Essentially reposted from www.wushukicks.com

Alfred Hsing Sport Accord Combat Games

The US and Canada national teams were in attendance at the 2010 sport accord combat games held in Beijing China among many other countries such as Russia, China, Malaysia, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, and Japan. The US Team sent veteran wushu athletes Sarah Chang, Peter Dang, and Alfred Hsing.

Aug 28 Changquan Alfred Combat Games Competition

Changquan was the first event of the entire Combat Games held at 9am on August 28th, 2010. There was significant media coverage and the event was in part sponsored by Samsung. I was 2nd in line to compete.. I didn’t make any major mistakes and given that I have been focusing on work in Beijing the past 2-3 months I am pretty happy with my performance today. This will be my last major wushu tournament and I am glad I got to share it with my good friends and teammates in Beijing – the land of wushu and where I always dreamed I would be on the main stage competing in front of hundreds. My dreams as a wushu athlete were finally completed today.

My Longfist – 2010 Sport Accord Combat Games

An Interview with Tom.com – in Chinese (please dont judge my Chinese.. im still practicing)

Peter Dang rocked the house when he took 3rd in the staff competition beating worthy adversaries such as Russia and 2 other Asian countries.

13 Combat Games Ambassadors

In addition the Opening Ceremony held on the evening of the 28th spared no expense as a dazzling display of physical prowess and beautiful music filled the stadium main floor. 13 Ambassadors for each sport were in attendance – among the ambassadors were Don “the dragon” Wilson, mma fighter Fedor “the last emperor” Emelianenko, and many other legends of martial arts. The final closing song of the evening was sung by Jackie Chan who was surrounded by dancers and acrobats as the ceremony came to a close.

There are many more events such as kick boxing, sambo, jiu jitsu that are still occurring since the Combat Games just started. Look forward to these amazing sports broadcasts featured online. I wish I had more time to watch all the other events. =)

It was nice hanging with the US and Canada wushu team peeps… but it’s back to work for me!

A Day in the Life of Alfred Hsing – July 24th, 2010

Recently over dinner I met someone who mentioned a project called “Life in a Day“. I saw a short clip of it a few days ago.. and then lo and behold I log in to YouTube today and see it boldly blasting all over the place. Today is “YouTube Filming Day” for the project of Life in a Day.

Life In A Day is a historic global experiment to create a user-generated documentary film shot in a single day. This experimental documentary will be executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Oscar winning director Kevin Macdonald. The film will premier at the Sundance Film Festival Jan 2011.

It also just so happens that July 24th and 25th (which is still the 24th in the US) are the only days I will have YouTube access because I’ll be back in China tomorrow (where YouTube is blocked). Thus I felt some calling to document my life on this day… and plus I had been meaning to create a video on “A Day in the Life of Alfred Hsing“.

Let me know what you guys thing because I plan to submit this tomorrow.

In other news, I created a new website – www.alfredrocks.com

alfredrocks.com

I’ve always had the domain alfredrocks.com, but before it simply linked to a blogspot page. Now that I am getting more involved in production and acting, I felt it was only right to have a clean simple page with my head shot, demo reel, and resume – all of which are on the site. =)

There are still a few minor changes I might make to both the “Life in a Day” short and my new alfredrocks.com site. Overall they were both fun to work on. Feel free to leave feedback!

karate kid villain fight

So I go to wushu this week and LO AND BEHOLD… it’s my arch-nemesis from Jackie Chan’s “The Karate Kid“! I had to get revenge for him breaking Jaden’s leg so we fought for a little bit..

The Karate Kid / Kung Fu Dream

…and after we fought it out, we became friends just like in the end of Karate Kid (sorry if I spoiled the ending for some of you!) But yeah, he is actually a really cool kid. We trained wushu a couple times and he always wears that Y-3 shirt. Wushu-wise I am tying to squeeze in as much training as possible, but working 24/7 definitely does take it’s toll. Nevertheless!  I will train as much as I can for the Sport Accord Combat Games. Jet miiiight watch. This is just a maybe… but either way I need to stay sharp and in shape.

Ryans Last Day

So it was Ryan’s last day on Sunday. He is moving on to getting an MBA. Congrats to him. However, it was a sad sad day in some ways..

