Two days into this week, things are not looking quite as bright as last post. Our class, originally 8 people, was down to one fully functioning member today, after a knee injury, a groin injury, an ankle injury resulting in a defection to White Crane style, another defection, someone taking a mental rejuvenation day off, someone with a general leg injury, and myself slightly pulling a hamstring during forced stretching yesterday. The mood was generally frustrated and demoralized, and I ended up taking the afternoon session off to rest and hopefully not re-aggravate my injury. 

The Chinese mentality towards training injuries is unless you can't use it, keep training on it and the pain will go away, something that frustrates all of us and is, of course, completely contradictory to our western health idealogy. Our teacher told us today that he's been through what we are going through right now, with small, nagging injuries, and that if he hadn't pushed through it he wouldn't be where he is today. He also told us that he pushed too hard once, snapped his hamstring, and couldn't function for three months. We are all doubting the choice to plunge our unconditioned western bodies into deeply challenging Wushu practice without a chance to acclimate to the training intensity and atmosphere. We reason that, after all, when our teacher was starting out doing what we are doing now he was 10 years old, naturally flexible and naturally quick-healing. After realizing that I had pulled my hamstring a little, I took precautions to avoid aggravating it further, but trying to explain this to my teacher was useless. It is, after all, a minor injury, and I figure that with a day or two of rest it should heal. After pushing myself again today, though, I slightly re-aggravated it. Very, very frustrating. Not having the best time here, because of a combination of factors. I'll see how I feel tomorrow...