Breaking News: 2010 Winter Olympics CTV Report

Last I left off, my friend Audrey and I were running into Olympic athletes by the Olympic Village. Well, it just so happens that we ran into a few more.

Canadian Olympic Aerialists

There were a whole bunch of street performances and we bumped into a couple of athletes on their day off. The guys above represented team Canada in skiing and aerials.

My old roommate Matt also kept raving about this delicious hai nam chicken at his friends restaurant so Audrey and I went to check it out.

It was in fact the most delicious Hai Nam Chicken I have ever had!

Hai Nam Chicken

Just looking at it makes my mouth water… =P

So crazy story- The crazy friends I ran into decided to invite me over to their apartment (right over downtown/robson st) to watch the US vs Canada hockey game. This was a huge game. The US started off with a lead and then the score tied, but right before each break the US would be up by 1. As you all know Canadians LOVE hockey and the streets were filled with Canadians (by the way I got love for Canada, but of course we were thrilled to be supporting team USA). We decided to run down to the local bar downstairs with blazing Red White and Blue cheering amongst the “Go Canada” cheers.

USA vs Canada Hockey Game

Well some drunk fans decided to follow us home after we drank our beers at the bar. At first no one else in my party noticed that people were running after us (2 guys and 1 girl.. and the girl was like the first to get aggressive with us) and then as we got to the apartment gate I said hey turn around guys.. as we turned around they slowed their run and then said.. “oh hey, u live here?.. umm you must know the score right?” Anyways, as the conversation progressed it got more heated. In the end the last part of the game was about to start and I told them to relax and and we decided it wasn’t worth it to argue with some drunk people who were looking to start shit. In the end the US won 5-3 and it was an exciting game. My friends had to go catch another game live so right after they packed up and head out. I think if we ran around the streets in hardcore USA gear after that game there definitely would’ve been more heated confrontations. haha all in all exciting day though!

The last day of my trip was a little more calm. Lydia’s mom works for Fairchild Media Group on a radio station FM96.1 and also has a TV show on channel 180 that broadcasts throughout Canada so when we met and she found out about what I’ve been up to lately with wushu and acting she decided to have me on air as a guest.

Here’s a clip of me in the studio.

The interview was mainly in Chinese and it made me continue to realize how important it is for me to practice my Chinese. We also did a separate taping for a TV show where she has guests come in. She has interviewed hundreds of celebrities including DONNIE YEN.. so yeah, I was excited to be a guest on her show! =)

Here is a pic of me and aunt Carmen.

Fairchild Media Group

If you’ll notice my shirt.. it’s pretty funny. I bought it in Vancouver, but its apparently a US brand – called David and Goliath. I bought some shirts for a few friends. Here is a really funny one that I didn’t  end up buying, but I had to take a picture.

gold digger

My return to LA was quite smooth because they check all your immigration information over on the Canada side. That was quite interesting. I’m back in LA for the third time this year and been getting back to work.

Upon my return I immediately jam packed my schedule and met up with a producer friend to watch a rough cut of a pilot we worked on. I was a little afraid of the outcome because it’s supposed to be funny and if I didn’t think it was funny, I would be pretty let down. It’s not done yet, but I was definitely laughing so I am looking forward to the finished version. We have to do some pick ups and film more next weekend, but then it should be done and ready to pitch to some networks in a month or two.

Lastly as a favor to my buddy Andy (CEO of an online gaming company), he asked me to help him get some professional pictures that he could use for newsletters and press releases. I wanted to put my Nikon D60 to use so I snapped away. He seemed pretty satisfied with the results and I feel a lot more comfortable getting the shots that people want and finding a look that people want to see. This is not the final profile shot he chose, but it’s a picture that I could imagine in some entrepreneur magazine, so I went ahead and slapped this picture together for fun.

Alright, that’s it for the epic last minute Olympic Adventure. I will update you on the latest work and business developments next time! Cheers!

Alfred Hsing and Maria Lamb at the 2010 Winter Olympics!

Well, it’s been only 1 1/2 days and my trip already has been filled with quite the excitement. First let me recount my Jason Bourne type adventure at the airport. Originally, a friend asked me to help out a little with some business in Canada. He had some work visa issues, so the whole thing was canceled. One of his other friends was deported a day before I flew in to Canada due to these issues. I fly in not thinking much of the situation because I am going to Vancouver to have a good time and hang out with some friends while taking in the Olympic atmosphere.

