Today is day 67, that means that Project 100 Days has successfully passed its two-thirds mark– a big slice of the chronological pie. Strike a Pose!!! Films is shooting a documentary on the training exercise, and it’s been an exciting honor to see these students make so much progress.
Here’s a brief clip from the doc, of teacher Fundi Weeks and student Robert Ramirez (remember him?) performing their two-man staff set routine, part of the training for 100 Days.
What is Project 100 Days, you might ask? Project 100 Days is the multimedia documentation of this time period, as captured by me, Dylan Hintz, and the students participating in the training system.
For those of you still uninformed, 100 Days is a training program put in place by Self Mastery System’s head instructor, Fundi John Weeks, that honors the monastic tradition. What does this
Essentially, 7 students of Self Mastery Systems, the Rockville-based Tai Chi/Shaolin Kung Fu/Yoga school, take part in a 100 day long training exercise in which they must complete a number of requirements on an every day basis. These include, but are not limited to:
- Practicing everything they know every day
- Increasing the total number of repetitions in certain exercises every week
- Reinforcing their flexibility through numerous stretching exercises
- Maintaining complete sobriety
and, possibly hardest restriction of all for the group of 18-28 year-olds?
- Complete, 100% celibacy.
They are two thirds of the way in. How many students are still going? What challenges have they faced? You’d have to read the blog at Selfmasterysystems.org or see the upcoming documentary to find out. It’s been a hard road, but the path has been enlightening for those taking it, and STRIKE A POSE!!! Films has been there to document it since the first steps of the journey.
Students of SMS gathered together for their most recent Sash and Proficiency test.
Instructor Fundi Weeks is in the red shirt.