Sunday - Day One of Wushu

Woke up at 5:15 AM, downstairs at 5:30, running in two lines at about
5:40 to the stone plaza in front of Shaolin Temple. The run itself
wasn't very long. Once we got there, stretched out, did some
exercises (like running, then stopping dead and jumping straight up).
This session was actually fairly easy, a situation that would soon
change. Ran back at 7:15 and ate breakfast at 7:30. Breakfast was an
egg, white rice porridge, some ridiculously salty red tofu intended to
be mixed into porridge which I could not eat, even after mixing,
white-flour buns, and salty vegetables (which I also couldn't eat).
Ate 8:30 was 3-hour wushu session number 1. After warming up
(running, stretching), we worked out – sprints, jumping exercises,
etc. Very demanding pace. Afterwards, learned kicks and stances and
a basic 5-Stance Form – things I've learned (though certainly not
mastered) before with Yale Wushu. Lunch at 11:30. Practice again at
2:30. About an hour of working out, then reviewing 5-Stance Form and
working on 2-Changes Form. At the next break, the shifu talked about
how in 2003 the Shaolin Temple started building other buildings, and
most of the wushu schools in the area (except this one) had to leave.
Finished up by 5:30. Ate dinner, wrote out some questions to ask
Tagou people for my social study report, then we watched the movie
"Shaolin Temple". Entertaining.
Wushu is, quite simply, hard, to the degree that wushu and "gongfu,"
the term for any kind of consistent practice and hard work (not just
martial arts) are synonymous in common usage. The physical standard
required and amount of time spent practicing to attain even a basic
level of competence are both very high, well above the physical
standard of the average person and the amount of "free time" most
people have for their hobbies. Wushu requires high levels of static
strength and explosive power, especially in the legs (for the low
stances), flexibility (for the high kicks), endurance (to sustain the
long hours of practice required), etc.