Me and Jason - Final Sanda Training before China

This may be my last post from the US in a while because for those of you who don’t know.. I am MOVING TO CHINA TODAY! I kind of can’t believe it myself that I am re-locating to China. I’ve always wanted to live out there for over a year, but I’ve always had various reasons why I had to be back in the US. Now I have the perfect reason. I got an amazing job opportunity in China and there is no better reason or time to be out there than NOW!

That being said, I still want to update you guys on everything I’ve been up to aside from the move. I’ve honestly been so busy the past 3 weeks that I haven’t even had time to sit down and spend 20 minutes updating my blog.

The Move
I’m not even sure where to start. Let’s see – So about 3 weeks ago I get a call on a bright and early morning. I’m still half asleep when I get a phone call. I pick up. It’s an international number. It ends up being an interview for a job that I applied to. Fast forward a few days later; I got the job and I am told that I need to fly out to China in about less than 3 weeks! Yikes! In less than 24 hours I decided this was the right thing for me to do… and I decided to make the move.

I now had to cancel my trip that I had ALREADY booked for August for the 2010 Sport Accord Combat Games, which I will still be competing in, and I had to get a visa rush processed since there was so little time. I turn my passport over to my travel agent.. and gadzooks! my passport pages are FULL (darn all that other traveling) so now I have to do an expedited “add pages” to my passport. Meanwhile I also had to get a visa done on my Taiwan passport, but I needed my US passport in order to process some paperwork.. which made things cut very close!

There were sooo many other things I had to do. To list a few, I had to find a new roommate to take up my room, sell or have someone look after my car, work out logistics with wushukicks, say farewell to friends and family, pack, buy new luggage because my old one broke, purchase new airline tickets, and clean out my place since I was moving out.

WushuKicks
For my online business, I had to make it fully functional while being on the go. It was close, but still needed some crazy intense upgrades to be done in 3 days. I created an auto-responder for customer support because I noticed a lot of people were asking the same questions so I forwarded people to the Frequently Asked Questions part of my page.. which I also heavily updated to reflect the most common questions. I then created 2 more team emails where one person would be a backup to handle order processing if I was not available and another staff would handle customer support questions only. I changed a few policies of the business so that things were more clear cut and less dependent on my personal decision making.

I spent 2 weeks negotiating with UPS and my merchant services for better rates. I got them, but I don’t think it was as helpful as I had hoped for. At least I got my shipper account set up with automated billing. I also put my inventory in the hands of 2 trust worthy people and voila…! Let’s see if wushukicks can run while I am traveling, in china, and internet-less (from time to time).

Farewell Party
I had a small going away dinner with some former co-workers and friends that I have and haven’t seen in a while. All I can say is I had a good time seeing all my friends in one place and the positivity and support lit my face up in uncontrollable smiles.

Sweep the leg

The Karate Kid Demo
The next day let’s just say I was the worse for wear and had a long night… but I still had to be up early. I think I was up by 8am (which is how early Ive been getting up for the past week despite sleeping after midnight). I ended up running around doing all sorts of errands only to finally muster up the strength to drive out to Whittier to do a DEMO for a theater’s opening night of The Karate Kid. It took an hour to get there in traffic and I almost fell asleep twice. My buddy Adam was not helping either because he was practically falling asleep as well. We have both had crazy schedules and he booked a voiceover on a Disney show as a lead/regular… so congrats to him too!

We got there and demoed. It was cool… just a standard demo.. and afterward we got to watch The Karate Kid for free. A lot of people are talking about the name and how it’s just a marketing ploy. In the movie itself it does justify the name the “karate” kid to some degree. Also, it stays true to the premise of the original, but yet still is its own unique movie with its own powerful cast that holds its own. The movie definitely struck a cord when Jaden gets on the Air China flight moving to a place so far from home… I knew that a few days later I would also be boarding an Air China flight and making a very big move in my life. I liked Jaden’s performance and the relationship development between him and the girl that he likes. I would recommend watching this movie.

Nor Cal
So I stumble home after the movie around midnight.. because the movie is kinda long and I went to eat pho with Adam afterward. I start to pack for my drive up north AND pack for my move to China.. but I don’t make it passed 2 socks and I pass out asleep on the floor of my room. I was THAT tired! I wake up at 4am and continue packing. It takes me super long because I am not just packing to go up north I am sorting out what I want to bring to China and what I want to bring home and leave at home. I finally start driving up north at 9am but have to make 3 stops just to rest my eyes because I was starting to fall asleep by 11am.

