By Kelsey Campbell, Team USA
December 17

Our last full day of training. No silly meal-tales to tell. No outrageous bartering at the Silk Market stories. No crazy Lampeisms, although the night is still young. There may be more of those to come. No, today we ended with a day of training one can only hope for overseas. A dual, followed by three matches.

We won a few matches of the dual, and afterwards, those Chinese girls we wrestled were done for the day. We continued more matches, these ones each a full six minutes, shark-bait style. 

There were talks of a game for the final evening practice. But our coaches, I think knowing we were good for more, pushed for live situations. 

That's exactly what we got. 

We were once again shark-bait, as we wrestled offensively and defensively from the front headlock, clinch, single leg, and arm-drag situations. I couldn't tell you all the partners we had, or how many goes we each wrestled. At this point, when we got tired, when we thought we were done but were then told we had another go, fingers are getting cranked, muscles are sore from our tournament style morning practice, legs are shot, and frankly, we needed to put up a fight. 

We ended that second practice with a fight. Not every situation was won, but we were in every tough situation, and we can now leave knowing we left it all on the mat. 

Until next time, more mi fan!

By Jenna Pavlik, Team USA
December 16

After two hard workouts yesterday, we had the morning off today. Captain Steiner convinced us all to make a return trip to the silk market (okay, so maybe it did not take that much convincing) to pick up those last few items for under the tree. Some of us had to include an extra duffel bag in our purchases so we can get all our stuff back home. By now, everyone has picked up the finer points of haggling and we have managed to get some really good deals. Some of our gifts may outshine Santa's this year. 

One good thing about going to the market is you make so many friends. Everywhere you go you hear "come here my friend" or "just for you I make you good deal since you are my friend". I just met some of these people and already they are my friend and are willing to give me a great deal on their merchandise. It's great! Another amusing part of the market is watching them prove their product is "real." The main method for proving purses, wallets and some clothing are real is to try to light them on fire. All the sales ladies carry lighters for this purpose. The second amusing tactic involves scissors and pearls. They scratch the pearls for like a minute with the scissors, then simply wipe away the dust and say "see, just like new, that's how you know it's real." They would have a great career in infomercials.
 
During the evening practice, we warmed up and did some piggy back chicken fighting. This got pretty intense, as there was some blood shed and some torn clothing. After the chicken fighting we did a lifting workout with the weight plates. We did as many reps as we could of three different exercises for twenty seconds each. We then switched with our partner, who did the same thing. We switched back and forth five times, took a three-minute rest and did five more sets. It was a fairly short lift, but it definitely got the job done and I'm sure we will feel it tomorrow. After the lift, we worked on some technical areas as a team with Terry and Izzy for about half an hour. We got a good dinner in us and are getting rested up for matches tomorrow. 

Kelsey has informed me that I must keep you updated on Alyssa's crazy comments, so I will end with some of the latest Lampe quotes:

-	You should call these "Lampeisms". I don't really know what isms means but I think that's what you call cool things like this

-	Is that a dinosaur? (in reference to the fish they served us at dinner)

-	Man, I need to get in touch with my holy side (during a conversation some of us were having on religion)

-	If you were someone else would you be friends with yourself? I would cause I'm pretty cool. 

-	If I buy a second jacket, I'll save money (after some not so good haggling skills at the market)

By Kelsey Campbell, Team USA
December 15

Today was another tough day of training, business as usual, as Izzy would stay. A lot has been said regarding the truly international dishes, but I'd like to take a moment and commend the Chinese Federation. They have been incredibly hospitable. One thing I've yet to mention is that up until today, all of our meals were prepared in a designated room. It's been quite noticeable that the federation here goes above and beyond to make us feel like guests, and we are more than grateful.

Practice was the usual mixture of tumbling and conditioning for a warm-up. Prior to this, Captain Steiner turned yet another new leaf, as he became the designated trainer, taping an ongoing injury in my hand. After a good warm-up, we got right into things, with some one-minute live goes. We followed those with three matches, three different partners. It was a good practice, as we are getting good feedback. We are putting ourselves in situations that we've needed to work on. Sara Fulp-Allen received praise from the coaches for the way she has gone after specific areas of technique, and the progression has showed. 

