Several days ago a television producer or documentary director or something saw me training and asked about what I was doing. He had studied a bit of MA in his youth and when Shifu arrived he told us that he wanted to make a documentary about our training. I had told him that a lot more people showed up at the weekend and so it was decided that he would come back on Sunday.
Well, Shifu was a busy bee and today many disciples and students and other masters and some of their students showed up. We trained, we did Tuishou, Chishou and "boxing" (meaning only attacking the upper body and no kicks, throws or locks allowed), we did forms and some were interviewed, including me. The producer/director person wants to come back and film just Shifu and I training in a week or so. At that time I hope to show more of our training, as today was some heavy bag stuff, rope-shaking (for lack of a better term) and partner work, but little solo training stuff.
Some of the sparring was intense. I had been sparring with only one hand for almost two months after a thumb injury and wasn't in top form when using my left hand again and I haven't been able to use a lot of the great new stuff that I've learned in the last several months in a full-contact setting, but I think that you will all appreciate that I/we put it all out there for everyone to see. There is also plenty of footage of Shifu kicking our arses in Tuishou and Chishou and next week I'll put on gloves and a head guard and "box" with him so there will be that too.
Many of you will not be impressed and say that it's just boxing or that it's not the "real internal", but we've all still got a lot of training ahead of us and things can only go up from here. The point is not to show how bad-arse I am or something but what learning CMA from Zou Shifu is all about, especially from a Laowai's perspective. We've only been training with Shifu for a year at the most (just under nine months for me) and we have yet to put all of the Tuishou, Chishou, Shanzhaiquan material, kicking etc. into our sparring. Think of it more of a taste of what's to come. I think that any of you that are serious about the martial aspect of CMA will find that we are in good hands. The documentary will be half an hour long and it will probably take several months for us to get a hold of. I'll update you on any developments. I'm pretty fucking excited.