After I arrive to the airport, I pass immigration and head for the door. I am politely directed to this long white room with metal desks – It’s the interrogation room! I wait for quite some time and then get grilled for like an hour and then the officer takes my passport back into this information room and tells me to wait. I wait for what seems like 40 minutes before she comes back out. She comes out and says that the jig is up! “I am just going to come out with it, we know what you and your buddies are up to. You going to come clean or keep up with this story? We know about this Beard Head operation”

At that point I tell her what happened – that I was going to help out, but due to work visa issues, the whole thing was canceled and I was going to meet up some friends and enjoy Vancouver. After a few more questions and jotting down my information I am finally let go.

I am glad the whole situation was able to be cleared up, but it was an interesting experience! I felt like I was in a CIA movie.. although it probably would not have been fun to be deported!

FORTUNATELY, I was not deported because….. I got to meet USA Women’s Olympic Team Speed Skater Maria Lamb today! In 2005, she was the U.S. National Allround Champion and she holds Junior records in the 3000m and 1500m as well as the Allround Points National record holder. Maria Lamb skated at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino in the 1500m and Team Pursuit. I ran into her (while wearing my beard head) and she was gracious enough to take some speed skating pictures with me and my friend Audrey. In the picture above (at the top) I am doing the push/glide move for straightaways and she is doing the starting line pose! Busting out my 6 years of speed skating skills for the win! Speed skating is one of my favorite winter game events because I used to do inline and ice many years ago and when I watch them I get to relive some of those moments. I also saw some olympic athletes in their team jackets running and doing warm ups… my blood started rushing thinking about the warm ups I did a day or two before world championships in Toronto. I am totally reliving certain moments just being in this environment and feeling the thoughts and energies going through these athletes’ minds.

Vancouver Olympics Japans Mens Snowboarding Team

We also bumped into Japan’s olympic snowboarding team members. The guy on my right does half pipe! and…. if you didn’t notice… thats right! The one and ONLY Beard Head that actually made it across the border! This one is NOT for sale. It’s my personal face warmer and it’s doing a good job. This is a personal shout out to David – Even though you couldn’t sell them here a TON of people have been giving me great comments and feedback and more than 1 person has asked where they can get them! =)

Here is a pic of my friend Lyd and her twin sister Fara. She showed me around Yaletown and Gas town the night I arrived and I had tasty tuna crepe (maybe cuz I was starving..) I barely ate anything since I got on the plane.

First day in Vancouver for the winter olympics

Then a little Canada love?

USA Canada. Misguided Allegiances?

NOPE! USA ALL THE WAY BABY!!

Team USA at the Vancouver Olympics

I randomly ran into my friend Jacob.. and we actually both didn’t notice each other! We were both just yelling and screaming GO USA and celebrating until I did a double take and saw it was none other than myspace worker drift and club photographer JacobPhoto!

All in all, the atmosphere has been great and this trip has definitely been worth it. I am so thankful for having a place to stay with friends and I hope Team USA and all the athletes here in Vancouver have the performance of their lives!

my homie lyd

Crazy 24 hours. Beard Head mission aborted due to work visa issues.. so now I do not have an all expense paid trip to Vancouver.. but we had a 1 way non refundable ticket to Vancouver… also I had no place to stay.

So… all within 2-3 hours this morning I booked a one way return flight for Tuesday and found a place to stay. My fam friend Lyd is awesome and is gunna let me crash at her uncles place. Now I won’t be doing any work, but just taking in the sights of the Olympics. I also managed to get a little bit of work done today as well. I updated a thumbnail for wushukicks on the 18th Annual CMAT martial arts tournament page (see it here! http://cmat.ucmap.org/) and handled vehicle registration and well as some other misc work.

I have to head to the airport soon.. in about 2 hours but anyways just wanted to do a quick update on my crazy winter olympics situation.

I hope to watch the men’s 1500m speed skating and or figure skating over the weekend.. but aside from that I will be playing everything by ear. Hopefully I’ll spend a few days with good friends and have a good time and come back in one piece. Cheers!

I think the title of the post says it all.. but just to announce it, I got my FIRST DONATION today!

THANK YOU TIGER SHARK! YEAR OF THE TIGER! Woot!

first donation

When I first set up my blog, I found this donation tool and put it up, but then after a month or so I took it down because I thought, who really cares about donating to me and it’s probably a stupid idea… and in fact!.. just a few days ago I was upgrading some plug-ins on the blog (just to make sure its spam and virus FREE!) I saw this “donate tool” O_o…. so I thought, I’m pretty unemployed; it couldn’t hurt to put it back up.

…and u know what miracles do happen. A few short days after I put the donate tool up, I got my first donation.

I want to say THANK YOU again.