The second practice involved a great warm-up. As always, we played creative games often involving some aspect of wrestling, thinking, and listening. One of the games today was makeshift duck-duck-goose gone musical chairs. An inner circle in which all the wrestlers stood, facing the middle, our feet wide apart. The outer circle ran around the edge until signaled by the Chinese coach, at which point you had to shoot through someone's legs. If by the end of the round you didn't make it through you had to make an animal noise. Sadly, I was of this group near the end. As I prepared for my big animal noise debut, Erin boldly began to "ribbit." My frog noise making dreams had been dashed. Never fear, I had a back up: dinosaur roar, complete with hand motions. 

This workout was mainly individual technique, which was helpful since we've mostly wrestled live situations.

After practice, the Chinese Federation hosted a banquet for us at a fancy restaurant nearby. We were served Duck and the works. We also learned how to say the numbers 1 through 10 in Chinese. I am really grateful for our coaches, Terry and Izzy. They have built great relationships with the Chinese Federation, as well as with others, so that when we do come here, they treat us to events like these. The hospitality is similar when we visit Canada, Poland, and other countries, as well...

Following the banquet dinner, Jessica and I decided to compose a list of Alyssa quotes. This trip honestly would not be the same without her. So far, we have come up with three, one of which Jenna previously mentioned: "… Are they Sunchips? If they're Sunchips they're good for you cause they're made from the sun." Alyssa, what about Sunny Delight? Alyssa: "It's made from the sun too!" Secondly: "Are you 'camcordering' me?" I have no doubt that we'll have more to come on the Alyssa Quote List.

Tomorrow we have the morning off, so the team will be making another venture to the Silk Market. Until then, more mi fan!

By Jenna Pavlik, Team USA
December 14

After an eventful day off, we got back to training hard today. We had two 3-hour workouts, with only three hours in between. Needless to say, it was a long and tiring day, but we got a lot out of it. This morning we warmed up in the traditional Chinese way with some running and tumbling, followed by some tag-like games. We are beginning to actually pick up the rules of these games and are faring a little better because of it. One of the games involves addition, and Alyssa admitted she sucked at this one because she was not a quick thinker, and instead was better at long thinking. When I inquired as to what she used her "long thinking" for, she replied in her usual calm and cool way, things like long problem solving and long division, duh. So naturally, one would assume she was good at math. Only when she has a calculator, she responded. This conversation got us in a better mood after the long first practice. After the hour long warm-up, we did some drilling (this was the first time the Chinese drilled during a practice) and then wrestled three 10-minute goes. This was followed by some individual technique work.

We began the evening practice with another extensive warm-up, including Izzy and company singing and dancing to the song YMCA. One of the "punishments" for not winning one of their games is that you have to sing in front of everyone. The games included buddy carry races and team races.  After the physical and vocal warm-up, we headed to the opposite side of the gym for some weight training. The Chinese are very strong physically on the mat, and this workout showed us why. We were put into groups of 5 and rotated around the room to different stations, where we did 5 sets of 10-20 reps for each exercise. Some stations included lifts we were familiar with, while some were new to us. Erin gets bonus points for her fancy footwork and "Charlie Brown" style dancing while doing one of the lifts. She redeemed herself with excellent form on the power cleans at the next station. The lift was very fast-paced for a little over an hour and a half. This was followed by thirty minutes where we were free to choose what we wanted to do. Tatiana and Erin held their own in a game of badminton with the Chinese coaches during this time. 

Another topic worthy of discussion here is the traffic. People here do not know how to drive. On our way to the Great Wall yesterday, there was an accident and people got really crazy. One person decided they didn't want to wait, so they turned around and started driving in the shoulder going the opposite way that traffic was going. Further up, the shoulder simply became another lane and people were weaving in and out of traffic like they were really going to get anywhere fast.

Later on in the trip, a car missed their exit, so they decided to back down the shoulder about a quarter mile to get to it. The problem was that they were not driving straight so cars were swerving everywhere. Izzy had to turn around in the bus at one point because he said the traffic reminded him of a video game. The only problem is that in video games you get another life, but I don't think that is how it works in real life. We learned that in China, you can only drive on certain days, based on your license plate number. If your plate ends in 1 or 6, you can drive Monday; 2 and 7 on Tuesday; 3 and 8 on Wednesday; 4 and 9 on Thursday and 5 and 0 on Friday. Everyone can drive on Saturday and Sunday. They say this is to cut down on pollution, but I think it is to cut down on the number of traffic fatalities. 

