Epic 18-Day Adventure: Battling High Elevation & More in Mexico

None of this is usable. You don't... We can't do this anymore. We don't edit, we gotta watch this, you know that? I'm sorry, we're really tired, we can't do this anymore. It's 5am right now, and we're at the airport on our way to Mexico. And I never knew it was so busy at 5am at airports. There's one thing people often mistaken us for, and it's flight attendants. And you can tell because we're all dressed in suits. But take a look at our luggage, okay? If you see this, you know that we're machine performers, and not flight attendants. Unless we have our own airline. Xinyi Airlines? Well, I'm a little bit nervous because when we get to Mexico, I think we might have to get interviewed. Do you have any tips? Don't be too nervous if we find someone. What if they ask difficult questions? Give a difficult answer. Okay, sounds good. I found him. Oh, you guys have been recording? I've been recording the whole time. Oh, wow. All these snacks. Snacks. That's a book, Jisung. More snacks. So if you notice something with me, everything I have is inflatable. There you go. So easy now. You're all set. Thank you. After 12 hours of traveling, we finally arrived in Mexico. Hola, Mexico! The dancer, Sam Pooh, also known as one of the three musketeers of Shen Yun, will perform for the fifth time in Mexico and shared his enthusiasm with NTD. We've been waiting for two years and I'm finally here. I'm very excited because the Mexican audience has been very enthusiastic the past few years. This year's show is very exciting, so I think the audience will be even more enthusiastic. Oh, okay, we're finally here. Yeah, very long day. And we were enjoying the view earlier, but let me tell you, it's going to get intense from start to finish. Because tomorrow, we have one performance. The day after that, we have two performances. And the day after that, another two performances. So it's going to be five shows in three days. So it's going to be pretty intense, and let's get some rest, man. Hey, guys! Wait, give me a towel, it's freezing! Give me a towel, it's freezing! Before bed, Sam decided to get some late-night exercise in hopes that he can adjust to the higher altitude here. So when you do an aerial or a flip, do you get more airtime? No, I wish I did, though. Some people did tell me that they feel lighter. Yeah. They feel lighter, but I personally haven't felt lighter. I'll tell you, like the mic, when I lift it in high elevation, it feels a lot lighter. No, wait, really? Yeah. It's like it's nothing. It's up and down, up and down, no problem. You should lift some weights then. Also, when I do gestures, my arms feel super light. Sometimes they're floating up. Yeah, at sea level, that mic is heavy. Just finished my workout. Did you do it with a mask the whole time? Yeah, I was trying to make it more extreme. That airline is taking off. Let's go. Nice. Okay, so this is lunch. The last time I was here was in, I think, 2018. And that year, we had to dance with these gigantic shields. And I remember it was really, really tiring. So right now, I'm actually a little bit scared. It's going to be a battle here, for sure. So I heard some people say that, like, a method to deal with elevation is to not think about it, like pretend it doesn't exist. And it doesn't work. It's my seventh time performing in Mexico. And even after all these years, I have to tell you, I'm still a little bit scared of the elevation here. I'm so scared. Okay, but the thing is, it's usually a little bit worse than you think. So I'm kind of scared. I know it's going to be tiring. But when the performance starts, it gets a little bit better about the excitement. Yeah, my first time in a high elevation was in Denver. That year, we had a Tibetan dance. Because Tibetan dance was the most tiring dance. And how I got over it was because I was thinking, you know, the Tibetans, they live in a higher plateau. The highest place on the earth, basically, is where they live. Yeah, and I was like, oh, man, wait. While I was doing the dance, I was like, oh, man, this is how they probably feel like. This is giving me some inspiration. And then I kind of got over the dance like that. Look at all the selection of snacks we have here. Jisung already terrorized this place. Let me introduce you. Chili-covered mangoes. Oh. There's like different layers of flavor. First, you get a little bit spicy. And then sour. And then sweet. And then spicy again. Very interesting. Oh, I like this. This is almost like a Rice Krispie for chocolate. Get some of that. Awesome. Okay, so we just finished our tech rehearsal. And I was feeling the elevation. But let's ask Jisung. Did you feel it? Yeah, I mean, I felt it. It was pretty tiring. But it's not like... I think Salt Lake City was worse. Because at that time, it was winter. So it's very dry and high elevation. And then over here, it's still kind of tiring. But not that bad because the air is not dry. It's more humid. All right, we'll have our show tonight. And we'll see how it feels for the show. Yeah. The message is incredible. It's incredible. The stage part is also very cool. It's very different from what you're used to. So it's like a different spark. It's very, very cool. I highly recommend it. Hola! We just finished our first show in... Mexico! And right now, it is 11.24 p.m. It was so great to see our audience today. And the Sunny Vibes were definitely kicking it. And we're so ready for our two shows tomorrow. At 4 and 9 p.m. Bye! After our performance, we discovered a small surprise in our