I think these contributions big or small are helpful to me because for one thing.. I am unemployed. haha. I am not saying that I will starve, but when you give up stability for an unstable but passion filled future the more financial support you have, the easier it is to keep your wits about you and help you stay focused on purely doing what you do and achieving those goals. It shows me that people who are following my journey support what I am doing. To me, it means that I have made a connection in some way whether it’s just an entertaining post, an inspirational beam of hope, or a reflection of someone else’s life and goals. It helps me continue on my path towards success in business, entertainment, and martial arts. It helps me continue writing this chapter of my life’s story.

I don’t think I have mentioned this phase in my life yet.. because I probably didn’t feel it was relevant until this post.. BUT.. what are my plans if and when I achieve these goals I set out to do ?

I would like to re-focus my energies on creating a charity or foundation to spread good. I have not thought that far ahead as to what specific aims this foundation would focus on because its too far forward right now and things always change… I feel that when that time is near I will be inspired by something in my life and know what the focus should be on. In a general picture I think I am always in support of medical research, children, and the environment.

I guess I am just talking out loud again, but yeah, in addition to helping me “make it” in these goals I have.. I see it that anything that helps me and my businesses succeed is something that also helps my foundation succeed. I know that it is pretty presumptuous to think that I will be so successful that I can actually create such a foundation or non profit organization, but these are just my plans and I am verbalizing them. I don’t know what the future will bring I can only gravitate towards my goals and make them known so that if there are like-minded people our efforts can be in unison.

Enough philanthropy talk. Time for me to go train. =)

Vietcong on Deadliest Warrior Season 2

I’m an extrovert so I gather my thoughts by talking or thinking aloud… so this post is to help me gather my thoughts. It’s been a few weeks since I got back from Asia and since I did my demo for Jackie Chan and all this excitement has sort of died down.

As I mentioned before I’ve been training more san shou lately and also getting into some tricking. I train basically 6 days a week. I still do wushu once or twice a week. I get this itch to want to compete still, but at the same time I want to focus on movies and learning more applications/styles of martial arts to become more well rounded. I think I am pretty sure now that I want to hit up my business ventures hard for another 2-3 months and then turn most of my focus on acting / stunts / entertainment for 2010.

Speaking of business wushukicks is doing well. All administrative paper work is done. Finances and accounting are clean and ready to go for 2010. Sales are also off to a great start. Have to file taxes in March. Merchant account is set up and been working smoothly this month. Saw an all time high of traffic this month as well which shows that more and more people are discovering the site. Wushukicks supplements are in a few locations in LA now. The last thing on my 2009-2010 to do list for wushukicks was to do a layout revamp. I am going to get on this in the next week… oh and also business cards. That shouldn’t take too long though. After those 2 things are taken care of, I will be quite the happy camper.

AngelsTea is doing well. We are in process of doing some redesigns on the tins and packaging. It’s going to look good when it’s done. The one thing with AngelsTea that I’ve come to realize is that it’s going to be a big project (big but fun) and I will probably have to finish up with the wushukicks to do list before I am able to shift major focus to this.

In TV and entertainment news – I worked on Season 2 of Deadliest Warrior. There was a joke on set that I was going to be a running gag where I just appear on every episode. (Since I was on the shaolin monk and samurai episode last season). The show is always pretty strict on revealing information and I don’t wanna accidentally violate the non disclosure agreement, but basically I was on the show doing some stunts and some shootouts and fighting occur (like on all episodes). DY was also on this and we had some laughs about being the only wushu guys on set. haha! Anyways, look forward to the episode airing when season 2 of the deadliest warrior comes out.

Aside from that, I’m going to start training even more. Hopefully I can get a cork and an arabian soon. I also want to shoot a few small projects where I can get some good fight scenes in and get a better understanding of angles, editing, choreography, etc.

For the first time ever I have my stunt resume finished, professional headshots printed out, and an updated demo reel.. so I think Im ready to start doing things right, hustling more, and submitting myself to more projects.

Cheers to 2010 – My year for film and entertainment.

So if yall remember my previous post with the Pacific Rim interview and wushu challenge for the awesome Heavy Impact you might remember seeing a little move at the end that was featured on their live show at ABDC America’s Best Dance Crew Season 5.

Here was the interview done a few weeks back.

Then… here is their performance for the West Coast Regional part of America’s Best Dance Crew.

Awesome performance!

and lastly we got the POST DANCE PERFORMANCE INTERVIEW by the lovely Angelica Alumia

Feels awesome to have made an influence on this awesome dance crew’s choreo and performance on America’s Best Dance Crew!

Hope my boys Heavy Impact continue to rock the rest of the season! H.I.!!

Alfred Hsing with Pacific Rim Press put on a little first challenge for the West Coast Reps of ABDC America’s Best Dance Crew (Season 5) Heavy Hitters aka Heavy Impact! This was a really fun interview that we did after the Lucratif Street clothing shoot!