We are doing some team bonding over games and the movie Miracle tonight, so I will end this on that note. Wrestlers are competitive in EVERYthing, so I'm sure there will be stories to tell about our "friendly" game tomorrow.

By Kelsey Campbell, Team USA
December 13

Today was most entertaining for the women's national team, as we had a day off to explore Beijing. We started things off with a visit to the Great Wall of China, which is more or less China's version of our infamous incline. Only bigger. We were all a little worried that Terry might schedule another trip back, just so the national team would have the opportunity to run the entire wall. I have no doubt that in his lifetime, Captain Steiner will conquer this feat. All joking aside, it was quite the experience. The wall is about 5,500 miles long and truly lives up to the hype. It was here that some of us also experienced our first case of bartering. More on that later. Jessica was amongst the only four to reach the "top," at which she insists the smog looked like fog.
 
As we headed back to the bus after a fews hours of Great Wall hiking, Mr. Peng was most impressed with Jenna and Leigh's matching red jackets they received through their participation in a recent parade. He then laughs: "You are like 'Spicy' girls." Although he most definitely meant to compare them to the past British, girl-group icons, we ran with it. Suddenly, Leigh garnered the title "Curry Spice," Jenna followed it up with "Chili-pepper Spice," and I was bestowed with "Wasabi Spice." 
 
It escalated from there.
 
Elena was the self-titled, "All-Spice," Jessica was naturally named "Habanero Spice," and Tatiana-"Cilantro Spice." I had hoped "Pico de gallo Spice" would make the cut, but we finally agreed that salsa's do not count. Whitney was named ... "Horseradish Spice" And of course, we mustn't forget Captain Steiner. "Old Spice." Although this is after shave, and not an actual spice, it stuck.
 
We made it back to the training center just in time for lunch. Same as always. Some of us rested while others did laundry. A couple hours later we headed to the Silk Market.. I heard a lot about the great bargains you can get on high-end merchandise. We voted as a team to meet up two hours later to head back home again by bus. Had some of us known the time it took to get that good bargain, we might have voted three hours ... Or more.
 
We entered the Market to friendly greetings. You almost felt like a princess, as merchants dressed you in their finest. Then you ask, "what is your offer?" It only gets crazy from there. Numbers like 1500 yuen for a designer purse, to 600 for a nice piece of luggage. We learned to stay in pairs. Some of us, that is. We have two bartering stand-outs that should be mentioned: Adeline and Sara. Those girls know how to talk an item down. Strong against the merchant powers, they backed us in our times of need. Jenna also receives Honorable Mention for her price-haggling skills. Alyssa didn't fare so well. She strayed from the power in numbers, and found herself with a nice piece of luggage. Prices mentioned earlier. She did come out with a nice wallet, though. At certain points, merchants were angrily swinging, as we pulled each other out of the line of fire. I must say, the Silk Market is definitely a good means for team bonding. 
 
The time ran down, and about half of us headed back to the training center. Captain Steiner and a few others stayed to talk some more deals with the vendors. 
 
All in all, though we spent the day off the mat, we learned quite a few things. We learned to say "I don't want," in Chinese, we learned to boldly name our final price, we learned to always bring extra tissue when visiting the Great Wall, and we learned to stick together in times of conflict. Until next time, more mi fan!

By Jenna Pavlik, Team USA
December 12

Today was a good mix of hard workouts and fun in China. We started out this morning with a tough workout consisting of live goes where each person was offense and defense for a round of 1 minute, 30 seconds, 20 seconds, and 10 second goes. We did 6 rounds like this after an extensive warmup and some agility drills. After the live portion, we worked on technique for 20 minutes and followed that up with some conditioning. The workout lasted just over 3 and half hours. We were told the afternoon workout was a lift, but we have come to realize not to believe everything we are told over here. The workout was actually buddy carries for about an hour, which I guess could be considered lifting, followed by an intense game of soccer. We got off to a bit of a slow start during the game, but redeemed ourselves in the second half.

