After a long period of body conditioning training, aiming to transform a week body of a two hours a day martial artist into a stronger body of a twenty-four hours a day martial artist, finally we got to eat the cherry on top of the cake.

Over a period of six months and a half, we spent about six and a half hours daily training various things from meditation to climbing ropes and running the mountain, for six and a half days a week. Generally, the training was very repetitive focusing mainly in getting stronger to prevent future injuries, or to give us the capability for future training. The only technique stuff that we trained in this period was Taijiquan applications and White Crane four corners. A lot was accomplished during this time. On the first semester (three and a half months) we already felt a considerable difference in strength and endurance. I can say that in various aspects I never been so strong. I was able to do things that before I thought impossible for me to do it. I guess with the right amount of time and the proper training, pretty much everything can be attained.

The areas that surprised me the most were tumbling, running the mountain, jumping and rooting. The progress in these areas was significant for me. It’s not that I became a superman on these areas, but they were the ones where the progress seemed less probable on the beginning. Although it seemed that way, on the end, I was able to run up the mountain in less than fifteen minutes with fifty pounds in my back. A table with the height of my belly is no longer an obstacle to jump on top carrying fifty pounds. Also in jumping, I’m able to jump a wall as high as my neck only touching it with my hands and passing both legs at the same time between my arms. Sometimes, if not too tired, I’m able to do the same on a wall as high as my nose.

To develop our root, we train standing in MaBu (horse stance) on top of bricks. I remember doing sometimes before in Portugal and to do it on one brick was very hard. Now, we do it on two bricks. We can reasonably do Taiji Ball and White Crane Soft Qigong on top of two bricks. It’s still not super stable but it’s not too bad. Some of us can stand on top of three bricks but only for balance.

Tumbling is the one where the progress is the worst, but it’s the one that surprised me the most. I can do kip-ups now, I’ve improved my hand-stands and cartwheels and I’m even able to do hand-springs sometimes. Although, I’m definitely the worst in tumbling, personally, I attained more here than I could ever expect to attain outside. Honestly, I thought that I would NEVER be able to do a hand-spring. But, with the progress we are having, I think now that I will one day be able to even do a front and back tuck.

After all this hard work process, on May 1^st we began the real training. With full body and hearts, we stepped into the technique. What we normally call martial arts training begins now. All the stepping patterns, basic punching and kicking are being trained and developed. It was a fresh blow of energy for us. It gave us a new strength to train. Finally the time we all expected arrived. It feels good to be punching and kicking again. The previous conditioning training did change our bodies. I fell that my root while stepping and the speed while punching improved a lot. I feel that we are on the right path. Meanwhile, we still train body conditioning. We only stopped running the mountain and use that time to train technique. Slowly but consistently we improve and build ourselves into something higher than what we were before. This is just the beginning of something even more exciting.