For 3 weeks I was on this crazy crash course of Jet-ology. It was like I was on The Real World or Road Rules where every week you get crazy ridiculous challenges while staying in baller suite hotels.. but if you mess up the challenges you go home! Well 3 weeks have gone by and I guess the show has ended, cuz the “host” Ryan has had to part ways. Now it’s just my every day life and there’s one less person to say “haha remember when Jet and I did this and this… haha… good times..” Now I just talk to the hotel attendants or the people that clean my room… haha!

In all semi-seriousness the job is super cool, but the schedule is demanding so (for now at least) there’s not much time to go out or meet new people so it was nice that there was someone that was working with me. =) In any case, in August we’ll be getting someone else on board so I just gotta take the helms and run both ships for another month or so. As Ryan would say “You da man now!”

In pimp news, I went to my first movie premier in China.

aftershock red carpet movie premier

Jet and I were invited to this movie called “Aftershock” – In Chinese it literally translates to “Tangshan Big Earthquake“. The movie is a Huayi Brothers production and I compare Huayi to the Warner Bros of Asia. They are one of the leading production companies out here in Asia.

The movie is about a disastrous earthquake that occurred in Tangshan in 1976. The movie follows the lives of a few people that managed to survive the earthquake. It was a very emotional movie, but I think overall it was well shot and well produced.

aftershock premier invitation

aftershock inside ticket

The above 2 pictures are the invitation card they give to the guests. It’s a very sturdy-feeling card with a ticket inside. In Asia they also always assign seats in the theater unlike the US where you walk in and pick your own seat. I think this is more organized and fair. Say you get to the theater early, you can just pick a seat from the ticket counter. The theater itself knows which seats are available and you also know that you won’t have to scramble for seats if you have 3 people and one friend ends up sitting 8 seats away from you.

aftershock cast and crew

After the movie, a singer came out to sing and then the main cast came out and said a few words. It was great to get to watch the movie and then see the actual actors come out to talk. I am still learning about the Asia entertainment industry so I don’t know that many of the actors and actresses. Even when we were in the VIP guest room a lot of people were coming to greet Jet and I am sure they were baller Asian celebs, but I didn’t know most of the people in there except for the Huayi brothers and Jet. I’m sure over the course of a few months I will learn who most people are. Anyways, great performance by the cast of Tangshan Da Di Zhen.

Last but not least, I gotta put at least one picture of food up in here.

delicious salmon

A hotel staff member introduced me to an all you can eat Japanese food restaurant the other day and it was delicious! Under $20 for ALL YOU CAN EAT SALMON! This is what I love about China. They have all you can eat Japanese food and it’s not buffet style. You order what you want from a menu – including bbq beefsteak, chicken, unagi, sashimi, sake, beer, fried rice, etc.. and it’s unlimited for about $20. I could go back to this place every day! Alas, I have no time or cash to be going there all the time. =P

Anyways, I’ll be on the move again flying out tomorrow at 6am. Macau/HK/Shanghai bound. Feel free to write or mail me postcards people!

So I’ve been out in Beijing for a little over 2 weeks now. Why did I move out here? I got an offer to work for Jet Li / The One Foundation and in less than 24 hours I had decided I would relocate everything to Beijing. A frequent slogan of the one foundation is that with “one” it symbolizes a beginning to something. Without 1 there can not be a 2 and subsequent growth.

People ask me what do I do? This is such a difficult question because there’s just so much. As much as the previous assistant explained and prepared me for what was in store when I got off that plane, actually diving into it head on was a completely different sensation. I remember 3 days in RW constructively told me “stop sighing… I know it’s a lot to take in. I sighed a lot when I first got here too, but I know you can handle it.” ..and since then I do feel a better grasp on things of course, but I just wanted to use that quote to exemplify how much was going on.

One Foundation Research Institute Ceremony

So a quick recap of some of the things that happened in the life of Alfred Hsing upon first arriving. I feel like I barely drop off my 2 huge luggage bags and before I know it I am on a plane again. We essentially traveled to Shanghai, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Macau, and back to Beijing in 7 days or so. We had meetings, lunches, interviews, dinners, red carpet events, philanthropy discussions, and press conferences to attend throughout the day. The first first day on the job for me was the announcement of the One Foundation Research Institute at Beijing Normal University. After that it all blends together, but a few notable events include meeting the CEO of Alibaba.com, fighting our way out through a mob of fans, seeing Jet promote his “WuJi” Adidas line, first hand tour of part of the Shanghai Expo, and attending press events for his latest movie “Ocean Heaven”.

Ocean Heaven

I had the opportunity to watch Ocean Heaven with the One Foundation team. Let me cue you all in on both real quick in case you don’t know. Ocean Heaven is a non-action film starring Jet where he is the father of an autistic child. One of the reasons he did this film was to support various causes and create awareness for people out there. This sort of ties in with the One Foundation in terms of his aims to help others. The One Foundation was created in 2007 and the simple message is that everyone should do a little every month because the world is one big family. He says that above all.. before we get into races and genders and who owns what and who does what.. we are all humans and we share one earth.. so we should all do our part to help out. That is a very high level explanation, but day to day there is a LOT more going on. He and the team are always striving to develop and grow the foundation so that it can do more in cases of natural disasters, poverty, education, health, and environmental protection.

Ocean Heaven Red Carpet Event

Wushu
I think it’s cool that Jet was one of the first that broke through and brought wushu to the world and a couple of wushu generations later I am still practicing wushu and working alongside him. We had a brief chat about who I trained with and it was cool that he knew most of the people and they were people that competed in his era and or trained with him. We had a meeting with some wushu federation members and it came up that I would be attending the Sport Accord Combat Games which they are helping to host.

For the Sport Accord Combat Games I will be competing in changquan only. Some friends in China asked to see my longfist form and some videos since youtube is BLOCKED in China.. I’ve uploaded my videos on youku.com! Here are two clips:

Social Life
I haven’t had much time to go out since I’ve just started working, but I was able to hang out with some friends at Shi Cha Hai and train once or twice with the Beijing Wushu Team. Although I’m working a lot and learning a ton, I need to remind myself to stay in shape still… on top of that, I need to keep in shape for this last tournament in August at least. I also have interacted with Jet’s previous assistants and they have all been very talented and very cool people.

Food
One thing about this job is that food and hotels are never shabby. I have had some really delicious food the past few weeks. The other half of the time when we are not out at a restaurant room service becomes your friend.

Thank You Room Service

Thoughts
I am definitely learning a lot out here. I do not for a second regret this decision although to be honest at times I do think to myself “I could be in LA with family and friends. I could be in an environment where I know all the places; I know the people around me; the language, roads, etc are more familiar” but then I do consider that this is a very rare opportunity to take in as much as possible from the movers and shakers of the world. We’ve met UN officials, real estate moguls, and the largest web entrepreneur in Asia. I am very passionate about the work we do and it just so happens that the things my boss is involved in happens to be “business, entertainment, and martial arts.”

Jet and Wang Shi

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! =)

lights camera action

In the past 3 days I got 3 auditions. I had an audition per day Wed, Thurs, and will be going to one today Friday. I also had an audition last Sat so that makes 4 in the past week! I’m glad that I feel more active progress. This is the area I have been trying to focus more on this past month… and its manifesting!! Of course, now I just need to actually book these gigs. haha! I’ll wait to hear back in the coming days/weeks to see how I did on these 3 auditions.

I also updated my demo reel which I posted in the post before this. It seems fitting that I have it in this post as well since I’m mainly discussing my entertainment endeavors.

Someone told me it was pretty epic.. and I said.. I hope it would be slightly epic since it’s everything I’ve done in the past 6 years or so compressed into 1 minute and 30 seconds. =P

I finally finished reading this acting book that I bought 7 months back. It was a great read. It taught me new things and reminded me of things that I knew. Acting is fascinating because it really lets you learn more about yourself, people in general, and human nature. I feel like the more I delve into acting, the more gates I am unlocking in myself.. freeing myself of limitations, judgments, and fears.

The audition I went to today (Thurs) was some “Unitled Project” which I thought was going to be some glorified extra role, but it ended up being a top secret project at Paramount Studios. I don’t even know what its about, but it would be sweet to land that.

Saturday I will be going back to do adr for Barry Baz pilot project. It was supposed to be done done final 2 weeks ago, but little things keep coming up and these guys want it perfect so I’ll be back one more time on Saturday. After that hopefully this thing will be signed and sealed. It has already been submitted to the LA Pilot Festival. This is the same festival that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia got noticed.

its always sunny in philadelphia

Currently still planning on shooting a short in June and either episode 1 of a web series or just a trailer before I go to China. When I’m not auditioning or practicing I’m going to be doing a lot of writing.

