I awake before dawn with the realization that the sleeper bus I boarded the night before hasn't moved in some time. My fellow night travelers are still asleep as I make my way to the front of the bus. The door is open and the driver is sitting on the bottom step, smoking. Before us stretches a line of unmoving cars as far as the eye can see.

"There's been an accident up ahead,'' the driver tells me, offering me a smoke. I ask him if it will be okay if I go out and have a look. "I wouldn't,'' he answers, "it's really bad.''

But curiosity gets the best of me and I leave the bus to see for myself. A hundred meters or so ahead two tractor-trailers have hit each other head on. Parts of both cabs are atomized by the impact. One of the trailers is upright but crumpled like an accordion. The other lies across the road. Next to it, a body is covered by a sheet. Only bare feet are visible, blue and swollen.

I'm on my way to Yangshuo to spend a week studying a variety of physical disciplines at a newly opened martial arts academy co-owned by my friend Richard Baimbridge.

As a former martial arts student, I am more than a little curious. Here in the Chinese heartland, Baimbridge has put up a martial arts school where half of the teachers are Westerners. More intriguing still is the school's curriculum - daily classes in karate, kung fu, tai chi, meditation and yoga. Fighting and yoga? These are disciplines that tend to attract different, and perhaps not entirely compatible, types of students.

When Richard told me of his school, my first thought was that students of soft and hard disciplines might find it odd studying under one roof. Sitting on the road in the aftermath of the accident, I wonder if it might be a metaphor for conflicts to come.

It takes several hours to clear the highway and our bus finally pulls into Yangshuo. I am to begin my intensive introduction to martial arts education "Wu Wei style'' the next morning.

The place is beautiful, a long, multistoried stone structure two kilometers or so away from the heart of Yangshuo, fronted by the Li river and surrounded by hills and orange groves. It's a sight tailor-made for postcards, but the half-dozen students on the roof are viewing it through the sting of sweat in their eyes as they are deep into katas - Shoto-Kan karate exercises. Leading them is one of Baimbridge's partners.

"This is Amit,'' Baimbridge says after the session ends, introducing me to a powerful looking man wearing cotton pants and a black tank-top. Amit shakes my hand with the kind of grip you might expect from a former Israeli army karate instructor.

"You will be studying with us beginning tomorrow?'' he asks, and I think I sense the smallest hint of challenge in his voice.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world,'' I reply.

Meanwhile, a group of Israeli students lounge in the media room, listening to techno music and chatting in Hebrew. Baimbridge, Amit and I go into the office, where they fill me in on the school's history.

The two partners first connected while studying kung fu together at the Wu Wei Si temple in Yunnan province (from which their present school took its name). Baimbridge chose Yunnan as an escape from a high-pressure job in New York, and Amit, an accomplished martial artist since the age of eight, went to China to further refine his studies.

After a lengthy period of study, the two were sent by their shifu, a Shaolin master named Jin Kong, to the renowned Shaolin temple to continue their studies.

"Our shifu warned us that Shaolin might have changed since he left 25 years ago,'' Amit says. Still, they were unprepared for the level of materialism they encountered. Shaolin had morphed from a place of legend into what the two agreed might best be described as a martial arts factory.

Returning to Yunnan, they asked for the blessings of their master to create a martial arts academy in China more true to the spirit of the "art'' in martial arts.

Baimbridge traveled to Yangshuo and it was there that he met the third partner who was to help turn the idea of a mixed martial arts academy into a reality.

Guangxi-born Luo Meijuan had been teaching in Yangshuo for more than a decade when Baimbridge came along. A tai chi master recognized as being among the top three Chen-style competitors in China, Luo has long been an established figure in Yangshuo; on any given day she can be seen teaching tai chi to backpackers on the banks of the Li River.

Baimbridge, in addition to his devotion to kung fu, has been a yoga practitioner for years. As the two practiced together, they began comparing notes on the synergy between yoga and tai chi.

"About the time I met Mei,'' says Richard, "yoga started becoming popular in China.'' The idea that the two disciplines might be compatible under one roof began to take form. Convinced that he'd found both the perfect place and the perfect partner, Baimbridge returned to Yunnan to fetch Amit.

After collecting money from backers, the three put a down-payment on the building in which I am to spend the next week.