hotel. People stay up late in Mexico. No wonder our evening performances start at 9 p.m. here. In Mexico, it's always a party. He's young for Mexican people. We just finished dance class. How do you guys feel? I feel a lot better. I actually felt really good too. I think I'm getting used to it. Feel good too? I feel good too. All right, great. So I guess we're ready for our two performances today then. What's interesting is our show is at 4 p.m. today. And our second show is at 9 p.m. Which is going to be really, really late. So my plan right now is I stop looking at my watch. So I can trick myself to think that it's right now 7.30. All right guys, we just finished our second performance of the day. And to be honest, today's performance, I was literally crying. Really what? During one of the pieces, I got stabbed in the eye by somebody's thumb. Yeah, so I was tearing up and my eye was all red. But you have to persevere on stage, right? So I just kept pushing through and it was a really, really tough act of time. But it was okay. I was just like crying while dancing. But it was all right. Let's get going. All right? Let's go. The performance starts in one and a half hours. Guess what Sam is doing. He's got to get a little bit of a nap in before we start the performance, I guess. But we just woke up like one and a half hours ago. All right, let's go. We got to get on stage now. Jisung, Sam is napping still. Still? I think he just woke up. Matthew, the bubble tea guy, is also napping right now. But getting some work in while he's napping. We woke him up. We woke up Matthew. How do you guys feel? Are you guys ready for the performance? I'm super sore. I'm very tired and sleepy. Like super sore. Jumped too much yesterday. It was a mistake. When I close my eyes, they sting. But it's okay. We're going to be so awesome. Yeah, we're going to try really hard. We just had two shows yesterday. We have two more today. We've got this. Super show me. We just had two performances yesterday. Yes. Another two today. And it's pretty early right now. 1pm performance. Surprisingly, I actually feel pretty good. I think what's also helping us get through this is in 2020, we missed a performance that year because of the pandemic. Yes. So the audience has been waiting to see this performance. We just finished our double-double. Double-double! It was not easy because double-double and there's high elevation here. It's like 5,100 feet. Okay. So, you know, we had to get used to it throughout these few performances. But we finally finished. What I want to say is like on stage, you're never going to see us like tired like this. On stage, we're always going to be very professional and giving it our all. For every single dancer in the show, I can assure that quality is assured, you know. But right now, it's a little bit behind the scenes. So we want to show you what our life is really like. You know, you can also check out Shady Creations on YouTube, you know, our channel right now. But the reason why we're able to push through in these tough times is because it's really our goal and our mission to share with you our culture. You know, right now, we're in Mexico and it's really our pleasure and our honor to share with the audience what we're, you know, presenting on stage right now. So that's why we can really pull through. When I heard that we added a show, you know, first I was like, oh, it's going to be really tiring. But I was thinking about, oh, that means there's going to be more audience when it comes to watch, right? And that's a good thing. And that's a thing that I actually want to do. Hi, guys. So we just finished our 2-2 yesterday. It was pretty tough, but you know, we got each other. After these 2-2 shows, my shin splinters were like hurting quite a bit, especially before the last show. But we just really had to push through. And I'm sure a lot of other dancers had a lot of different challenges that they had to overcome that you couldn't tell. Like a lot of things go behind the scenes. And it was crazy, like before our second show, like last night, we had like 20 minutes and we look on stage and everybody's like in a split position, probably like exhausted. But we're like, no, we've got to do this. I think every dancer goes through this and we definitely go through it together as a team, which is why I think Sherry Hood is so special. And it's easier for us to get through the days because we're so close. We're like family and we're just like supporting each other all the time. Like I see her after she flips and stuff, she's kind of like limping. She's like, oh, Cece, are you okay? You know? Yeah, I know. I feel like a lot better because like, you know, when you're like going through stuff with people around you, it just makes you feel like, okay, you're not alone in this. Our purpose is so strong. We're doing it together as a team. Look at what we got. Sam is still getting more food, but we got this. We got chicken. It looks like it's grilled chicken. They gave us tortillas. We got some tacos here. We got some fries. We got some French toast. What else can I say? But let's dig in. Let's do this. This year's schedule in Mexico is the tightest that it's ever been. We have 18 performances in 18 days. And five of those days are doubles. Two performances in a single day. Whenever we're not performing, we're sitting on the bus, heading to our next city. Luckily, we had the chance to grab lunch at the mall. Jalapeno chicken tender from KFC. The flavor is really strong. It's really good. It feels like a chicken tender that was drenched in like