Shaolin - Day 3

Ouch. It's starting to get pretty intense. Starting full out training at 6 every morning and finishing up around 9:30 every night. Master Ming (that'd be the mystery monk from before) seems determined to snap my hamstrings before this is over. I've become petrified of stairs because my quads have been rendered more or less useless by the stinking horse stance. Beau sweats like 4 gallons per session. I should have brought galoshes for training next to him. We are learing a lot though, and when it doesn't hurt worse than everything holy it actually feels pretty good. I figured we were probably at about the 4 year old level but Beau said he saw a 4 year old spinning on his head and kicking in all directions yesterday......I bet I could take him.
When we haven't been training we've gotten to take in a bit of the area surrounding the temple. We walked through what I guess passes for a cemetery for Shaolin abbots (head monk) - it was basically a forest of enormous stone spires reaching around 40ft in height. Pretty crazy. Through the permanent haze that hangs in these mountains (we haven't decided if it's just always cloudy here or if even the country in China is dirtier than Jersey) ((ok, not that dirty, sorry China)) an open pavilion and giant stone buddha are sometimes visible on one of the distant peaks. We asked Jay about them and he told us not to worry, we'd get to run up there during training one day. Swell.
Apparently one of the head masters here in ancient times stood meditating for 9 years facing that mountain and the stone that he was facing now has his shadow imprinted on it and is sitting in one of the temples. 9 years is pretty impressive considering I'm already getting impatient just writing this.
The food's really good but Beau says the spare ribs weren't so tasty on their way back up. Hope everyone's doing well back at home, family and friends.