Kung Fu Training Camp in China: A Student's Diary

Introduction

10am, Gatwick airport, slouching on my luggage, bleary-eyed, knackered, hungry... and waiting for a guy called Brian to arrive. Question to self: Will this camp change my life?

Pretty big question to ask, right? It's still early; I've yet to have a cup of tea and my ticket says 'Crete'. I tell myself it's not going to happen, that I'm asking too much. Life-changing experiences don't happen on a beach in Greece, Trudi, they happen (sometimes) on a beach in Thailand - but in Crete, in Greece, in Europe, never.

So, why ask it then? Simple. Based on the previous two FWC camps I've been on to China – first to Mianshan in 2006 and then to Wudang last year - my expectations levels have been set pretty high.

Both these trips were mind-blowingly brilliant, but that was China: the home of kung fu; a land steeped in martial arts history; the birthplace of Jet Li, Jackie Chan and the illustrious Kungfu Panda; and this is Crete. So says the Lonely Planet: the home of sun drenched sandy beaches and olive groves; a land steeped instead in Homeric myths; and the birthplace of Zeus. A Mediterranean paradise? Yes. But the stuff of kung fu legend? Surely not.

So how can this camp possibly compete? Well, let's see...

The Cranes Take Flight

So Brian finally arrives. I'm instantly in awe at his rebellious streak. Not only is he late but he's not wearing club T-shirt... and we're off. Our gang of thirty-three kung fu bandits rush around Gatwick picking up last minute essentials (nice hats Eleanor and Meg), before we hop onto flight XLA362: destination - Chania airport.
Getting Kermit ready

The heat slaps us in the face as soon as we depart the plane (so long wet London) and we're greeted by Manolis – our friendly host of past and present Crete camps. In a frenzy of activity, we're organised into groups for the cars we've rented. We have to decide which of us are girls and which of us are boys (worryingly this proves difficult); and agree who is crazy enough to drive. We seem to have a healthy contingent of crazies, as this takes no time at all. Philippe Joly races around trying to infiltrate the group going to Vamos Palace. "Zeet really ees tea best place!” ,he raves. A veteran of two previous Crete camps, Vamos has eluded him both times. Mr Joly finally ends up in a car going to a cute villa with Tim and I end up in one of the cars going to Vamos Palace. Lucky me. Poor Philippe. As I later discover, this is not a hardship. Yes, Vamos is ultra cool with the biggest pool, bar and Raki (local alcohol) on arrival but in Philippe's pad he practically has his own personal swimming pool! Tough life, Mr. Joly.

It's an hour or so drive to Vamos from the airport. I take in my first views of Crete from the backseat while Aussie Karen takes on the challenge of driving – in the dark, on the left hand side of the road, on unfamiliar roads, in the heat, with a bunch of chatty lunatics in the back. It's not the first time on the trip I'm impressed by her awesome powers. Somehow she gets us to the infamous Vamos Palace safely and we stumble into our rooms. Into mine goes me, Julie, Eleanor and Karen. Four girls, four beds, but only one bathroom! Yikes. "Oh well” ,Eleanor and I sigh having a quick shot of Raki to commiserate. We wouldn't be kung fu stylists if we didn't like a challenge!

After one of the hottest, sweatiest nights of my life tossing and turning a lot and sleeping a little, I somehow force myself awake at 5.30am. I grumpily fumble in the dark trying to find my trainers, and Eleanor and I agree that sleep deprivation is a key element to any kung fu camp. I hear Adam Prout outside telling us that it's time to go – and as I walk onto the veranda, I spot Yaz smiling and my mood instantly brightens.

I get a strong sensation that despite the tiredness, this camp is going to be something special. I know I looked like a lunatic smiling there in the half-light half-dazed but as I scanned around, I realised it wasn't just Yaz and me smiling - others were too. It's a beautiful morning, the air feels fresh, the sun is rising, I'm healthy, I'm alive (just) and I'm with a group of people I can already tell will be my friends at the end of the week. And do you know what? The camp feels pretty darn good already...

