Have you been wondering whether to join us for the Italy Camp this year? Here is a short account by Assistant Instructor Marc, detailing his personal highlights from last year. The trip will be June 16-23, and we’re still taking names, so if you’d like to join us, please talk to your Instructor – Dave
So for me a holiday always starts the moment I close the front door. The journey to the destination is just as important as the destination itself. This year was going to be different in that I was driving to the airport picking up Ben and Nadya along the way. There is just something special about sharing a car journey with friends. We met Jason and Lise at the airport.
Dave arrived the following morning, along with Daniele and Anne. My favourite part of camp is the discussion about what we all want to learn. Do we want to learn the Wuxi finger hold? No. Do we want to learn the Five point palm exploding heart technique? No. What do we want to learn? Patterns. Without exception we all want to learn the basics. What a humble bunch we are. Much to Dave’s chagrin, he had to point out that martial arts is usually about more than one person. [Ie. some contact training must be involved…! – Dave]
That afternoon, as with every afternoon for the rest of the week we practiced our hard style patterns. Daniele practicing his spear hands, Nadya working on getting her staff to vibrate and as for myself, I was working on my jumps. I really enjoy training like this, it can feel very intense but at the same time quite relaxing. There is no pressure and the time can go by in what feels like an instant. If you’re hot, go cool down in the pool, if you’re hungry go grab something from the kitchen. Some people trained in t-shirts and shorts; some people trained in their swimming trunks. Some people trained in the blazing hot sun; some people found the shade of an olive tree to train under. Sunscreen and water bottles were never far away.
Ben practising his iron bridge.
Was it just us training in the hot Italian sun? Oh no… we were occasionally visited by the odd local who were more than happy to demonstrate their skills.
We woke up every morning at the crack of dawn to practice Shuang Yang our Tai Chi style. The rising Italian sun, and the fresh morning air overwhelming our senses. The final morning, we woke up extra early to get practice in before we flew back to London. In my haste I forgot to put on mosquito repellent. Boy, are those Italian mosquitoes vicious! I was scratching myself for the next week!
Breakfast was a team effort where we quickly got to work out who specialised in what; Jason doing the coffee, me doing the tea and Ben making the eggs. Fresh Italian bread with olive oil, and the legendary Bomba Calabrese.
Lunch and dinner were our usual hangout La Miniera di Galparino, who as usual were on their A-game. Of course, no visit would be complete without a visit to the giant bench where we all get to put on our most ridiculous kung fu pose.
This was my first camp as an instructor, and as such, my first grading as an instructor. So far, I have decided that the best thing about being an instructor is the level of feedback, it is just so much better than being a normal student. Having become an instructor, I think that it is something everyone should pursue.
I really enjoy training hard, for me it means when it comes to meal times I am starving and then I really enjoy my food. When going to bed I am exhausted and that means a really good night sleep.
If you want to spend a week getting to know new friends, getting both fitter (due to lots of training) and fatter (due to large quantities of food), I can’t think of a better way to spend a week.
