For The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 9, click here.

There is a harmony in the stars, a golden mean that vibrates through all natural phenomenon, and music pervades the essence of all things if we can hear it. As the seasons changed the mellow tones and exotic rhythms of the world’s longest and most ancient Road beckoned me forth again. And, yes, the lure of new friends, brothers and sisters of the martial arts along that fabled road helped motivate me too. Because laziness and other bad habits lull us all into the deadly trap of complacency, I knew I had no choice but to shatter those fetters again and venture forth to new horizons. Thus began the Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Continued: January, February 2016. The plan for my short three week winter holiday from school is six cities in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, starting where I left off last summer: Tashkent.

I’d already gotten two Letters of Invitation for Uzbekistan – first a tourist visa good for two months, and then a journalist visa compliments of ITF Master Han in Tashkent who so graciously volunteered to help with this last summer. His connections around Uzbekistan made this trip much easier than my previous visit in many ways.

I left Beijing 4:20 pm January 29th on a direct flight to Tashkent. Flying along I noticed the LED screen saying it was 68 degrees below zero up there; we were flying at 36,521 feet into a headwind of 124 km. per hour. Given those rough conditions I was glad to be inside the plane. We arrived at 7:22 pm Tashkent time, or 10:22 Beijing time. Immigration and customs went smoothly and exiting the airport I was very happy to find someone from Tashkent Topchan Hostel with my name on a sign so it was off to my new home for a few days. For those not familiar with Central Asian culture, a topchan sometimes called “tea bed” looks a bit like a big bed except square shaped and without a mattress, which is replaced with a Persian rug and pillows. They usually have a small short legged table in the middle. It’s a place to socialize, relax, drink tea, and eat. Topchans are usually found in restaurants, gardens, homes, and in house courtyards. They’re also called tapchan, chorpoya, karavot, and takhta. Some families sleep on their topchan. They are cozy.

For those who might not travel a lot, or are burdened with an unfortunate excess of money, hostels are the best places to stay in any country because only real people frequent them; they’re homelike and oh yeah, cheap. They’re the modern equivalent of the true ancient Silk Road caravanserai (trading center and hotel) in my opinion. Traveling the Silk Road was massively multicultural and social, to be sure. I chatted for a few hours with the half dozen people here, a mix of mostly Uzbeks from all walks of life, plus an Azerbaijani who works designing/constructing tunnels, a Russian that lives in Xinjiang studying Uighur language, and a couple of others. The common language was Russian but most spoke English – like all hostels. I was also happy to find my Chinese “WeChat” (Chinese version of twitter) was working even though I still had my Chinese sim card in the phone. Then, sleep at 4:30 am Beijing time, 1:30 am Uzbek time.

Waking Saturday morning I cooked up some eggs with their local bread, had a coffee and started with the preliminary stuff I didn’t have time to do in Beijing before I left, like jotting out the phone numbers of people I knew here and others I’d contacted but hadn’t yet met.

These included: Faizi, friend, driver, and sometimes translator from my last trip, and Arteom of the Traditional Wushu Association of Uzbekistan who I’d heard about from Anna, with whom I’d chatted on Facebook but never met. Then I got the address of the State History Museum in Tashkent, and the phone numbers of some of the people here at the hostel. It’s always good to have traveler savvy local friends that speak English only a phone call away in a country where you don’t speak any of the languages.

Luckily Faizi answered the phone and was free, so while I waited for him I chatted with Oybek, one of the two founders of this here fine hostel and got his story. The idea started while he was studying in Paris but came to fruition in his hometown of Tashkent late at night in a Café talking with his friend Raphael. He sold his car, Rafael sold his flat, and together they opened this marvelous establishment in 2013. “It was pretty rough back then,” Oybek said. “We didn’t charge any money for the first couple of years and travelers helped us fix the place up. We used couchsurfing.com to get visitors. February 2015 we opened officially but we still have a lot of work to do…” All I can say is these guys got a beautiful thing going here, a modern-day relaxed and friendly caravanserai.