At 3:30PM I run into the Kung Fu Magazine Tiger Claw tournament to support the Wild Aid event. I performed part of my longfist with a few ditang falls! The registration money was donated to help save Tigers for the Wild Aid foundation. I was glad to support my friends at Tiger Claw and the Tigers. Also ran into Dean, Kunyu, Emilio, Cao Yue, Peggy, and other wushu people. I had to cut out soon after the Wild Aid event because I was dead tired and my house was in my car. That night I hung out with my boys E and Hue. The following day I did a photoshoot for Kung Fu Magazine. The last day up north I visited my friend Mike at Google. Google has an amazing campus. The vibe is very casual and cool! I had some lunch there and was surprised (though I shouldn’t have been) that they even do google analytics on their dining halls! Then my bro took me to the airport to return to LA.

Google Campus

Brothers

My good friend Rel picked me up from the airport.. then I jammed over to teach my last wushu lesson with Geeta. She has learned a ton in our few short classes.

…well that pretty much leads up to where I am now.. a few hours away from meeting up with some so cal fam and getting on board my flight in a few hours. I am going to continue doing some last minute packing, but before I close this final US post… please keep updated with me everyone. I am so grateful for all my friends and I don’t want to just disappear, but this is definitely a journey I need to undertake! I hear that facebook and google are relatively inaccessible in China so keep in touch with me via my blog, email, or any other means. If you don’t hear from me it’s probably because I am traveling or in a place with limited access.

Today is the day I make my move to China! Let’s see what’s in store! =)

—————————————————————————

Has American Wushu Finally Arrived?

A Report on the 10th World Wushu Championships
by Anthony Roberts

Wushu in America has had its ups and downs. Even with a large immigrant Chinese population on the West Coast and in the Northeast, the sport has not seen as much growth here as in many other parts of the world. In Southeast Asia, wushu is thriving, in Europe it is well-established, and even in the Middle East, governments subsidize it.

None of this is to say that wushu has done poorly or been neglected here. Past teams, in whom we take great pride, almost always posted good results at the biennial World Wushu Championships. At the 7th World Games in 2003, for example, Elaina Maxwell won the gold in women’s 65 kg sanshou. More recently (in 2007), six athletes finished in the top eight in one or more events at the 9th World’s.

Still, perhaps we can be forgiven for an American pride that leaves us unsatisfied with anything less than number one. When would the time come for a U.S. team to crush the competition – or, failing that, at least bruise them up a little?

It appears the time is now.

Kung Fu Fighting with Canucks
On October 24, 2009, over seven hundred competitors from seventy-four nations converged on Toronto, Canada for the 10th World Wushu Championships. The U.S. team had a rocky start even prior to the first day of competition, losing athletes and officials in the weeks leading up to the championships. Instead of twenty competitors, the U.S. fielded only nine for taolu and five for sanshou.

Compounding the uncertainty about America’s prospects was a new selection process adopted for the taolu team trials. For the past several years, the sole deciding factor for selection to the team was score; now, spots were reserved for specific events, such as taijiquan and nanquan (though there was still a minimum score requirement).

On the very first day of competition, however, it became clear that the U.S. had chosen a great team. Alfred Hsing, representing his country for the first time in a world championship, came out of the gate in style, scoring a 9.72 in men’s straight sword. Flawlessly executing degree-of-difficulty movements, he captured first place early on. When Etsuro Shitaokoshi of Japan also scored 9.72, there followed some tense moments for the U.S. team as the judges applied the tie-breaking rules. But Alfred came out on top, winning America’s first-ever gold in taolu competition at the world championships.

More great news followed on this banner day for American wushu as U.S. team veteran Colvin Wang captured the silver medal in men’s spear. This came not long after he had scored eighth in men’s straight sword (just 0.5 points behind Alfred).

The results for the U.S. team did not end with Alfred and Colvin’s medals. By the end of the tournament, seven other U.S. athletes (five taolu and two sanshou) would finish in the top eight in at least one event, for a total of ten top-eight finishes.

Portrait of a Life in Wushu
Looking back on the experience, Alfred Hsing says, “In training for the world championships, I knew that there would be no room for mistakes, so I practiced focusing on perfection. Perfect speed, perfect difficulty moves, perfect stances, everything. After I finished my form I felt really good. I knew I nailed everything. Winning the medal was everything I dreamed it would be.”

It had been a long road for Alfred. After failing to make the U.S. team in 2003, he almost gave up on wushu; but in 2006 he noticed that his friends had continued training and were making progress in the sport. This inspired him to begin chasing his dream again.