Clean and somewhat spartan, the sleeping quarters are the usual array of beds and hammocks. A beautiful yoga ashram complete with hardwood floors takes up its own wing on the second floor. Multi-tiered rooftops encompass three separate areas for outdoor tai chi, kung fu, and weapons classes. Lining one wall are wooden spears, tai chi swords, and a long, evil looking chain with sharpened spikes on either end. Baimbridge notices me eyeing the last item.

"That's Amit's,'' he says. "I don't mess with it.''

At dawn, a bell chimes to signal the first of the day's many activities - a sunrise run along a tree-canopied village road, followed by group stretching and karate training on the banks of the river.

Led by Amit, the morning calisthenics have a definite martial feel. Students are paired off, and we practice kicking, lunging and striking as amused local women watch as they wash clothes in the river.

This exhausting session is just the beginning; back at the school, I am free to choose between two 90-minute classes - tai chi with Luo or karate with Amit. I've had enough hard style for the morning, and opt for the slow, graceful movements of tai chi.

By 9am, when most visitors in Yangshuo guesthouses are just waking up, Wu Wei students have been at it for nearly four hours.

After breakfast, a few of the more spiritually inclined students head to the meditation corner to sit through Zazen meditation. Those less Zen-minded gathered in the media room to watch an Austin Powers movie.

After this respite, the day continues. Some students opt for yoga, while others go for harder martial arts and weapons training with Amit.

Other students study Wushu with the school's newest teacher, Xiao Wu. The main disciple of fu neng bin (one of China's most respected Wushu masters), Xiao Wu teaches the art of his master, in addition to being both a karate and tai chi adept.

Though Wu Wei has been open only a few months, it already has a steady stream of students, both short- and long-term. By my second day it is clear that there is a subtle but obvious division between students of the hard and soft forms. Between classes, the latter go off to meditate or to read in hammocks. The former tend to gather in the media room to watch films like Jackass, highlights of which include men firing bottle rockets out of their butts.

The common ground between the two groups seems to be the tai chi classes. The teaching style of Luo, a master of both Chen and Yang styles, seems to incorporate enough hard and soft to keep both segments of Wu Wei society happy.

I am a soft type, I suppose, and spend most of the first three days studying tai chi with Luo and yoga with Baimbridge.

"You should at least take a couple of Amit's kung fu classes,'' he tells me on the morning of the third day. "You don't want to hurt his feelings.''

Even pre-class stretching exercises by Amit, an excellent kung fu teacher, are hard. At one point he asks to use me as a dummy to demonstrate a stretch that involves him locking my hands together behind my back with one elbow up and the other down.

"In my country we call this a police hold,'' I say, wincing in pain. "Yes, it can be used for that too,'' he replies.

I join him for more kung fu classes in the following days, and take a few Wushu courses with Xiao Wu.

Still, at the ripe old age of 36, yoga and tai chi are more in line with my speed. Though some students mix and match, others seem more inclined to stick mostly to one style. Some of the Israeli women who've come to study martial arts with Amit also do yoga with Baimbridge, but most men stick with kung fu, weapons and Wushu.

Towards the end of my stay, Baimbridge confides in me that he and Amit have different ideas of what the school might eventually become.

"Karate and kung fu students aren't much for fancy ambience,'' he says. "They're often into a more ascetic experience, studying someplace like the temple where Uma Thurman (in Kill Bill) learned martial arts. To them, a mosquito net is a luxury. And Amit is cool with Wu Wei being that kind of place.

"But yoga students, the kind I'd like to attract, expect a bit more luxury.'' Baimbridge gestures at the empty rice bowls on the round wooden table in the dining room.

"For the kind of students that Amit wants to attract, this is excellent. But I don't see Madonna coming to study yoga here without some major upgrades.''

Six days later, stretched and strained and perhaps a bit more agile for it all, I head back to Hong Kong, trading the bus for the slower (but hopefully less eventful) Guilin-to-Shenzhen train. As I pack to leave, Baimbridge suggests a line for any eventual story I might write about the school.

"You know that line from Field of Dreams, where Kevin Costner hears his inner voice say: `If you build it, he will come?' Maybe you could fit that in somehow.''

It's an appropriate sentiment. Somewhere on the outskirts of Yangshuo, four people with different backgrounds, skills and expectations have built a beautiful school. And come they will, no doubt. But at some point the owners of the Wu Wei Academy will need to work out precisely which "they'' it is they're hoping to attract.

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