Snakes after Sunrise

Then I see the notorious hill of death. The starting point for our 6am daily run - and boy does it look tough! I realize I can't actually see where it ends. I notice people aren't smiling anymore – they're grimacing. The cliché no pleasure without pain rings ominously in my ears as Adam does a top job firing us up with some warm up exercises. Luckily by the time he's through, our tiger spirits have been unleashed and we're raring to go.
Eleanor & Karen's shadows

Our running circuit for most of the week is two laps around the village - yes, lucky us, we get to do the hill not once, but twice – apart from the last two days that takes us on the road out of town and back. It's a forty-minute route around some pretty awesome countryside. I'm one of the weirdo's in the group that actually likes running but I normally do this in London. In Crete I discover I love running. It's difficult not too. With the rising sun on your face, fresh air in your lungs, distant mountains to look at and passing smells of jasmine and olives, by the end of the week, all of us are reaping the rewards. And better still we're slashing minutes off our times!

The big fat shiny gold medal for the week's efforts go to the dynamic running duo of Jeremy and Jonathan who came in first every day. (My source tells me that Jonathan always took Jeremy on the end sprint, so officially Jonathan gets the gold, but as Jeremy was said source, I'm thinking it's only fair to award a joint medal here). Other special prizes go to: Gavin, for quite simply the most original running style I've ever seen (walk, sprint, walk, sprint, walk, sprint, walk... okay, you get the picture); to Frederic for managing to develop the world's biggest blister and still keep training; to Karen for a second bout of Aussie awesome power by keeping smiling despite severely twisting her ankle running; and finally to Dan for putting up with me meanly sprinting past him every day about thirty seconds before the end of the run. Sorry mate, but it had to be done!

I quickly learn that Dennis' primary source of enjoyment on the Crete camp is what comes after the run and before breakfast – ten minutes of hill sprints on what is soon christened... the second hill of death!!! Five minutes out of town on a farmer's track that coughs up mouthfuls of dust. If we all weren't in excruciating pain from muscle burn, we'd have had more time to marvel at Dennis' array of increasingly torturous sprint techniques. (I'm sure he dreamt them up each night in some sick twisted kung fu nightmare). They involved us either pushing, pulling or carrying varying numbers of people up the hill, as if sprinting up by yourself wasn't hard enough!?!

The Scorpion, the Snake and the Wall - which involved everyone sprinting up together in a strange bonding moment – were my favourites. The hill sprints were the toughest part of the camp no doubt, but we all managed to get through it somehow with lots of laughter... helped on one morning by Harry's impromptu display of farting.
Crete breakfast

And, of course, helped on by what lay in wait for us at the end... a sumptuous breakfast feast. Mountains of Greek yoghurt, local honey, walnuts, eggs, ham and orange juice served up in a cute little restaurant. Add the comfy alfresco seating to a backdrop of hillside views and what more can I say? Breakfast for me will never, ever taste so good again. Pure heaven after pure hell. Absolute pleasure after absolute pain... but boy did we earn it.

Kicking up Sand

So now on to what we came here for... some serious training FWC style. Morning sessions focused on chi development and practicing patterns on a stretch of fine sand on the beach of Kalives - a five-minute drive (or precisely two and a quarter Ipod songs) from Vamos. This is the part of the trip where the slogan: 'this trip isn't a holiday, it's a camp' really started to sink in for me.
Beach practise

While most of my non kung fu mates would have used this opportunity to laze around in the sun, topping up their tan, and over indulging in the local cocktail menu – our little gang couldn't wait to get into the training.

Kung fu in a hall in Islington is one thing but kung fu on a beach is something else entirely; especially on one as beautiful as this, when there isn't a cloud in the sky, and when the sun's skimming off the surface of the crystal blue water lapping in front you. Triple-especially then! Doing kung fu on a beach is pretty cool. Fact. Despite the comedy value we gave the locals watching us on our first day - a group of deathly white foreigners dancing around on hot sand, smothered in sun tan lotion, flaying our arms around in strange bird-like movements, breathing oddly - despite this, whichever way you look at it, it's still pretty cool.
Crete sea

But of course, if I tell you any more about the training, I'd have to kill you - and as I promised Dennis I wouldn't kill anyone in this diary (despite my penchant for horror writing), I'm going to have to sadly leave this section here...