a salsa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, KFC, Mexico, you're doing something right. Jisung liked the KFC so much. Obviously his favorite that he had to go get second. Jisung got some more French toast and ice cream. How powerful is this guy at eating? Only after a tutu though. Oh, it's really good. This is a really big mall and there's a lot of stores here, but we spent all of our time at the food court. So now we got to make it back to the bus. Okay, let's go. We have escorts here. Like they're blocking the road for us right now. Right now we're in Mexico City and this is definitely the hardest city in all of Mexico. First of all, the stage is really big. It's really wide. It's about 65 feet wide. Run for your life. You have to run around a lot on stage, right, while dancing and to travel more. So it's more demanding for your stamina. And number two, the altitude here is really, really high. So it's about 7,500 feet. Our theater is elevation, okay, the altitude. It's going to be a little bit of a challenge, I think. And tomorrow we have two performances again. Let's do this, man. Sam, you want to go explore the lobby a little bit? Let's go. This place is so big. It's crazy. Our theater in Mexico City, the Auditorio Nacional, is one of the biggest performing arts venues in the world, seating up to 10,000 people. Oh my goodness, actually. All right, the best seats in the house, probably around like the 10th row, around here. And the reason is because you get to see the dancers' expression and also all the formations. It's not too close and not too far. So this is probably around the best seat in the house, right here. This kind of big movement is going to look like something different over there. Wow. Yeah, you see, that's why you got to exaggerate on stage. But in real life, it actually looks a little bit more clear. On the camera, it feels different, to be honest. We're trying to come down really early because there's a lot of audience members today. So they have to start early, start seating people early. It's coming in like 20 minutes before what we usually do. Well, obviously, it's not like all the other shows here. They're athletes. They're trained to do this job. The jumps seem to fly. It's not like a common musical piece. It's really a show of dance, of acrobatics. Very beautiful. Spectacular. Just finished our first show in Mexico City. It was pretty intense, to be honest. And we always say that, but this time, for realsies, it's actually intense. So much burning my chest during the dances, okay? But something really helped me push through. And what it was, was I saw the audience and just see so many people. I think we opened up 5,000 seats only. Because the seats on the side and the back are not that great, okay? One show here is equivalent to like five shows in some of the smaller theaters that we performed before. We performed in some historic theaters, which only seat about 1,000 people. You know what? It might be like twice as tiring here with the altitude and everything and the huge stage, but it's all worth it. In the middle of the performance, I was really tired. And then Will came up to me. He's like, bro, bro, bro. We can seat 5,000 people. Let's do this. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, okay, okay. It's worth the effort. He pumped me up. And then to celebrate, we got some bubble tea and cups. Two shows tomorrow, okay? That's like 10,000 audience tomorrow and another 5,000 the next day. 15,000 more. This is worth it, okay? I don't think I'm going to film tomorrow or the day after. We got to focus on the performance really because it is really like mentally. We got to be really, really focused, okay? 1 p.m. show tomorrow. And right now, it's currently 11.30. We got to get back. It's Maxwell Lighting. Party. Fiesta. Good night, boys. Good night. See you guys tomorrow. Jisung is very quiet right now. Explain, Jisung. How do you do? I have some issue with my stomach. My body condition is not so good. I've been struggling. I mean, honestly, the high attitude and bigger stage was okay, bearable. But like that I have to go, you know, like nonstop. Cut to the chase. What are you talking about? Let the audience know. You had to run to the bathroom. Yeah. Many times during the performance. So many times during the performance and that is pretty horrible. All right, you got this. I believe in you. Can you do it? I can do it. Mindset, what I just said. I can do it. Definitely. No problem. Actually, it's not as bad as my first year in Mexico. I had the food poisoning too today. Oh. Yeah. And it was like, it was like a serious struggle for me because like it was altitude and then it was food poisoning. And then another guy had food poisoning too. Was it really bad? Like Jisung, not that bad, right? No, no, no. The thing is, another guy had food poisoning and he's like throwing up and I felt like I felt it coming up too. And I was like, oh, snap kicks. So basically I was in a mental battle to convince my body that it wasn't, it didn't have a food poisoning the whole time. It was like, okay, I know Jisung is looking at me like, oh, this guy is such a wimp right now, but it was actually a struggle because I felt like it was coming up and I was like, I was like, no, no, fight it. No, no, no. And the whole time, but like halfway into the show, I realized like, you know, like it's more fear than it is actually the thing bothering you. So I was like, I just kind of killed the fear. It's like, what if it bothered me? You know, I'm still going to fight through it. So that's how I