“I trained really hard in 2006 and 2007, which allowed me to catch back up to a top-level U.S. standard, but still it wasn’t enough.” Indeed, he only qualified for the C team at the trials that year (the second alternates, way down on the totem pole). “I was at a crossroads,” he says. “Get back to reality and focus on my career or risk my corporate job and focus on wushu for another 2 years. I chose wushu.”

Even after making the team, it was not easy for Alfred. “I think a lot of other U.S. wushu team members would agree that after the U.S. team trial competition you feel a little burnt out from training. I trained as intense as I possibly could to ensure I could make the US team… After three or four months of rigorous training, when you make the team, you realize you have to keep it up for another four or five months.” He compared this feeling to finishing a marathon only to see you have another 26.2 miles to run.

But Alfred stuck with it, showing the true power of positive thinking. “A lot of people said it would be impossible to win a gold medal at the World Wushu Championships, but the few people who didn’t know much about wushu that said ‘go for the gold’ made me think that it was possible. I adjusted my mindset a few weeks before the competition and felt that it was achievable. When you don’t believe you can do it, of course you won’t be able to.”

Colvin Wang had posted impressive results at the last world championships and competed at World Wushu Tournament Beijing 2008 (the unofficial “Olympics” tournament). At the 2nd World Junior Wushu Championships in 2008, he had also won a silver medal in spear. The medal he earned in Toronto thus represents the evolution of a talented athlete, still in high school, whose wushu star is on the rise.

“Training wasn’t easy,” he says, “because I’m trying to balance a very crucial period in school and train at the same time. I never had enough time to do enough of both. I still tried to manage an hour or two each day. By competition time, I felt pretty ready.”

Colvin’s high expectations mean he could never be completely happy with his medal-winning performance. Still, he says: “It’s always good to let go of any expectations you have before a competition, so I made sure I had no expectations before doing my form. It was definitely nice to have my accomplishment awarded with a world championship medal – not something that is given to many people. I will keep the medal as a token of all the hard work I put in to earn it.”

Memories and Reflections
In addition to athletes, coaches, and other officials, family and friends were also part of the U.S. team. Keeping everything organized and all team members in-the-know was Malee Khow of Connecticut, team manager and chairperson of the USAWKF Competition Management Committee. “It was a great honor to lead this team,” she says, “and to watch as Alfred, Colvin, and all the athletes did such an outstanding job. It makes all the organizing work in the months beforehand feel worth it.”

The team took away many great memories from the championships, meeting friends old and new from all over the world. “I think we worked well as a team,” says Colvin Wang, “had a lot of fun, supported each other, and all have valuable memories to take away from this experience.” Alfred Hsing concurs: “I am going to have great memories of my trip to Toronto… It just so happened that along with bringing home a good score, I also had great teammates that all got along, a good roommate on the trip, a venue in Toronto that was close enough for my parents and friends to come watch.”

Many team members remarked that the Chinese were not as dominant as in previous championships, where the taolu team in particular always takes first place. This year, while still leading all countries in medals won with six in taolu and eight in sanshou, China posted more modest results than in previous years. Whether this signals a true leveling of the playing field in worldwide wushu or, more likely, a decision by China not to send its best athletes, is a question others can concern themselves with. Let us Americans not speculate on what we cannot know – rather, we should be filled with pride and joy for the accomplishments of our athletes.

Indeed, Americans were not the only ones to notice that our athletes made a breakthrough this year. “Many people from other teams mentioned to me how much our team has improved,” says Malee Khow, “even though our athletes are all students or have regular jobs. Many other countries are able to send career athletes, whose job is wushu, or hire coaches to train their athletes full-time. Here in America, wushu is still very much an amateur sport – but that makes our accomplishments at the world championships this year even more special.”

Does this mean, then, that American wushu has finally arrived? Will future teams continue the successes of Toronto? If we look at the results of recent U.S. teams, the indications are that this event was no fluke. At the 9th World Wushu Championships, held at the end of 2007 in Beijing, China, six athletes finished in the top eight of one or more events. In 2008, at the 2nd World Junior Wushu Championships, the young U.S. athletes won four medals, including one gold. The same year, the U.S. brought home eleven medals from the 7th Pan American Wushu Championships held in Brazil.

In wushu as in life, fortunes can change quickly. However, Americans now have good reason for optimism about the future of wushu in our country. Only time will tell.