To Siesta Or Not To Siesta That is the Question

3pm ish to 5pm ish was the hottest part of the day and officially our Siesta time. A chance to unwind and sleep, laze around the pools and sleep, listen to music and sleep, eat and sleep or simply sleep and sleep ... okay, stop the record for a moment. Did I say something about sleep? Of course that's the Disney version of the story. In the real version of the story sleep never actually comes... what comes instead is the allusion of sleep, or at least the hope of sleep dangling at the end of a kung fu sword that you can never actually reach. But who needs sleep anyway? Sleep is for people who are tired right? And for some reason the longer the holiday went on, the less tired I got. A diet of good exercise, good food, sun, sea, sand and fun all wrapped up nicely to shake off my shattered London blues and leave me feeling that sleep is for stressed out suckers.

For me, the Siesta times were filled instead with hanging around talking to people, training a bit more, bombing around in the cars hunting down a few drinks for later, looking around the local shops, cajoling Alex Constantinides and Ajay to 'do their dance moves' on the beach, trying to dodge the lenses of Radoslav and Luba whose collective photographic prowess is pretty impressive, making up stories about Mermaids and Magic Shells with Dennis little girl, Carmen (highly recommended), searching for actual magic shells with Sharon and Carmen (even more highly recommended!) or trying to get the sand out of my Ipod. Either way, what I missed in sleep, I gained somewhere else.

Sparring in the Shade

Our afternoon training concentrated on sparring techniques and brought us each day to the shady garden at Manoliss' family home where Dennis was staying.

The sessions kicked off with what I loosely term 'story-time with Dr Zeus'. Here we would all huddle in the amphitheatre specially built in the middle of the garden and listen to Dennis impart his kung fu knowledge. Zeus is the Greek god of thunder and the sky - someone that's all knowing and all-powerful - and trust me, after you've experienced Dennis probing your mind on a daily basis in this setting, it will feel like a fitting description too. Somehow he always manages to unsettle you, impart invaluable knowledge, make you laugh and realise how much you have left to learn, all at the same time.

One day Dennis told us we needed to 'see without seeing, hear without hearing, and do without doing' - wise words... but as Eleanor said later - he never managed to show us how we could 'run without running' or 'sleep without sleeping'. Funny that. I guess he'll also never show us how to 'eat without eating' either!

It wasn't just Dennis offering words of wisdom... Sonya was inspired to come up with a whole new kung fu system... details are bit sketchy but it involved the mysterious techniques of 'slow' and 'fast' styles. It made everyone smile, so it gets my thumbs up.
Matt in the garden


The garden has a timeless quality about it. I thoroughly enjoyed sparring here, even when I mistakenly turned up in flip-flops and was pitted against iron arms Brad, John, Dom and Felix the destroyer in one fatal swoop. It was on more than one occasion that I stopped sparring for a second (sorry Dennis) and imagined Greek warriors of old training alongside us amid the butterflies and orange trees.

Again the rest of this section is top secret... but off the record, I will say there was a lot of talk about circles and squares. Confused? Well I was at first but by the end of my camp, I realised my circle obsession was well founded. It started to click into place, well at least a small bit. Now I feel as if I'm at the beginning of something. I've been training for three years and it's taken me all this time to get to the start of the journey. Scary huh? But then 'kung fu' does mean hard work, so I should hardly be surprised.

Happy Families

Nothing brings a kung fu family together like food – and this is especially apparent on a FWC camp. Lunches and our evening meals were in the main served up in Kristos' restaurant in Kalives, which came with the added attraction of a cute kitten, Adele named Charlie.

