This year, our annual winter camp was held in the Moonah Ridge Holiday House. This house was located at the top of a hill with a great view all around and a decent walk from the beach. It was also a pain to get to. Well... not really, the car I was in had the wrong address, it didn't help that we were trying to find the place at night either.
When I finally arrived, my group and I went through the motions of calling dibs on beds, I wanted the bottom bunk but lost. I never really understood picking the top bunk, not only do you risk hitting your head when you sit up, it's both figuratively and literally a pain to get into after a long day of exercise. Anyway, the people who arrived earlier that day had already done their training and had dinner, so they just started chilling. Some people were watching Kung Fu movies, while others were making full use of the table tennis and pool tables while socializing. The sky was clear that night and a lot less light pollution than in the city, allowing us to see the many stars that paint the night's sky, which made sitting on the viewing deck quite a treat. It was quite an uneventful night.
More people arrived on Friday, and we even had a few drop by on Saturday to say hello as well!
Training
In the past, training in these camps were quite rigorous and followed tight schedules that always lead to an unmistakable feeling of pain in my entire body.This time round there wasn't a strict schedule, however I was pleased to see that many people took the initiative to train together and train hard. Each day during camp, we generally follow the same routine.
In the morning before breakfast, we would wake up for a Tai Ji session run by our very own Ben Morgan. Everyone was freezing, but after warm ups, everyone warmed up. We did some basic Tai Ji movements, and then some Qi Gong, and then we warmed up some more. After that we move on to applications of these movements. The main goal was unbalancing your partner, which resulted in some falling over and many hilarious arm motions before said falling over. We then finish up in time for breakfast.After breakfast, we get some free time to ourselves. While most people would have taken this opportunity to slack off, I was impressed at the number of people who used this time to self train. Taking advantage of the great weather, some went for a run and training along the beach, some did basic exercises and stretches on the balconies and viewing decks, taking in the sun while admiring the great view.
Dragon Warrior Challenge
Every camp we have what's called the Dragon Warrior Challenge, we want to see who makes the best use of their training in a fight to the death. Just kidding. This is just for fun and of course we did have fun! Every challenge presented can be represented by one of the five major elements, Water, Fire, Earth, Metal and Wood. Don't ask me which is which. I can't remember.
We started off with a tag pulling challenge. 2 people faced off, trying to pull tags off their opponent's waist, light contact, no funny business. It was neat, every round saw different styles come in to play. On one hand, you had people being all serious, going down to low stances and proper defensive postures, on the other, some people just reached and tried to grab till someone won. Some were one sided, some weren't, all round pretty fun.
Moving on, we had the horse stance challenge. Very straight forward, last to stand up wins. Now I wasn't around for this but I can imagine legs shaking and people moaning in pain. Neat.
After that, it came to the box stacking challenge. 5 origami boxes are to be stacked on the participant's own forehead. Seem's pretty simple, but it turned out to be kind of hard, thus only some managed to complete the challenge.
Next, we had jump as far as we could from a stand still, onto aluminium foil without tearing it. Our foil seemed to have a mind of it's own, deciding to tear at the strangest times. When it was my turn, I jumped long and landed very heavily with a loud thump, it didn't tear, and yet someone else who had a lighter landing just shredded it. Physics, how does it work?
Then came the highlight of the Challenge, our own version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Participants were paired up with their respective opponents and sat down facing each other. Placed in front of them was the cardboard roll from the tin foil we had just finished using, and a plastic salad bowl. The Rock, Paper, Scissors part was exactly the same, after that the winner gets to pick up the roll and hit the loser in the head, while the loser can use the bowl to protect his/herself. 1 point is earned every time someone is hit on the head, first to 3 wins! When played at high speed, the entertainment value of this challenge when through the roof. So many mistakes can be made on both sides, which can result in so much confusion that I was literally rolling on the floor and laughing.
Chilling
The Dragon Warrior challenge only accounted for 1 night out of the 3 that we spent there, so what did we do the rest of the time?
We watched lots of Kung Fu movies, this was a Wushu camp after all, what better way to get immersed in it even more? Besides, they were all freakin' awesome! We saw many movies from greats such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Donnie Yen, as well as some lesser known titles. We even watched some of them in the theater (that's right, the house had that too), with popcorn and juice, oh and did I mention the many recliners that were in them? Sweeeet.
We also played lots of table tennis and pool. Why not? They were provided along with the house, of course we have to use them! I bet some people returned from camp with new skills that weren't just in Wushu, I know I did.
We socialized. We also just sat down on couches and chatted, was pretty chill.
Food
I just thought that this topic required a special mention, because the food was nothing short of amazing, and was all pretty much done single handedly by our member Christopher. He has been the chef for our camps many times and has provided us with so many impressive meals with lots of variety, I feel we are lucky to have him! So, special shout out to Chris, and THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I'd put more pictures of food, but our photographer is the eat first, take pictures later kind of guy... So yeah... However, we were lucky to have some people who took some pictures of the food to show you guys.
Final Thoughts
Overall, it was a great excuse to exercise again after an entire month of non-stop study and also extremely fun and relaxing to be hanging out with friends for the weekend with nothing to worry about. Great environment, great food, great atmosphere and great company. I'm looking forward to the next camp!