Pete & Rach's Big Trip: Wudangshan: 19-21 Sep 2013

Master Gu (right) and his student Wu

Rach says:

Wudang Mountain, the birthplace of Wudang Kung Fu, was the highlight of our trip so far. We stayed at a Taoist centre run by "Master Gu" who has lived on the mountain for 11 years and certainly looks the part. He spends his days practising Tai Chi and teaching the people who come to stay with him. Some stay for months on end. We did early morning exercises (6.45am can you believe it) on a training ground overlooking the mountains, learnt some simple "Crane style" moves and a bit about Taoist philosophy.

Nanyan Palace

Dragon Rock

On our first day, we visited Nanyan Palace where the Dragon Rock juts out over the abyss. Countless people have lost their lives trying to walk to the end with a stick of incense. It's crazy. Why would you when a stumble = certain death? Later that evening there was a celebration for the Moon Festival (or 'Mid Autumn Festival') and everyone sat around drinking tea and eating moon cakes whilst Master Gu played the guitar and sang traditional Chinese songs. He then sang Greensleeves for us. The other guests took it in turns to sing, but shamefully Pete and I could not think of a traditional English song to sing (or one that we both knew the words to) and we did not contribute. We later wished we had sung 'Right said Fred' by Bernard Cribbins'!

Breakfast fit for a Kung Fu master

Kung Fu breakfast the next day consisted of: beancurd flour in warm water (I couldn't stomach it), steamed buns filled with greens (delish), pickled chilli and pork relish, eggs and fruit. We then set off to walk to the Golden Summit. This was challenging to say the least! There are stone steps for most of the way...rumoured to be 3000...I have no idea whether this is correct but we were climbing for over 4 hours and all I can say is we are going to have awesome legs after this trip!! There were lots of beautiful old Taoist temples on the way up. One place was a healing centre where we found a huge wok of cooked 'medicinal' concoction of snakes, giant insects and mushrooms! Yuk. I don't know whether they eat the stuff (probably) or apply it directly to the skin. It looked and smelt like a witch's brew. Lots of stalls on the way up sold fruit, cucumbers and vegetables. Not sure why you'd do a veg shop on the way up Wudang. It was a great feeling to reach the summit although the Golden Palace was a let down - it wasn't even gold!

On the way to the summit

A bit about Tai Chi:
"Chi" is described as "Lifeforce", perhaps akin to what we call the soul. Master Gu said "Imagine the difference between a living person and a dead person. The body is still there. What is missing is the Chi." The BODY, the CHI and the MIND / THINKING are the three levels that must be nurtured for a healthy life. Chi is affected in three ways: GENETICS (you are born with a base level but this can be altered for better or worse), ENVIRONMENT / NATURE and FOOD. Tai Chi originated from the Kung Fu fighting style. People realised that whilst they did not often need to fight, if the moves were slowed down, they would be good for strengthening the body, making it supple, balance, focussing the mind and nurturing the Chi.

They sell sweetcorn flavour ice-cream lollies here. A bit weird at first, but then it kind of works. Hot corn juice also appears to be a regular beverage in China.

We like the way the convenience stores there sell swords alongside the groceries. And we were particular fans of the "First Rate Sword Shop" :-)

Pete says:

When we arrived at Wudang town (a dump) at 5.40am, we met a Chinese girl called Ting who was going to the mountain as well. She wanted to stick with us for safety and we needed her Chinese language skills so we caught the local bus together. We nearly didn't go to Wudang at all because of the bad things we had heard about the bus ride up the mountain road making people sick, but actually the road was very good and not scary at all. The great thing was that as we went up, we saw various Kung Fu schools with people training out the front. It was like a film.

The best thing of all was that when we arrived at the place we had booked, which we didn't know much about because it was through a Chinese website, we were greeted by a Tai Chi master as we had booked into a training academy rather than a guest house! Ting had helped us find the little staircase built into the rock and inside we found this man in a courtyard who looked as Kung Fu as you can. He asked if we are Dale and Stephen so I explained our names and asked his. "I am Gu Shiri. You can call me Victor. My students call me Master Gu."

Master Gu is no hotelier, that is for sure. He only has 5 rooms and one is his. It made me laugh how when we arrived, he said our room wasn't quite ready (it was 6am) but later that day, when it was, it was actually quite filthy with a bizarre selection of light fittings and damp walls (it was built into the mountain so can't help that I suppose). He seemed to think the fact that our pillows were dry and warm was the height of luxury and when we asked for a towel his brought his tea towel!


The way to the training ground

Gu is all about Taoism and Tai Chi. (Tai Chi involves internal mastery of the chi, whilst Kung Fu normally means external martial arts). The man is an actual master. We got up to do morning exercises each day on a stone platform overlooking an impressive view of the Wudang mountains and to be honest I had to fight to keep a grin off my face as I stood there looking at the misty background with Master Gu demonstrating various Chi harmonisation techniques in front of me. The first morning it was only Gu, his senior student Wu, Rach and me. It seemed quite surreal. We took a few sessions of personal Tai Chi training as well and he taught us the "Crane form", which he said was the shortest form he could think of. One day he showed us Monkey style which looks quite funny really, but I think you must have to have actual monkey level balance to manage it. On the last day he allowed us to video him perfoming the Crane form to take away so we could continue to practise on our travels. This seemed a revelation to him and he appeared keen to do this for future short staying students. He also wants to visit England very much and said if we can organise some sort of Kung Fu seminar/demo/whatever for him he will come!

Being taught Kung Fu by a true master on the famous Wudang Mountain was pretty much a dream come true for me. Slightly annoyingly, Rachael seemed much more of a natural at Kung Fu than me...

After Wudang it was a bus journey down to Wudangshan town station where we waited in a local bar/restaurant/shed for 9 hours until our train was due. We just sat there drinking and watching films on their pirate cable service. We considered eating until we saw the filthy kitchen (I don't think you could possibly make a room that dirty unless you cooked in it for at least 10 years without ever cleaning) and a couple of local men who looked like they work outside a lot sat near us and seemed quite fascinated. Eventually they started shouting "Ganbei!" which means "Cheers!" every time I lifted my glass and then brought over some beer and insisted we down glasses so they could top them up. They probably thought this would make us drunk but Chinese beer is so weak and the glasses were so small, it didn't have a great effect, although they seemed quite drunk. I bought them a couple of bottles in return and they signed our journals before leaving. The only words we could communicate with were "Cheers" and "thanks" (Ganbei and xie xie)