices the complete forms and hand drills. Tom has the same trouble, although his legs are stronger, of tired quadriceps. Andy likes to torment him. “Powah!” he’ll yell, “Yes! More Powah!”

Bernard has been studying for much longer with Master Sui, and very extensively beforehand as well. He’s definitely qualified to teach the rest of us, but he doesn’t act stuck up about it. Bernard is a singular guy, he’s lived in seventeen countries and was on an Olympic Tae Kwon Do team. Sadly, he broke his ankle some time back and it really hurts him in the cold weather. He looked ok training when I first showed up, but for the last few days he’s been in his room taking pain killers.