ABDC Americas Best Dance Crew Heavy Impact Wushu Challenge!

Check out Heavy Impact’s first wushu challenge!

Some more pics from the day.

Pacific Rim Press, Alfred Hsing, ABDC Heavy Impact

Another group pic.

Pacific Rim Press, Alfred Hsing, ABDC Heavy Impact

I taught them some wushu so they had to teach me some dance moves.. aka how to groove it out. (That’s my groove it out face.)

Gettin some dance tips from Heavy Impact on how to Groove It Out

and now some pics of the Pac Rim Correspondents…

Pacific Rim Press New Correspondent Team Goofin Around

Cheezin it!

Pacific Rim Press Team

Alfred Hsing signing off!

So I’ve been branching out from purely wushu training now and going into san da and tricking/parkour. My roots are of course in wushu, but its totally fun to branch out and practice other styles.

Check out my first tricking compilation where I attempt my first “cork” – which is sort of like a reverse butterfly twist in some ways. Anyways, I got a few tips and bits of advice from Steve Terada and Travis Wong… so just sit back, relax, and enjoy my cork face plant  =P

The gym floor is very forgiving. I was also excited that I pretty much hit the rotation on my 720 butterfly twist, 720 jump outside kick (720 TKBL), 720 jump inside (720 XFJ). I think the tricking stuff will get better as I practice more and get that muscle memory and timing down. =)

Great tricking session!

get lucratif street

I did a photoshoot over the weekend for a street wear company called LUCRATIF STREET. Their motto is “making something out of nothing”. I met and interviewed the owner of this brand through Pacific Rim Video. It was a very laid back shoot. I actually taught some dancers some wushu right before the shoot. I will post the video soon! But anyways, the shoot was fun and that grey jacket I’m wearing is quite comfortable. I like the material it’s made out of. Here’s some more of the pics. You can also find them on their blog: http://getlucratif.wordpress.com/

get lucratif air!

get lucratif wushu kicks

get lucratif aerial

get lucratif pacific rim interview

New Boyz get lucratif for their single "Tie Me Down" feat Ray J

sparring

I spent 6 hours at the gym today. I worked on some business. Everything feels right.

I took care of some business at the bank at noon.  David sold his business PokerBling which I was a partner (very small percentage of equity) in.. so we cashed out. I met up with him the day before and we caught up and discussed some business of course and then he cut me a check for my investment in PokerBling. I like catching up with David because he’s always chill and at the same time so passionate about making an impact on the world in his own fun loving way. (He is also one of the founders of Nom Nom Truck – a popular food truck in LA) Overall, I think everything worked out because we are both so busy with other projects that it was the right time to sell and focus on our other projects. We have another project in the work so I’ll still be working on some crazy things with David. Anyways, I used part of the money I got back for some inventory orders for wushukicks and for some home repairs.

Then I got crazy at the gym. Met up with sparring partner J Yee. We did a ton of drills. Today’s focus was on leg kicks, timing, defending against kicks, side kicks, combo kicks, 1 2 3 combo, lead leg round followed by cross, and reach/distance. After that we did some lifting where we maxed out on chest and shoulders. I was exhausted at this point, but there was more work to be done. I had previously spoken to a franchise owner within LA fitness and discussed some martial arts products and health products that they could sell in their display and they liked the idea so today we finalized some paper work and got some products for sale in LA Fitness! =) After a little business got done, I got my second wind! My former coworker, accountant by day female future mma star Leah rolled by to do some training. I designed a workout plan that is a mega wushu program. It combines cardio with taolu wushu techniques with sparring, kickboxing, and conditioning. It’s designed to be pretty intense and get you very in shape. I worked out again and we hit the bags for quite some time along with doing a few drils. Today’s focus was on some basic kicks, stance work, and improving conditioning.

…and that was how I ended up at the gym from 3:30pm to 10pm (30 min was spent talking so I didnt count that as part of my “6″ hour gym day).

Overall, I’m feeling really good about what I’m doing. I am getting my businesses very financially organized so that it’s not just some makeshift operation, but a clean corporate entity. I am working out more than ever before and I am so refreshed doing it because san shou has so many cool techniques and moves to learn. Sparring is so dynamic that no session is ever the same. I am getting something done every day and that feels great, but yet I feel like there is so much on my plate still. David and Hue are going to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in a few weeks. At first I thought I would be a hermit, but the more I think about it.. if I get a TON of stuff done before they go, I may plan to go with them and stay for a day or two just to have gone to check out the Olympics. I will be playing it by ear. Alright, time for me to sleep. Night!