I went to both lessons this weekend, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. A lot of the people who were there last weekend weren’t there this time. However, there were a lot of new faces, many of them Westerners. Actually, htere was a German couple, fairly young, and a Russian couple in, I would guess, their forties. None of them speak English, as far as I can tell. The German guy speaks Chinese; the Russians had brought another Russian, who didn’t take part in the class but just acted as an interpreter for them. Cacophony! As soon as Master Yao said anything, the German guy would start translating for the girl, and the Russian would translate for his friends! It was incredibly disorienting at first, but I eventually got used to it.

We worked on a mumber of moves - a chop, a palm strke, and various other moves - all in the same way: slowly while standing, slowly while stepping, slow-slow-fast while stepping. Very cool. I could feel my hips opening up, my pelvis swinging, and my back lengthening - excellent benefits! I teamed up with one of the Chinese students to practice power exercises; he’s better than me but not by much - enough to give me confidence that I can improve! He can pretty much consistently uproot me and throw me; I can do it to him about half the time. One the other hand, I can use full-body power and keep walking forward even when he’s pulling me back; he can’t do it to me so well. Heh.

Anyway, more and more. I realise that I really like yiquan. I really look forward to class! Master Yao takes a real interest in everyone, coming around to us individually and asking how we’re getting on, asking whether we have any questions sending us flying against the wall - just what you’d expect from a great teacher

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