the shichihai international sports facility, where i found myself staying in the heart of beijing, is not only an institution for training some of the best martial artists on the planet, it's also the place where my instructor, patty li, called home when she was sent here by the government to begin her training in wushu and tai chi at the age of eight. she lived in the dorms and over the next fifteen years, the other teammates that she lived and practiced with became her brothers and sisters. her teammates are now world renowned instructors and martial artists in their own right (one particular teammate went on to become kinda-sorta famous under the westernized moniker of 'jet li') and it's a little overwhelming to see them around the facility and realize how much they (literally) kick ass. to this day, shichihai still selects and trains eight and nine year olds to begin their training as martial arts superheroes and it's trippy to see the little kids running through the facility, knowing that these tiny midgets half my size could each kick pretty much anyone's ass without batting an eyelid.

when i decided that i was going to beijing to study martial arts, i had this super funny image of myself, with my head shaved, carrying buckets of water over my shoulders, stepping on hot coals up a steep rocky incline while an old chinese guy with a long white goatee laughed at me from the top of a mountain - his lips totally out of sync. i'm happy to report that my trip here in china is not out of a shaw brothers kung fu movie. of course, it lacks the comedy potential of having my head shaved and the guy whose lips don't sync, but it's still a pretty freaking incredible experience. the only commonality to my reality and the above scenario is that there ~is~ an old chinese guy.

the chinese guy, by the way... he's a badass.

i'm told that ma lao shir (sp?) only trains international competitors (the most recent group of athletes he taught was japan's national tai chi team. [who even knew japan had a national tai chi team? i certainly didn't.]) but since my instructor, patty, is a badass herself, she used the 'badass networking system' and was able to get ma lao shir to come to our class and show us clumsy foreigners how completely awesome he is. for being nearly 70, he's one spry dude who could probably break your neck if he had to.

in addition to being a little terrified of him, it's been pretty intense trying to learn the craft without speaking his language. my instructor helps with a little bit of english during class, but there are definitely those 'lost in translation' moments, where ma lao shir will go off for minutes at a time, speaking in mandarin, with a very intense look in his eyes, and patty will just look at us and simply says: