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.

Me and Kevin at Babe18

This week was filled with craziness from clubbing to bar hopping to club hopping to lounge hopping to more drinking. Yes, it was a very productive week for my liver. I went out probably 5 nights in a row- Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun.

Wed- Jazz lounge near Shi Da with Kiyoshi, Ray, Doug, Christina from HK, and a few others.
Thurs - Babe18 with Kevin. The only night I really get pretty messed up. The other nights I did take a little easier.
Fri - Room18 followed by Primo with Kevin and Max.
Sat - SOHO with kev, sarah, monica, kiyoshi, followed by good food place with Ma La spicy ass food and then Sarah going crazy and still wanting to go KTV at 5am and me wanting to pass out.
Sun - Barcode and then Babe18 again with Jeff and Charlie. Jeff just flew in from the US that morning I believe.

So anyways! FRIDAY I lost my precious casio exilim digital camera which I have been using to document my trips around the world and specifically documenting tons of stuff here in Taiwan. =( I was sitting on the curb with Kevin and Max and I was making some video commentary. Then I set the camera down to relax for a bit. After a while we got up and walked 20 feet to go get our hands stamped at Room18. Not more than 10 minutes pass and I realized I left my camera on the curb. I run up to find it and lo and behold… its gone! It’s obviously my fault for leaving it there, but it was snatched up pretty quickly by someone looking to slang my camera for a few bucks probably. At this point I am pretty bummed because I just lost my digital camera along with my memory card that has pictures and videos on it!

I still make the most of our outing and have fun. Max gets a call and has some friends at Primo so we head on over. It was lightly raining this day so we had our umbrellas. Long story short, at the end of the night, I get in the cab to go home and realize I left my umbrella at the umbrella check-in and forgot to pick it up so in one day I lost my camera and umbrella. Losing the umbrella just tops off the night.

I am and have a been a believer that whenever bad things happen that means something good is about to happen. It’s my own personal idea of karma or a circulation of energies. Also, having a positive outlook on negative situations tends to help turn the situation around anyways so whether I’m right or wrong, it’s been working for me. Also a quick interjection – whenever something good happens I don’t believe something negative will necessarily happen because that “good thing” is probably the result of hard work, energy put in, or positive attitude that helped cultivate that positive situation. Additionally, I do try to repay any super awesome good luck by giving back in some way or helping others in some shape or form. (This is my random tangent on positive vibes.)

The night after I lose my camera, I wake up to find a fantastic surprise in my gmail inbox. In fact the email was justly titled “got a little surprise for ya.” Well to me, it was much more than a little surprise. A friend who I recently got to know through common interests in wushu, entertainment, and business knew that I was going to HK in a few weeks and decided to reach out to some Hong Kong actors/stuntmen. This act alone, I am already really grateful for. It means a lot that someone has faith in your abilities and capabilities that they would refer you. However, on top of this, Les also helped me make this incredible resume package! I have a few headshots and a film resume in a word document. I was just planning on cleaning up my resume and making something a little more professional looking when I got back to LA. I was so surprised when I opened this attachment and found this:

Alfred Resume. Thanks Les!

You can click it and see it in slightly higher resolution. It is a professionally done alfred hsing entertainment resume package! I’m pretty excited about everything and how this turned out. I’m not going to go into all the details, but I know a lot went into making this. You should see my old resume. It looks so wack compared to this. In the midst of all the hectic cool and crazy things that have been going on, I think this really stood out and surprised me. I honestly can’t express my thanks enough so I just wanted to blog about this and share it with everyone. Hope that’s cool. It means a lot to me!

Other good news that I need to report on.
* Angels Tea SOLD OUT in the 2 stores that they are being sold at in LA. In the process of restocking them. It would be easier if I were in LA, but not a major problem.
* Cirque du Soleil contacted WushuKicks and made an order with us. We at WushuKicks are very excited to work with Cirque du Soleil because it is such an awesome show and I have friends in Cirque! Cheers!
* Randomly found this article online on 2 sites.

http://www.cn.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1011/1/9/3/101119381.html?coluid=49&kindid=972&docid=101119381&mdate=1030102106

http://big5.chinanews.com.cn:89/hr/hr-mzhrxw/news/2009/10-30/1938857.shtml

I can’t really read it that well, but I think the reporter thought there was another gold won in female sanda in the past. The US sanshou coach said there were no sanda golds in the past so I’m not sure where the reporter got her info. In any case, cool article. I am glad I am getting myself out there in Asian news.
*I was interviewed by CTV and on the 7 oclock news in Taipei. They had me demo and talk about wushu at Bei Ti Sport University. Been on TV in Taipei twice within my first week here!

US Wushu Team with Taiwan Wushu Team

I have a few more videos to upload for Taiwan Adventures part 2, but until I get a new camera… I won’t have any more awesome picture updates. This is the new camera I plan on getting to replace my old casio exilim.

Hopefully my new camera soon.

Do you guys know if it would be cheaper to get this in the US, Taiwan, or Hong Kong? =P
If I get this camera I will probably do a mini review on it and let u guys know what I think of its functionality.

Time to get some chong you bings now. I haven’t eaten all day and its 3:50pm.

Chong you bing's on yong kang jie

Ni wen wo ai ni you duo shen

“Mooncake represents my heart!”

Wushu
NWTC, 99Wushu, White Lotus, UCLA Wushu / gym. This week I’ve been working more on short sections and speed over full forms. Only day I did full forms was at NWTC because they were the only place with enough space to do a full form. I’ve been training every day except one day for recovery.. shoulders have been feeling a little tight and same with my back. Overall I am probably in the top shape of my life though. I am going to bring home a medal from the 10th wushu world championships.

Film
Went out to an audition for Wizards of Waverly Place. It went alright. I said my lines confidently and naturally, but regardless when I came out of the audition it made me realize I want to take some more acting classes and practice more to refine my art. It’s always good to get more practice and I am a firm believer that everything takes practice. You can be talented, but to get to that next step, it still takes practice.. whether its acting, martial arts, giving speeches, etc.

Today I went to a meet and greet with a sports agent. They help book for fitness magazines, sports commercials, and anything athletic related. They liked the pictures I had and seemed satisfied with my athletic qualifications. I’ll be hearing back from them on Friday.

Tea
AngelsTea in Nucleus Art Gallery. (Read here: http://www.angelstea.com/angels-tea-in-nucleus-the-art-gallery-and-store/) Uploaded a few more pictures to the gallery and did some facebook updates. Add Angels Tea on facebook and twitter http://twitter.com/angelstea ! Valentines day should be a good time for people to consider Angels Tea as a sexy fun gift for their significant others.

Good news is that I’ve already had to make a re-order since my inventory was running low. My family has been supportive as well and family friends have helped spread the word in nor cal and I have made a few sales to get me off my feet with this. Thank you guys! Of course the true test is to continue pushing forward and get a large retail location to distribute my product, but sales are sales and the support behind me is a very positive thing.

WushuKicks
Set up a bunch of sites related to wushukicks. Hoping to cross promote and build up traffic through related markets. I began to evaluate other niches. It goes without saying.. wushu shoes occupies a small market compared to all of martial arts shoes or martial arts equipment. Also sketching in my idea book how to redesign wushukicks cleanly. Looking to get this done soon.

Filed for incorporation at the Secretary of State building. Next step will be to set up online merchant services. Also other To Do items include: Making new business cards, getting QuickBooks Pro, and making a wushukicks intro video.

Martial Arts Nutrition
Quite a bit of back and forth has occurred with the design. The lab has tested and labeled everything on their end. I believe we are at the point where we are going to get this product up and ready soon! Excitement is in the air.

General Business / General Thoughts
The bottom line is this – everything costs money! lol

Incorporating costs money. Merchant services costs money. Pay pal takes money. Shipping costs money. Joining the Realtors board costs money. Owning a realtor supra key to open lock boxes costs money. Maintaining your membership with your local board of realtors costs money. Product development costs money. Manufacturing a product costs money. Gas costs money. Business license costs money. Franchise tax board wants money. Sellers permit costs money.

Aiyah! Why didnt anyone tell me this BEFORE I got into starting up my own businesses. (I complain, but I love the entrepreneurial lifestyle.)

I got some great accounting advice from my uncle who is a CPA and also from my mom who was a controller for a tech firm. Now I am slowly getting all my bills, accounts, and expenses in order so that I can actually see my profits and losses.

My other uncle, a former CIO, encouraged me to read “never eat alone” – a book about building relationships and connecting people. I read it that day just because I figured if I didn’t read it right then, I would probably never get around to reading it. The book has a lot of common sense ideas, but 1) its good to re-enforce those ideas and 2) within its 250ish pages it obviously did have some new information and advice that I thought was clever or motivating.

We had an entr meeting with Dave, Misa, Jaemin, and Alison yesterday. Seems like everyone has encountered the freelance blues at some point.. which is working by yourself and having your own time, but feeling strangely unmotivated. We determined a good solution to that is to work WITH people wether mentors or partners. Even if you are successful its never fun sharing that by yourself.

Seems like Dave is FINALLY going to take some caffeine and maybe start working on getting our clothes design manufactured. I give him a hard time, but I know he has been swamped with Nom Nom (www.nomnomtruck.com) and I have been equally busy preparing for World Games.

Moon Festival
Despite all this business, I had a really relaxing day with my relatives on Chinese Moon Festival. First we visited grandma then we had some crepes for lunch, mooncakes of course, and a nice bbq at my uncles house. All us cousins went to the mall and played with every single contraption in the “As Seen on TV Store”. I had some good chats with my cousin Lydia and took note that its really key to maintain a balance between friends and focusing on success.

The next day we went to a Taiwanese dinner that my aunt invited me and Lydia to. I bumped into the random-est people there: Vivy, a college friend that I hadnt seen in a long time, a bunch of the Miss Taiwan Pageant girls which I saw at the Miss Taiwan Pageant only because my roommate Eliver knew people there (read post: http://www.casualiscool.com/pictures/miss-taiwan-approves-of-angels-tea/), and my aunts friend who happened to be on the US National Taekwondo forms team.

When I set out to write this entry, I was trying to make it as short and matter of fact as possible, but I am glad I wrote all this because sometimes I look back and I think “what have I done all week”, but as soon as I write it down it makes me feel like.. “okay, I have been remotely productive”.

Eliver's Bday and I have food in my mouth

Friday was Elivers birthday! We cleaned up around the pad and eliver cooked up a storm. Had a good turnout. It was Sherry, Sammy, and XJ, Elivers sf4 crew, Kelly from the miss taiwan pageant and a few of my ucla friends dropped by. I like having house parties – fun and kick back at the same time. First time all of us roomies got together for drinks and cake in a long time.

Sat and Sunday I just did some cleaning and set up my printer. The cleaning is not to be overlooked. This was much needed. This was something I’ve been meaning to do for over 6 months so this was a big deal for me. I reorganized my garage, vacuumed, and filed a TON of papers and mail and all this into my filing cabinets. I wushu’d at the park and then got some generic tea and a snakebite at yardhouse.

Monday wrote up a traffic contestation, had 2 meetings and then wushu at SCWA. I did full forms followed by a business meeting after practice. Got some good web work done and set plans to move forward.

Tuesday continued managing a couple design projects and bought some more domains. Sent out teas to Sylvia’s Cafe in Oregon. She will start featuring my teas in her cafe in Oct/Nov. so we will see how that goes.

Wed. set up 2 websites, developed a brilliant idea on online promotion (probably not a new idea, but its just that a light bulb turned on), added more products to wushukicks, and flew up north to begin my nor cal wushu training. I am in San Jose now.

Sort of a boring updates in my opinion. Im just jotting down notes to hold myself accountable and make sure that I am progressing. Since I have no job and no steady income now, its crucial that I make steps to move forward in acting and business or else I would have quit for nothing. Now with about a month left before World Games, I need to switch gears and start getting hardcore with training.

Butterfinger Commercial Kung Fu Fight

Film
Sunday I had a filming double wammy. 8am I went to shoot a commercial for a butterfinger commercial contest. The theme is old school kung fu cinema so I fought a guy with a fu-manchu. I had a heavy hand in the choreo and it was a funny project to work on.
Check out an outtake from todays shoot.

Right after this shoot I went to shoot some more of the Borat style short. It was really funny. I won’t spoil it but lets just say we had a dog licking some mayonaise off of someone’s back. Also I am working with Larry Hankins on this project. He  has been on Friends, CSI, Martial Law, Home Alone, Seinfeld, Billy Madison and much more.

Wushu
Just competed in the Long Beach Intl tournament. I took first in both my events in the chinese martial arts division. I felt good that I competed because I proved to myself my endurance was still in top shape as I was able to go 5 rounds from 9am-7pm. I got to perform at the 2009 Masters Hall of Fame and received some good praise from many respected martial arts masters.

At the end of the tournament I was interviewed and asked to give my feedback on the tournament and also a little background on myself. I will post up a link when that is online.

Training wise- I was really sore from the competition, but managed to do some jogging and light kicking due to my private lesson class.

Tea
Should be in any time next week. Still need to update site.

Clothing
Now I need to get prototype3 made.

Beverage
Met up with my business partners last week and they really broke down the drink industry. This one requires more time and financial commitment so I have to figure out quickly where I want to go with this. I should get moving on a finalized label design.

Misc
Sherry and XJ got married this week!! I went to her “xi jiu” or wedding reception at a restaurant in Chinatown.

Sherry's Wedding Day

Congratulations Sherry and XJ!

Coincidentally I watched Wedding Crashers yesterday and that was SUCH a funny movie! I wonder if people actually do that in real life? =P

This picture will be in Forbes magazine one day.

Young EO
Met up with a bunch of friends that all are starting or have started their own businesses. Everyone is relatively new (within 1-2 years of starting their business) to the CEO/entrepreneur lifestyle. Regardless of what industry or years of experience, everyone has the same passion for life and for creating something exciting/fun/revolutionary so it is bound to be a great group.

We have yet to come up with a name, but so far my suggestions were ONE – Organization of New Entrepreneurs or CEO – Creative Entr Org.

Film
Landed a non-union butterfinger commercial that we are going to rehearse for tonight. We are planning on shooting it on Sunday. The other “Borat” project wants to shoot on Sunday too. Hopefully I can fit both in.

Wushu
Went to LA Wushu on Monday and did 2 half sections and worked on some twists and aerial twists. I am still a little sick and very lethargic I will admit, but I am still forcing myself to practice. I need to practice spear and straightsword a little more. I also need to refine my third and fourth section of longfist. I am still hitting all my nandu/jumps solid.

Clothing
Got prototype2 back. We spent a lot of time and money on this one and it still was not perfect. There is a lot of value in having CLEAR and SPECIFIC communication skills because I guess if what we wanted translated better we wouldnt have to be requesting a THIRD prototype. We are going to try to blend some features from both the 1st and 2nd proto and then hopefully we should be golden.

Goal is to have this done and reach out to manufacturers within a month.

WushuKicks
Due to me finally opening my eyes to the potential that is WushuKicks and inspiration/reminders from others around me, WushuKicks is finally getting a planned site revamp. This is also targeted to be finished within a month although I think this goal is pushing it, but will heavily depend on my timing with the tea site completion.

Another goal is to have merchant account set up before the end of the month.

Tea
Production is completed. It should be shipped out to me sometime this week. Site is 2/3 ready. Need to take product pictures once the tins arrive. Also came up with a list of keywords to target.

Goal is to finish site and have model product pics done within the month.

Miss Independent

Misc
Sat went out to Pasadena and got pretty hammered off Svedka. For some reason it was extremely nasty, but normally its not that bad. Ended up singing ‘Miss Independent’ in a parking lot after one drink too many.

Sun. went to Michelle Lee’s bday with Eliver and hooked up with some homies at her shindig at library bar- alex, amanda, matt b, li jing, sun nuo, john, and tamiko.

Green Teas

I’ve been slowing down on the updating, but I have still been busy nonetheless.

I suppose the main thing that I have been making progress with this week has been on my tea biz which I will release in a week or two.

Film
Second day of shooting for this Borat like pilot/webisode I am shooting. I actually had a chance to banter with my australian lead actor (that I play his personal documentarian) and the dialogue started getting ridiculous. I am enjoying the project more and more.

Tea
Received chocolates. Took product pictures. Thurs and Fri I updated the site by putting up product descriptions and organizing the categories. The whole weekend I also updated the various label colors/sizes/description for different flavors. It was a little tedious, but it was work that needed to be done. I sent the labels to our label maker.

