One down, four to go. September first was a big day for us as we celebrated the one year anniversary of the beginning of the program. We all went to one of our favorite restaurants in town (popularly known as the chicken-no-bones place) and gathered around a couple of tables to eat our favorite dishes, drink a few plastic cupfuls of nice red wine and cold beer, and talk and joke for a while. Our celebration dinner might have seemed surprisingly quiet and reserved. First of all, looking back a year and comparing it with the party that rang in the start of the program, last week's celebration was tame. Secondly, given all the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears we've put into last 12 months, and the pride I am sure everyone feels at having made it this far, many people might think that a blowout was in order. However, that we preferred something a little mellower is a mark, I think, of the things we have shared, the training we have endured together, and the ways in which each of our perspectives have changed over after year one of the program.

A few things from the past year seem to stand out in memory: Jeff and Simon's many month marathon of oddball humor, greeted with chuckles, groans, or dry acknowledgment depending on their inspiration on a given day. Our fairly awesome Christmas Secret Santa party. Detonating kilotons of fireworks for Chinese New Year. Soaking our feet in the river after a long walk in the hills behind the school. Working shoulder to shoulder to pave the new training area behind the school. The hard night we spent at Wulonggong, the veggie meals there, and the long trek to Zixiaogong, where we checked out Shifu's old room. Fantasizing about an assortment of Tex-Mex delicacies, trying to get a little feeling of home here in Wudang. Seeing friends and classmates arrive and then leave, drawn away by life's many divergent paths, though they still connect us with the wide world as they go. Cheering in the movie theater in Shiyan when Shifu was on screen in the new Karate Kid movie. The shared headaches, frustration, and proximity to stardom preparing for the opening of the combat games in Beijing. Hundreds of little shared celebrations for no reason at all. Thousands of hours of sweating and training together. All these have molded us into a close-nit (if quirky) community, comfortable together and familiar with each others' idiosyncrasies and strength.



 Though we live and train as a group, we have all found that our growth as people and as martial artists manifests very individually. While we are all moving toward a similar goal, we take each step at different times and in different order. One idea has, however, taken vivid new meaning for all of us. There is a Chinese phrase that Master Yuan has spoken to us about many times: " chi ku," or, "eating bitter." It is the idea that real growth only comes through enduring pain. Certainly everyone has seen the power of this in physical training. We have learned to expect improvement after daunting joint and muscle pain. Put that aside, though. What is more interesting than "no pain no gain" exercise is our growth as people. Getting up every morning at 5:00 and running, or not stopping full-speed forms practice with the sun blazing in the August sky, or just going to training when your body screams for rest -- these things, when endured for months on end, end up tempering one's determination and fostering emotional buoyancy. Further, cooped up with each other and a constantly changing cast of visiting personalities, the inevitable social clashes are another kind of training that test and develop our humanity towards others.

Chewing bitter is a powerful tool for personal growth. Caught between intolerable circumstances and the high standard to which we are held and hold ourselves, something must give. With our master's guidance, this powerful force for change is channeled to help us become better, stronger people. While this may seem to boil down to "building character," those words seem empty compared to what we have gleaned from experience. Adversity is still painful, but it is easier to face it with acceptance and equanimity when one begins to understand how it relates to growth.

This is just one way in which this year has given us all new perspective. Each of us is on our individual path, and twelve months further along than before, we each see new things in the stretch immediately ahead. For many of us, meditation was, at first, difficult and unfathomably obscure. It was so hard just to sit still for 45 minutes that we could spare no thought for the real possibilities of the practice. But for some of us, meditation has already become indispensable for emotional balance and calm, while we hope that one day soon we will be sufficiently at ease with the practice of sitting that the real inner work can begin. Myself, when I began I believed that I could simply pick and choose among the diverse disciplines taught here, and that I knew what I needed to grow as a martial artist. I have since come to see that the curriculum offered is an integrated whole, and that each practice has something indispensable to offer. I am not the only one who has come to look around in wonder at the lessons to be learned in each aspect of life at this kungfu academy, and think how narrow my view had been before. Looking back on our first year, one can't help but look forward to what the next one will bring.
-by Corey Hopp