Faizi arrived and we were off to Beeline, the biggest Mobil company in Uzbekistan to get a new sim card, (knowing we had to go to the headquarter outlet because I’m a foreigner) then I called Arteom and firmed up a 6:00 pm meeting at one of his schools. Then, we were off for the State Museum of the History of Uzbekistan – in Tashkent which was everything I’d hoped and more, with many, many real artifacts going back to the Jurassic era, through the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and fire worshiping, Zoroastrian, Buddhist and Islamic eras, Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, and the continued Islamic era. I usually stop short of the modern era which I’d just as soon skip anyways. Fortunately a photo tells a thousand words (at least) and I took a thousand photos, so I’ll let the best of them tell this story except to say: Dreams come true.

Around 5:30 headed off to the Tashkent Traditional Wushu Association. Faizi found the school easily. A note here is needed: in China and here in Central Asia most martial arts are practiced in schools, like public schools, either as part of the curriculum or as private clubs within the school. Arteom’s Traditional Wushu club meets in several schools primarily in the evenings.

When we arrived there was a kid’s class just finishing so I introduced myself and got a couple photos of at least some of the very enthusiastic young traditional Wushu students who I might add really love their Shifu.

We had just a few minutes to chat before the adult class started. When traveling I often volunteer to start the class with some stretches (“Salute to the Sun,” of Hatha Yoga extended in some areas for martial arts), basic Wushu kicks and punches just to be polite and for fun (and my own need for a good stretch and warmup before a new class), and then of course I wanted to experience Shifu Arteom’s class.

A note here is needed. There is an old Chan (Zen) proverb about having an empty cup when visiting a master. Personally when traveling and meeting new masters and their classes I like to share a sip of my own tea as a gift to my new friends. It is traditional culture here in Asia and many places to bring a gift when visiting another person’s home. People seem to relax a lot when they know a visitor is one of the martial arts family – and willing to share – not too much, just a sip, and not just some strange fighter from afar lurking in the back of the class thinking and planning God knows what!

Shifu Arteom’s Wushu class – Being there

Shifu Arteom started the adult class with a Wudang Tai Chi form which he flowed through masterfully; then we all practiced segments to tweak our performance. The students vary in ability, from excellent to near beginner. After we did some running calisthenics before leading up to the second half of class which was practice of – Seven Star Shaolin Taolu! Some of my North Shaolin Monasteryfriends had tried to teach me this, but of course I’m a most terrible student. Still, it was ever so nice to find this Taolu, like an old friend waiting here in Tashkent. Arteom is not only a great martial artist, but also a master teacher. Like all master teachers he demonstrates, we mirror, he corrects, we practice some more and he adds another step.

After about an hour and a half of training we stopped and took some photos. Most students went home while Arteom, Faizi and I went to meet a couple of friends of the Shifu for dinner. That was great fun, super delicious beef soup with some unusual egg dish. Luckily they all spoke some English so it was a great lively humorous delicious dinner.

Before eating I interviewed Arteom and found out that his Shifu here in Tashkent is Dr. V.G. Borzov who operates Fire Dragon Wushu club. At age 54 he’s one the most senior true masters of Wushu in Tashkent. I found out Arteom started training with Dr. Borzov in 1994, and lived in Wudang for three months in 2015. Dr. Borzov is president of the Traditional Wushu Association of Tashkent, trained in Songshan Shaolin and in Tai Chi at Wudang Mountain in China.

After Action Report

My body seemed to still be on Beijing time and it was about 3:00 am Beijing time when I got back to the hostel (midnight local time). I chatted with some of the guys for a short while and hit the hay. Usually I like to type up the day before retiring, but the great workout and food left me feeling pleasantly tired so, listening to nature I slept well.

Now it’s Sunday morning 11:00. I have to play with various plans like putting together the pieces of a puzzle in trying to make a schedule for the day. First at 11:30 I’m going to meet Anar Bugagli, formerly of Silver River Dao Martial Arts School in Tashkent. He was introduced to me by an extraordinary worker at the hostel name Seyyid. Anar has trained in Xing-Yi, Bando(ancestor of Muay Thai kickboxing), Sambo, Tantric Yoga, and other arts for about the past 15 years. His master was Boris Vasilevich in Tashkent who passed away a couple of years ago. Then I really have to get to the traditional bizarre this afternoon as I’ve heard it’s in the old town and really worth the visit.

For The Silk Road Kung Fu Friendship Tour Part 11, click here.