After the workout, I accompanied the A team (Ali and Adeline) to the Silk market. Adeline is quite the shopper and made sure we got some great deals. The silk market is a unique experience that words cannot fully describe. I must say I got a self-esteem boost walking down the aisles and hearing "Pretty lady, come in my store, I make you the best deals." I won't ruin any Christmas day surprises with details of our purchases, but we got some pretty good stuff. We met up with "Captain" Steiner, Coach Izzy, Elena and Leigh while at the market and assisted Captain in purchasing 30+ silk shoe bags. The award for the worst buy goes to Ali for her iPhone that only makes emergency calls. We had some good laughs coming up with alternative uses for it though.

Tomorrow is our off day and we are all pretty excited about visiting the Great Wall and perhaps a return visit to the Silk market. It is great having a little free time to do some sightseeing and experience the culture.

By Kelsey Campbell, Team USA
December 11

So, I think it is fair to say, you never know what to expect in a Chinese wrestling workout. But it has been most entertaining, nonetheless. Some of us are still adjusting to the time change, some are adjusting to warm-ups. I have learned my strengths and weaknesses here, as I have been given the "sloth" title for my impeccable bear-crawl via wrestlers on the floor. It sounds about as complicated as it is. This morning was no less interesting. As mentioned before, we really just never know what to expect in any given workout. This morning, Terry informed us that our workout would be "not so intense." 
 
By native definition, this meant there would not actually be any wrestling. A recovery practice. Regardless of what we do, I can can vouch on the Chinese team's behalf-they never lack in  zeal. They always go 100%. The warm up today was more listening drills, agility games, jogging, and..... cadence? Yes-we did some drill. Which I actually have some experience in from past years of drill team. But in spite of this, our group (we were divided into four) still finished a heartbreaking fourth. We made a comeback in the "race" that followed. 
 
Then, naturally, we played volleyball. Give the women's national wrestling team a soccer ball. Give us a basketball. Even give us a butt-ball, and we can hold our own. Volleyball, on the other hand, is definitely not our strength.
 
Evening practice was similar to the others. We've learned that "50 percent," "sparring," and "drilling," consistently amount to live wrestling. It can be frustrating, or it can be beneficial, depending on how you react. We did our usual thorough warm-up, which lasted about 45 minutes. We followed it with ten minute go of 50 percent (live). We then switched partners for another ten minute go of technique..... live. Practice ended with some strengthening drills and to finish, we worked on some individual technique.
 
Dinner was the most impressive, most identifiable, and I suppose most American of all. Perhaps our awesome servers are catching on to the plates that come back the most empty. Ku'u has been the meal champ this trip. I'm certain that she has tried at least once, every single plate.  This is more than I can say for the rest of us. 
 
Tomorrow we will open with a mat workout in the morning, and some lifting in the evening. Until then, more mi fan!

By Jenna Pavlik, Team USA
December 10

Today was fairly uneventful outside of training. There were the entertaining games of "guess the dish" in the cafeteria, but most of the action happened on the mat. The workout this morning consisted of a warm up and some 3 minute matches.

Tonight we warmed up and then did some live goes from the front headlock, clinch and par terre positions. The Chinese warm-ups are very different than the ones we are accustomed to. They usually start out with some sort of agility/coordination game, which is followed by two lines running in opposite directions around the mat. After the running is where it gets interesting. One day we played a tag game similar to slap back that some of you may be familiar with. The Chinese are very sneaky at this and were easily amused by setting up the Americans and watching us chase them for a majority of the game. Tonight we followed the running up with some agility in a circle where each person must do a certain action, such as leap frog or hopping on one foot, over every person. This becomes quite a workout when there are over 60 girls in the room, as there are here. The workout was challenging, in particular, for Alyssa who seemed to have trouble staying on her feet and for Kelsey who earned the nickname "Sloth" for her speedy performance during this workout.  The large number of athletes, however, is great for training as we never run out of a new face and style to wrestle. 

