Performed drunken sword at the Long Beach Internationals on August 8th, 2009. Suzy of UCLA Wushu performed straight sword. It was supposed to be mainly a UCLA wushu demo, but some FORCES OF NATURE were literally OUT to prevent this demo from happening. Normally its super easy to get people to demo. This time everyone happened to be out of town, out of the country (stopher), running errands (dennis), parents in town (adam), CAR ACCIDENT (rickie), and more random occurences. In the end it was me and Susan. Then the demo coordinator had his line up of demos running late and he almost couldnt squeeze us in and Suzy had parked at a metered spot so she needed to leave to prevent being charged exorbitant rates so she was almost out of the picture. This was not meant to be, but in the end my beast mode willed through it and made the demo happen… which might explain why I went beast mode on my demo itself.

Dragon The Bruce Lee Story

Bruce Lee Similarities
So a few nights before, “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” was on TV and there was a scene where Bruce Lee was at the First Ed Parker Long Beach Martial Arts Tournament. He did a minute long demo where in the movie he challenged anyone in the building saying he could defeat them in under 60 seconds. Bruce’s wife Linda told him not to fight but then he still did. In the end, he won and was spotted by the director for the Green Hornet where Bruce was ultimately cast as Kato.

Coincidentally, I was going to a similar Long Beach Tournament. I was asked to demo. My form (drunken sword) is about a minute long. There were forces trying to prevent me from demoing. I was submitted and trying out for the role of Kato. My roommate and I joked that it was meant to be. (My “Alfred as Kato” article http://www.casualiscool.com/martial-arts/alfred-hsing-as-kato-in-the-green-hornet-plus-my-new-2009-demo-reel/) Unfortunately Jay Chou got cast as Kato. LOL! =(

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=57816 – It hurts me!.. but good luck to Jay Chou!

Yesterday I went to the San Diego Grand Nationals, a martial arts tournament with wushu, kung fu, karate, kenpo, sparring, and etc.

I usually go to wushu specific tournaments, but I wanted to get in the competition mindframe for US Wushu Team Trials coming up in June.. so….

The night before, I decided I will sleep in (cuz ive been getting no sleep) and whenever I naturally wake up.. if my events havent started Ill drive down to SD and register at the door.

I wake up at 10:30am and call Mason from wushu who is already there competing.. and ask him if my events have started or not.. he said not yet and there were a lot of kid divisions.. so I decided to drive down.

Its 11:15am when I finally get out the door. I take the 5 South which ends up being no bueno. I am moving 0.5 miles every 30 mins and I have 110 miles to go. After 1 hour of being stuck enough was enough. I take the next exit and take local to the 405 south and finally start getting a move on.

I get to the competition at 2:30 I think.. the SECOND I walk in the door Susan from UCLA Wushu shouts.. you’re up next! lol.. so I take my jacket off (my competition silk is underneath) and immediately warm up. I warm up for about 5 minutes and then competed.

Ended up competing both spear and straight sword within about 30 minutes of arriving at the competition. I already missed my long fist event so I didnt compete in that.

So this is was the sequence of competition – I won both weapons events, then I competed against all the wushu weapons winners and I won that, then I competed at night for the grand champion against all the weapons winners including karate, kung fu, non wushu etc.. so I won that, then immediately 5 minutes after you do your form, you compete AGAIN against the all around winner of the hand forms.. and then I won that too! So woohoo! I got my gas money back for driving down. =) All in all, I was happy I won a nice trophy and got a $300.00 cash prize. Boba is on me!