I'm just returning home from my first lesson at a traditional Beijing kung fu school. Wow.
After some careful searching online, I located this school and wanted to check it out. I arrived in the general neighborhood, finally found the address, and wandered tentatively into the walled
hutong complex. A small old man saw me through a window and came out. He rasped out an inquiry in Mandarin and made shadow boxing gestures. I said, "对！谢谢！" and he waved me down a long narrow alleyway. On emerging, here was the pretty building shown here, nested neatly inside the hutong behind a small cozy courtyard.
The only person on site when I arrived was a friendly French guy (who I later learned is in Beijing studying Chinese medicine). He confirmed that I was in the right place, and answered some of my questions about the school. The French guy has far better Mandarin than me, and wound up helping quite a bit as I worked to communicate tonight.
The instructors began arriving. I counted six different teachers, each (as I learned from the French guy) with their own preferred discipline:
bagua, taijiquan, Shaolin-style kung fu, and
sanda, among others. A few of them asked about my background and so forth. I attempted to answer, mostly to their amusement.
Amazingly, there were only a few more students than teachers, resulting in an almost 1:1 ratio. This was, admittedly, a little unusual, but I gather that classes aren't typically too much larger than this on any given day.
The format was as follows: One of the younger teachers took us outside to the courtyard. Typical joint stretching began, followed by running in circles around the courtyard, and some basic calisthenics. After this was a series of short drills, moving back and forth across the grounds doing various kicks and short movement sequences. The instructor seemed pleasantly surprised that I wasn't a total rube (even if I felt like one).
I was then assigned to one of the Shaolin masters, and spent the next hour drilling one-on-one with him, focusing on energetic grounding during the final few seconds of punch delivery. He didn't speak a word of English, so the entire lesson was taught with a running Mandarin monologue from him, of which I understood maybe 5%. Lessons like this, though, can be communicated fairly effectively with body language, gestures, and the occasional burly punch to the gut.
I learned later from the French guy that class is somewhat student-directed, and you just have to speak up if you want to study a certain discipline that night. I would have preferred to spend the evening on taijiquan or qigong, so next time I just need to say so.
All in all, it was a ridiculously awesome experience (Shaolin kung fu in Beijing!!), not to mention a solid workout for the legs.
Oh, and the class was 80RMB. About $11.
Yeah.
I may go back to this place, but I may also work with one of the other instructors that emailed about classes in the local parks.
On my way home, I wandered south to a different subway station and came upon the Wanfujing shopping district. It's amazing to continue finding entirely new areas in this city that stun and overwhelm the senses. This undiscovered place, Wanfujing, is simply massive and a bit like Times Square. Packed with tourists, surrounded by neon-lit shops, humongous signs for designer shops, restaurants, giant televisions, people in costumes, etc -- but mixed in was assorted ancient (or ancient-looking) beautiful Chinese buildings and asian architecture, giving it a distinctly foreign flavor. (To cement the Times Square analogy, I was approached by three different women, each of them asking if I wanted to enjoy a nice young girl for "sexual massage." Not tonight, thank you.)
June 1 in Beijing. Life is good.
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