The real excitement came at meal times. It is always entertaining hearing what everyone thinks is in the dishes. There is always a variety of food on the turn table in the middle of each table, but dinner tonight was perhaps the most questionable. There were some bones that had no meat on them, which we later found out was the shoulder of a pig and we were apparently supposed to eat the marrow out of them. There was a meat that we are still unsure of what it was. We were able to eliminate pork, beef and chicken, and decided it was best to stop playing the guessing game after that. There has been a plate of "meat" on the table every meal so far and we found out tonight it was sliced pigs ear. The most intriguing dish was the big bowl of soup that contained several unidentifiable items. Sara took one particular rubbery black thing out of it and asked one of the Chinese girls to locate what it was in her Chinese/English dictionary. We decided we should leave the soup alone when the Chinese girl interpreted the substance as "problem". I have a pretty strong stomach, but even I have trouble eating something interpreted as problem. 

The hotel we are staying in, The Olympic Sports Center Hotel, is very nice. They still have a lot of Beijing Olympic signs and memorabilia proudly displayed. The rooms are much nicer than most places we stay overseas. The mattresses are a little harder than the Hilton ones we are used to sleeping on at the training center, but the shower is large enough to "have a party in" according to some of the girls. Kelsey was happy that we have a toilet in our rooms, as opposed to the hole in the floor in the bathroom in the practice room. The practice room is also very nice. It is larger than most high school gyms and has 6 full mats laid out in half the room. The other half is occupied by weight and cardio machines. We have 2 more mat workouts tomorrow, and a mat workout and lift on Saturday. Sunday is a recovery day, so we will probably get some sight-seeing and shopping in then.

The trip has been a great learning experience and very entertaining so far, and I'm sure we will have more stories for you tomorrow. I have included a few pictures of the venues and some examples of our meal spreads, which probably do them more justice than my words.

By Kelsey Campbell, Team USA
December 9

Day one in Beijing, and naturally, we are off to an entertaining start. This could be in part, due to the group of individuals on the trip. The U.S. Women's National Team, plus and minus a few. One thing that came out of the long travel was our coach's new title, Captain Steiner, for Terry. The flight captain was also a Steiner, and it caught on with some of the girls. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by Mr. Peng, and were finally on our way to the Beijing National Training Center. The hotel accommodations are great, I might add. We entered the facility, most of us ready to collapse, but hungry as we were, gathered for the six o'clock feast that awaited us.
 
As always, this is when the humor began. I walked into the dining room area to see Ali clutching a liter of Coke. Alyssa follows up every satisfied bite with "this is delicious." Dinner, as with most of the meals I am finding, began with a rice of some kind, bread of some kind, and a meat of some kind (usually unidentifiable). Tatiana reminds me of the all-you-can-eat shrimp, but with the shrimp I will avoid details. There will undoubtedly be more on this to come.. Meals in China are never just a meal, and always a feast. The three course meal is followed with about four more plates. Once we've all reached a food coma, they bring out dessert: watermelon slices, which Adeline is happy about. Around 9 p.m. most, if not all of us, are out and asleep.
 
This morning's breakfast was similar to dinner. What I am also noticing about the meals, besides the high content of protein, is that all the meals are interchangeable. After breakfast, some of us did a light cardio workout, some went out and walked off the jet lag. 
 
It was here that Captain Steiner mentions the infamous "WuMart." He also claims to have seen the grocer 10 minutes into his morning run. Had I known the actual distance of WuMart, it is safe to say I would have avoided what turned into a two-hour adventure.
 
We started out with eight, and returned with five, as some just couldn't handle the distance. And I knew once we began entering Shanghai, something was not right. However, an hour and a half into it, Terry exclaims with a relieved clap of his hands, "Wu Mart!" We had all doubted it's existence, but Captain Steiner was once again redeemed. WuMart turned out to be a middle-ground between Walgreens and Walmart, and it did not disappoint. Everyone made it back safe, but there's a good chance we'll taxi it to WuMart next time around.
 
The first official workout with the Chinese team, as always when we travel overseas, was not exactly what we expected. It's always a good indicator of how resilient we can be when we expect a light drilling practice that turns into 30-40 minutes of live goes. A good stretch and rub-downs followed, and it was time for dinner. Once again, we were overwhelmed with meats, vegetables, and breads of all kinds. 
 
As the night comes to a close, I am personally feeling optimistic. Although this trip is a little unique, without the usual competition to complete it, we're all being given a great opportunity to experience a truly international two weeks with an elite wrestling team. And of course, funny experiences to accompany it. Until next time, more mi fan please!