Fujian White Crane Kung Fu

This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series FWC Crete Camp 2013. 

22.7.13 Crete Day 6

Barracks training for me again whilst everyone else having a lovely time training on the beach. Inner peace and resignation exercised.

Knock on door – “Come, come, problem at Amphelos”. Grabbing some shorts and mentally preparing for catastrophe I am shown a wet path. Earlier this morning the water had gone off in the houses (fairly regular occurrence and usual supply normally quickly restored). Unfortunately the lads in the house had been soaking the barbecue trays and left the plug in and the empty tap turned on. Water supply restored to empty house with diluvian consequences. All cleaned up and inner peace turned back on.

Collected in time to return to The Bank. Failed to break previous record for escape time, unless you want to count duration of wait. Time on ticket 12.38, time on receipt when served 14.08. This time being in danger of completely missing lunch I pulled off an unexpected coup worthy of The Great Escape by replacing myself with Jeremy. The teller did not appear to notice the substitution – that was a close call as there is not much of a physical resemblance between us. Mind-control training paying off then – must try out the line “These are not the droids you are looking for.”

Over my delayed lunch I hear that there were strange dreams after the barbecue. I had one myself (does not involve food), which may in fact be the basis of a new fund-raising idea. I dreamt that David Beckham (why he?) was raising money for charity by removing spiders from people’s homes and had turned up at mine – the spider was pretty weeny but he removed it alive and asked for £50! Being in a dream-state I somehow thought that was good value for money. The other dreams were a mix of the bizarre and the downright ridiculous.

The younger ones with tons of energy skipped the siesta and went off the the pool – “have you got the spoons?”. This spoon diving is becoming a bit serious, with 10 marks available for each of the following; entry to water, retrieval of spoon, artistic merit. The judges line up along the side of the pool

Last afternoon of training with discussion over what has been learned this week. Ask them all when they get back, but the gist was greater feeling of ownership of own training and patterns. There were requests for more positive feedback – “How would you like to get it?” “Erm, I don’t really know.” “That’s a bit of a problem”.

Next question: “Do you think the instructors are competitive?” (asked by the head judge of the spoon diving judging panel). Hmmmm ” Well you can always push them to become better instructors”. “OK, going to be a bit more vocal when I get back”. Good luck.

So, sitting here with the Mediterranean waves breaking on the shore behind me, writing a wrap up (unless anything exciting happens over dinner) waiting for the deliciousness to begin. Everyone sitting around eating and really really looking forward to getting back home and being allowed to do the cooking and the washing up.