Beverage
Talking with partners on going to mixing site to get 100 bottles filled as samples. I have also been refining this label, but am considering going with a professional designer. Also was debating on our target market- whether it should be very broad, broad within a niche, or VERY niche. I think I have my decision, but I will run it by my partners. Other than that- we just need to decide on name and label and go to the mixing house. This is one of my projects that I consider has some of the most longterm growth potential.

Other Biz
Might set up a dropship biz with another friend. This should take a week to get off the ground and this will serve more as a learning experience and to see how fast we can get an ecommerce up. I already setup the domain, cart, and theme.

Wushu
Tues. and Sun. I had private lessons with a new student that wanted to learn wushu and acrobatics. He had years training shaolin and a little bit of wushu before. He also does cross country and so he has a lot of endurance. So far I am enjoying training him because he is really dedicated and willing to push himself to improve. Going forward I will be teaching him weekly.
As far as my own training I believe I skipped wushu twice last week and on the days that I did train I did not train as long as usual. I did push myself more on friday and saturday because I felt I havent been training as hard as I should be. I’ve been making sure to land everything consistently and tweak some things, but haven’t made any major changes since team trials.

Misc
My brother dropped by LA unexpectedly so that sort of threw me for a loop. He crashed at my place and Wed we went to a lounge together. He also came to 99 wushu with me once. After World Games I am hoping to spar more and learn jiu jitsu more.
Friday I went to Apple Lounge with Hue. Saturday had lunch with my roomie Eliver along with Lianne Lin and Asia “not-the-pornstar” Eng. At night, I went to a bday dinner and Area.

Magnolia LA Downtown - A Meeting of Minds

 

Wushu
Been feelin eh~ Sorta slacked this week. I’ve gone to practice about every other day.. which is not good. I should be going everyday and the days that I do go.. I sorta just jog and then stretch. haha. I’ll have to really step it up in the upcoming months anyways, so I figure I don’t need to burn myself out right now. Still, I don’t like this lethargic feeling. Maybe it’s because I am having a lot on my plate.

Clothing
Ever since our pattern maker got sorta upset about some hiccups in

Wushu
VERY light training at the omei parking lot. lol.
Flew up north and preparing some tai chi music and weapons.

Tea
Sent out revision 7. Got the okay on it, but still need to make minor text changes.

Clothing
Sent out 3 different designs for basic shirts to be made
Sent out text and logo files to pattern maker

PokerBling
Collected payment on sales
Learned about increasing conversions and helping retailers from a wholesaler perspective
Dropped off new inventory for Bicycle Casino

Real Estate
Turned in realtor ethics test completion certificate

Well, it was back to another mundane monday at the bank. My coworker from kpmg (current contractor at the bank) just came back to work so we should be starting some IT application control testing. I’m happy that she’s back because it was starting to get lonely with me as the only IT SOX Analyst. She also brought back some delicious truffles from her trip to NY.. but thats another story.

Real Estate
Got home from work and showed my room for rent to 2 other people. Both were interested so now I am just deciding on who might be the most responsible roommate. Also waiting to hear back from a few others that came by. Tomorrow one or two people should be calling me and coming by to discuss the deposit, so if that gets taken care of it will be a relief to have found a roommate before team trials. That way, I have one less thing to worry about.

Also studied half of this ethics book which I need to read / take a test on for some real estate education credits.

Wushu
Went to 99 martial arts for a light practice today. I want to let my body recover so I just did a light jog, stretching, basic kicks, jumps, a few short sections (longfist, straightsword, taichi, and taichi sword), and light conditioning. I know my body is in prime competition shape, but today I was feeling lethargic/ in a rest mood so I didnt push it because thats when u end up getting hurt.. and getting hurt 5 days before competition is very stupid.

Clothing
Set up meeting with pattern maker tomorrow.

Tea
Went over revisions needed for the labels. Need to work on that, but its already 12:38AM. Also made some preliminary shops that make hand made chocolate because I thought it might go nicely with my tea. I will probably hold off on this, but thought I would inquire about it.

To Do
Finish that real estate ethics test
Revise tea label
Have lease agreement signed
Get new business cards

Random – Met another person on the bus that recognized me from deadliest warrior.. she also happened to be ranked 3rd nationally for womens collegiate wrestling so that was cool.