kind of got through it. But it's nothing compared to what Jisung was going through. So I don't even want to talk about it. It's fine. Why not? It's okay. Everyone is different. Yeah. You look so nice, Sam. Aw, Jisung is so nice to me. Well, you can take it, right? You can take it, I'm being too nice to you, huh? So we just finished our show and as you can tell, I'm holding the camera because Will is super tired. I'm pretty dead. Jisung is probably the worst out of us because he had a rough weekend, right? Uh, pretty, actually really, really, really tough because it's like you're physically actually like kind of dying, but it's not like for us, it's not like, okay, today I'm really, my condition is really bad, so I want to take a rest. It doesn't work like that. So you still have to go for it and then not just go for it, you have to do well too. So it's like, and then that gives you a lot of mental pressures and then that's why it's, I mean, I know I can go through it for sure, but the process is really tough. Can you hold it? My hand is getting tired. I always hold it, Sam. You got to do some work. Good speech, good speech. Good job, Jisung. You made it though, okay? Yes, I made it. See, okay, your face is small now. Lower the... No, actually my arm is just tired. Tilt down slightly. There's a guy in the other bed. Oops. Hide. He's tired. Hide. Our fellow dancer. None of this is usable. This is... We're not gonna watch this, you know that? I'm sorry. We're really tired. Don't tell anyone else, we're not like this. This is not usable? Are you kidding me? Is that a question? Okay, Will, I think your brain is not working properly. I feel like it's candid. I felt like, it reminds me of a Chinese saying today, when I was like dancing on stage right now. Which basically means like, one day feels like one year. So we've been performing for three days, and it felt like three years to me. 300 years. Three years. But you know what? We're finally done, so let's get some break. This was actually the toughest, legit the toughest part of our tour this year, like no joke. I think we can say that, right? For this year, the tour definitely is the toughest. And the thing is, it's not done yet. It's not done yet. The next city is coming. We added a show the next city too, which is good. I like more shows, that's true. But it's gonna be intense. It's gonna be intense. We added another performance. I guess ticket sales are good, so what else can we ask for, you know? It's time to celebrate. Fiesta! Fiesta. Sleeping fiesta. Alright guys, let me tell you what's happening. We just arrived in our last city, it was a seven hour drive, and the city before this was San Luis Potosi, and we did not record at all, because it was way too intense. It was way too, way too intense. We had three performances in San Luis Potosi, and on the second day, we had shows at 4pm and 8.30pm. That's 4 hours and 30 minutes between the two performances. Usually we have 5 hours between performances, so our schedule was especially tight that day. On top of that, our first show was slightly delayed, so we basically had no break before our second performance. Yeah, so today, after arriving at Monterrey, which is the city we're in right now, we got a little bit of a good meal. Steak! We ate at a really nice steak restaurant, it was delicious, it was amazing, and what's going on tomorrow? Performances tomorrow. One, two, one here in the city. And this last city of the Mexico. Right, our last city. Let's finish this strong, okay? We've been doing well so far, we've been hanging in there. One more city to go. No problem. Oh yeah, Jason's stomach is fine now. Yes. Okay, let's get ready. Let's get some rest, okay? See you guys tomorrow. Next time. Bienvenidos a Mexico. Welcome to Mexico. Yeah, bring it in. This is our theater here, like right outside, and it's before our first show right now, but let me show you what the view is like here. Look at this. You know what's really nice? The mountainscape. Look at that. It's beautiful here. And also, look at those houses, they're really interesting. Look, it's on the side of the mountain, look at how colorful it is. You don't see this in America. Wearing sunglasses because of makeup are too nice. Yeah, we're getting ready for the performance, it's in a few hours. Okay, we'll show you what our last city in Mexico, Monterrey, looks like. The thing that's special about this theater is it's a circular, so you see the roof is all round. It's actually a pretty big auditorium too. It looks like it would fit 3,000 audience. We got this right outside in the mall right now, because we learned about these things from Beauty Within, that one time we collabed with them. Are we actually in the real place? What are you doing, man? We've been performing in Mexico for too long that Sam has gone crazy. It's actually Willem's idea, so I think Willem's going crazy. Look at his hair, look at this, what is this? I've gone crazy. It's almost over. Three more days, four more performances in Monterrey, and we're finished with Mexico. Oh, we just finished our last show in Mexico, come on! Can we get a celebration? Kenji! Kenji, we just finished our last show in Mexico, can we get a celebration from you? Yeah! What? We just finished our last show in Mexico, can I get a celebration from you? What is that? We just finished our tour in Mexico. Yay! It was tough, but worth it. Yeah, worth it. What do you guys think about our Mexico tour? Please leave your comments below. And don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. We'll see you guys next time!