A 25-year-old woman from Australia has stunned the internet with her impressive kung fu skills, despite only training for one month at a martial arts school located near the Shaolin temple in Henan, China.
Amelia Michels, a freelance marketing expert and poet, has spent the last two years of her life traveling the world, living in different places a few months at a time. In April, she joined the training program, with no prior kung fu experience, and by early May, when she left, she’d already learned some incredible skills.
Driven by her desire to “find the place where not belonging makes sense,” Michels had already traveled through lots of other Asian countries, including India, where she practiced yoga, and Vietnam where she learned Muay Thai.
But she knew nothing about kung fu when stepped foot in China, so armed with curiosity and enthusiasm, she totally immersed herself in the school’s strict schedule, pushing her limits day after day.
At the school, filled with a diverse crowd of international and local students of all different ages and backgrounds, her days started at 4:30 a.m., when she joined the first training session for the day, followed by breakfast and then back into action for about two to three hours.
After lunch, the schedule included more afternoon training sessions, before going back to the dorms, lights down by 9:30 p.m. sharp every night.
Despite the intense training, and leg pain that defied all sorts of painkillers, due to the intense stretching required, Michels says the experience was unforgettable, and her favorite part was the new friends she made along the way.
“It’s always about meeting the people and building relationships with them, just the small moments together, sharing dorms with strangers who then end up being super close, beautiful friends,” she told Newsweek.
“I had a brand new journal that I brought with me, and on the last day, I asked everyone to write something in there, a little message or something, which was super special to me.”
During her spare time in China, usually on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, Michels took the chance to bond with her fellow training mates, visiting nearby cities like Zhengzhou, a metropolis on the Yellow River, known for being the Shang dynasty capital, or even just renting out a hotel room to chill together and socialize.
Currently back in Vietnam, Michels is once again soaking in new experiences, which she keeps sharing with her followers on social media. But her kung fu journey is not over, yet! In fact, in October she’s heading to Morocco where she will attend a new kung fu training, hoping to take her skills to the next level.
“Kung fu means eat bitter every day,” she writes in another one of her viral Instagram posts. “Which basically means, ‘do the hard thing,” she said.
“Do it even when you don’t feel like it. It’s showing up to class when your body says stay in bed. Standing in Mabu until your legs burn. Repeating the same movement, again and again, until your body remembers it without you thinking.
“The goal is for it to become a moving meditation, allowing you to be fully present in the moment.”
Users who followed her journey at the kung fu school were stunned by how fast she learned despite the language barrier. In one of her viral videos, one user, embodiedwithbuns, said: “This looks epic. Thanks for sharing your experiences.” And another one, seasea.overseas, added: “You are killing it girl.”
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