Wudan Day 1
12/29, Day 9: I stayed in the hotel in the AM to finish Sifu’s present while some people went to the city wall. It is a square wall built around the center of the city like a fortress. I guess it’s wider than a car. Xi’an seems even grimier than Luoyang and has very bad air. I got sick the day before probably from the air and cold. Then we fly to Wuhan and visit a museum that has big bell chimes that are also 2000 years old. Wuhan is much warmer and quite green with lots of lakes. Parts of it also seem more wealthy than the other cities. Then we take a sleeper train to Wudang San. The train was warm and pretty comfortable to sleep in.
12/30, Day 10 We arrive in Wudan very early in the morning and go to the hotel. Then we go up Wudan Mountain which is a center of Taoism and is a mountain covered with a bunch of temples of varying sizes. The first temple we go to is quite a ways up with beautiful pointy but fuzzy peaks that are hazy in the light. We get to the temple and again it is very beautiful.- as beautiful as Shaolin but with more amazing scenery. Then we have a real martial arts exchange. There are perhaps 6 or 7 Taoist monks (or students) about my age or younger that performed for us and their forms were amazing. Much more impressive and authentic than the Shaolin students. They had fluidity and grace that showed that they also did internal martial arts. They did tai chi and kung fu- baji, mantis, Wudan fist, and pa qua. They have longer hair- the first I’ve seen in China. We also do forms for them including martial palm. They seem to enjoy our show or are at least very gracious. Sifu said later that they were very impressed with 12 Spring Legs (Tan Tui) because it is such a traditional form (and not that many people do the real traditional stuff anymore). The show continued for about 2 hours. One of the weapons the monks used was a horse hair “duster”. I bought one of these for about $10. Its handle is also woven with black and white horse hair. The weapon seems very special as it is uniquely Taoist.
The main Wudan Temple
Wudan monks do Paqua and Mantis
Wudan disciple does sword
Our school’s Tai Chi Sword and Sifu poses with monks and disciples
Our school does 24 moves Tai Chi at Wudan
Then we continue up the mountain to a small village. We walk on many stairs (I guess the 1000 that Sifu talked about) to the place that is the setting for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon- although it wasn’t actually filmed there. It is one of – if not the most beautiful places I’ve seen. The small temples are built into the walls of the cliffs- just like in the movie. They are 1000+ years old. The scenery is amazing- the same pointy fuzzy peaks as before and there is some water way down below the cliffs. It is so peaceful and beautiful. N balanced a rock on the edge of the cliff. I walked back down partly on my own. It was a great walk until I get back near the village and I hear this horrible beast noise like the sound of a dragon. I thought maybe they were doing a demonstration of some sort because I couldn’t see. But no it was much more upsetting as they were hog-tying a huge hog that apparently got out of a truck. It was really awful. But other than that the mountain was amazing. We went back to our hotel (which isn’t really heated by the way so was freezing and had stained floors and scary bathrooms). One person said their bathroom had an inch of water in it. Another person had a large hole in the floor where the shower was supposed to be. We have a few hours before dinner and Na and I walked around the town for a little while. We got quite a few looks but most of them were pretty friendly. We celebrated Sifu’s birthday that night.
Wudan temple where Crouching Tiger.. was set
Wudan Mountain from temple
Cover for book I made for Sifu’s birthday present- Our school’s
logo
Back to Luoyang and Xian On to Wudan Day 2