As one of three token vegetarians on the camp, I have the honour of pulling funny faces and squealing every time Dennis cajoles someone into eating something slightly more interesting that a Pret a Manger sandwich. So, on this trip I got to pull funny faces and squeal quite a lot. There were the usual share of balls, eyes and brains served up alongside a pretty impressive array of dishes that even the big boys struggled to finish some nights.

A special wet lettuce veggie handshake goes to Nick for creating a truly awesome stuffed pepper medley on one of the BBQ nights at Manolis' house, which almost competed on taste credentials with his Ipod playlist (Bros, Rick Ashley, David Sneddon... ouch!). We abused the playlist for the rest of the night as the BBQ party atmosphere fired up and the flaming Raki flowed.
Dennis at the bbq helm

On the Sunday, two days before home time, we enjoyed a so-called day of rest. Don't be fooled. It involved driving for an hour into a port called Kissamos (not a joke, I promise) before hopping on a boat to sail around some local islands. Despite being openly referred to as a day of rest some of the lunatics among the group (well, most of us in fact), decided to hike up to the top of one of the islands in the burning midday sun to see the ruins of a Venetian Castle; before swimming in the blue lagoon on Balos Island and finally hurtling ourselves off the slide on the boat repeatedly.

The picture perfect family day out ended in style for me when Aussie Karen not only overtook Patrick driving the ingeniously named 'Kermit' car but sped past Dennis' car in a sudden burst of rebelliousness that got us home in super quick time.

On the last evening, Matt (our resident Jesus lookalikey) handed over the birthday baton to Julie in a jolly drinking session at our breakfast venue. Spirits were running high and the family love was flowing, even if the cocktails weren't. NB: Meg and girl Alex (Lee Corbin) asked for a couple of Mojitos at the bar and somehow got toast instead?!

"Have we enjoyed the camp?", Dennis asked us all on the last morning before we flew home. Interesting question? If he means enjoyment by feeling happier, healthier and more alive, then I suppose we pretty much all did. Jesper and Clare summed up my feelings better than I could that day when they said: "The club and the people they've met on this trip are like an extended family to them... that this year's trip is something special because of the close bond we've developed as a group. And that they were proud to be here because everyone – from beginner to senior – gave it their all, and just got it so quickly.” Nice speech guys.

The Cranes Come into Land

So no sooner had the camp started, it was over... the last day, the last dip in the pools, the last run, the last Greek yoghurt, the last time to train and listen to Dennis, the last time to negotiate the difficult local traffic... and the first time to get lost in Chania! Luckily Alex Constantinides' fluency in Greek got us rescued before we missed our flight; and a local motorcyclist escorted our (then very stressed and sweaty) car convoy to the airport. Phew!

On the flight back, I conclude that the Lonely Planet has it wrong after all. Or at least, they don't give the full picture. Crete isn't just about olive groves and beaches. It's about a hell of a lot more. It's about a different (better) quality of life. A life that values a person's needed to exist and live simply. That appreciates that sometimes this is the best way to get the most out of life; something that us Londoners have forgotten. In short, a place that while it may not be China, is in its essence a perfect place to practice kung fu.

As we land back into London, I congratulate myself on getting through the whole trip without wanting to kill someone... then Tim unravels a bit of paper, and thoughts of jealous murder finally take over. The group-huddle together one last time; and we listen, sing and cry along to Tim's new FWC poem that he so happened to pull together in a few minutes on the flight back. I may call myself an okay writer, but this is nothing compared to Tim's poetic genius. A fitting end to a truly great camp.

So, 10pm, Gatwick airport, holding my luggage, buzzing, happy and centered. My circle obsession is hovering around me again. I feel I've gone full circle, back at the place where I started out, but somehow it feels different - like I've ended up somewhere better than where I began.

I remember back to the question I posed myself at the beginning of the camp – and realise I was asking the wrong question. It was never a case of whether this camp would change my life. Silly Trudi, of course it would. All experiences change you. What I should have been asking was, will this camp change my life for the better. And the simple answer to that is... yes. Hell yes!
A contented crowd

And the only thing left for me to ask now? Dennis: when can I sign up for Crete 2009? Bring it on...