The U.S. Team Officials

• Delegation Leader: Anthony Goh
• Deputy Delegation Leader and Taolu Team Leader: Malee Khow
• Championships Vice Referee of Taolu: Xiaolin Lu
• Taolu Coach: Zhang Guifeng
• Assistant Taolu Coach: Bangjun Jiang
• Assistant Taolu Coach: Stephon Morton
• Sanshou Team Leader and Coach: Ian Lee
• Sanshou Coach: Jeff Chow
• Assistant Sanshou Coach: Carmine Downey
• Sanshou Judge: Anthony Sims

Taolu Team

Male

• Alfred Hsing
• Peter Dang
• Colvin Wang
• Max Ehrlich

Female

• Sarah Chang
• Joana Pei
• Ashley Chung
• Stephanie Lim
• Elaine Ho

Sanshou Team
Male

• Michael Lee (65 kg)
• Maximillion Chen (70 kg)
• Alex Cisne (80 kg)
• Kasey Corless (90 kg)

Female

• Sonia Mejia (52 kg)

Medal-Winners

• Alfred Hsing (gold medal, men’s straight sword)
• Colvin Wang (silver men, men’s spear)

Other Top Eight Finishes
Taolu

• Sarah Chang (8th place, women’s chang quan)
• Peter Dang (8th place, men’s broadsword)
• Max Ehrlich (7th place, men’s southern broadsword)
• Elaine Ho (8th place, women’s taiji sword)
• Joana Pei (5th place, women’s broadsword)
• Colvin Wang (8th place, men’s straight sword)

Sanshou

• Maximillion Chen (8th place (quarterfinals), men’s 70 kg sanshou)
• Alex Cisne (8th place (quarterfinals), men’s 80 kg sanshou)

Original source: http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=859

Kung Fu Magazine

I had a long weekend again this week because I took Monday off work to take care of some kung fu interviews! On Wed. Kung Fu Magazine called me to attend their Kung Fu Magazine / Shark City National Tournament at the San Jose Convention Center (plus to do an interview and photoshoot).. so Thursday I booked a flight back to SJ for Friday.

Friday I flew back. My bags were late checked and they didnt make it on the flight! =(
How was I going to compete without my weapons and shoes??

Butterfly Twist in my dope yellow silks!

Saturday morning my dad gave me a ride. I had to do 3 things all before 9am (tournament registration was at 9am). We went to pick up a spear at Fu Bi De’s place, pick up my bags from the airport, and then made it to the tournament in time for walk-in registration. I competed and took home first and seconds (second to Zhang Hai Yang Beijing Wushu Team member – who competed dao against my jian and gun against qiang – you know how open karate/kung fu tournaments lump weapon divisions together).

A journalist from Sing Tao Newspaper dropped by the competition to interview me and snap a few pictures. Then at night I did a demo with Julie, Jimmy, and Master Tu Jin Sheng! I also taught the famous international wushu handshake developed by me and Margie Cina (and we’ll give Sam Tjhia some credit too) to the Pei sisters. The tournament and demo didn’t end until night. Then Sifu Zou (my tai chi master) came by and we went to an after party to get some food and drinks.

First Place Drunken Straight Sword at Kung Fu Magazine Tournament

and if you want to see My LongFist you can click here.

and if you want to see My StraightSword demo you can click here.

Sunday I had to return Fu Bi De’s spear and randomly Matt McBride and I ended up helping him out with a demo at San Jose City College. It was for a hua ren yun dong hui (chinese american athletic event). Then after the demo we got boba and then did a full practice. I competed against Fu Bi De and Yang Yang (both former He Nan Team) doing btwist + 720 inside combos. Whoever landed the most would have to buy drinks. Only Fu Bi De hit 1 out of 5 so we owed him drinks. We all sorta hit them, but they had to be perfect ones with full rotation and stable landing. Then we battled 540 outsides and Fu Bi De and I tied and Yang Yang lost.. so she owed him 3 drinks and me 1 drink. Haha! I beat a former China female athlete! Very tiring day, but still decided to get some drinks with Matt. Went over to my brothers place in San Jo and had some drinks then went home.

Monday I woke up sore as hell but still had to drag myself up and over to Kung Fu Magazines headquarters for a photoshoot! Photoshoot was fun. Kenny Perez and Kyle were there too. I took some pics for some ads/articles that Kung Fu Magazine should be featuring in the near future (so look forward to it on newsstands!). Right after the photoshoot (with no lunch yet) I ran over to New Tang Dynasty Television station to do a filmed tv interview that they are going to put on their channel which apparently airs in Asia and the US. I did a short demo at the end of my interview and then headed home. Got home, passed out for 30 minutes and woke up realizing I had 45 minutes to get to the airport. Long story short – made it in the nick of time and got back to LA.