Beijing Night

International Travel
In other news… I booked my flights to China, HK, and Taiwan… so it is OFFICIAL OFFICIAL. (When I say something twice you know it’s official) Here are my official but never permanent travel dates:

Aug 19 LAX -> PEK
Sep 09 PEK -> HKG
Sep 13 HKG -> TPE

Let me know if you will be in ASIA at this time! Even though I only booked flights for Beijing, HK, and Taipei, it doesn’t mean I won’t end up in Thailand, Vietnam, or anywhere else. Hoping to follow up with a few entertainment contacts while I’m in Asia. I am really looking forward to seeing a lot of good friends. I’ll also be training wushu and sanda in Beijing. It should be a really good trip.

The Beijing part of the trip will be covered, but for HK and Taipei, I’m still finding places to live. In Taiwan if anyone is renting a place, let me know!

Martial Arts
I’ve been going to the gym, tricking, doing wushu, or kickboxing at least once a day 7 days a week. I might be adding one or two more private lessons. I feel like it’s going to be awesome.

As far as competitions go, I got quite a few potentially lined up. I might be doing a ton of traveling in the next 2 months (next 4 months if you count all the flying to Asia).

June 12-13 – Tiger Claw KungFuMagazine BASKA tournament in San Jose
June 18-19 – AKA Grands in Kentucky
June 26-27 – Strikeforce Cung Le Fight (as media / to watch) in San Jose
July 09-10 – NASKA US Open – in Flordia
July 30-31 – NASKA US Capitol Classics – Marlyand
Aug 25-30 – Sport Accord Combat Games in Beijing

Looking for New Roommate
This part of my post refers to exactly that – I am looking for a new roommate available to move in starting June 1st. My old roommate is moving out in a week. Please spread the word if anyone needs a room in the Alhambra area. Lots of good Asian food in this area!

Business
Finishing up some ads, negotiated better merchant transaction rates, and set up my shipper account. Focus has been on the entertainment stuff this week. Sales have been steady and the business is much more cleaned up. Little minor to do for the business will be to clean up FAQ on the email response portion, add in “how do shoe sizes run” question and response, switch over to dedicated work email, test run new shipper account.

My latest action reel.

Here it is on vimeo too.

Alfred Hsing 2010 Demo Reel from Alfred Hsing.

Cung Le Interview

May 6, 2010.
Cung Le Interview by Alfred Hsing

Last Thursday I had the privilege and honor to chat with former US Wushu Team member, former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion, and current actor/action star CUNG LE.

Cung might not know it yet, but he is actually the perfect spokesman for the theme of my blog “business, entertainment, and martial arts”. Those are the 3 areas that I strive to reach the next level on and Cung has achieved it. In business – he started his own martial arts school and brand (USH!). In martial arts – he was a medalist at the world wushu championships, he won the middleweight champion title in strikeforce, and he has won countless tournaments in various styles of martial arts. In entertainment – he has worked with action star Donnie Yen and is going to be in the upcoming Hollywood film “Tekken”.

To see Cung in action check out this highlight reel.

So to sum it up- Cung has been an inspiration in more ways than one. To top it off he has helped promote Asian Americans in a positive light AND he is an EXTREMELY humble guy. For a guy that could throw you upside down on top of your head, he is super calm and super chill. Much respect!

Now to the interview! He was in town in LA to promote his recent movie “Bodyguards and Assassins”. This is a movie that was released in Asia, but it was playing at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. I interviewed him for the Pacific Rim Video Channel. In our interview he talks about what it was like working with Donnie Yen, his thoughts on wushu/sanshou in MMA, and his strategy on his rematch with opponent Scott Smith scheduled to fight June 26, 2010!

Without further ado, here is the interview.

For the martial artists, what are your thoughts on his upcoming fight with Scott Smith and do you guys think its possible to juggle a competitive martial arts career with filming and making movies?

Also thoughts on Cung Le and the UFC? Dana White has mentioned that he would like to see Cung in the UFC. Anyways, just food for thought. Feel free to leave comments.

To check out more about Cung, the man, check out www.cungle.com!

This video interview was brought to you in part by Pac Rim Video and WushuKicks.com.

Chris Yen and I

I had a lunch meeting with Chris Yen, Donnie Yen’s sister, last week… and it was a very productive meeting! Read on!

Chris Yen Inside Kung-Fu

For those of you who don’t know – Chris Yen is an awesome martial artist and entrepreneur. Early in her martial arts film career she worked with acclaimed action director Yuen Wo-Ping in 1986 on a project shot in Taiwan. Later in her career she went on to work with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson helping her brother out on the set of Shanghai Knights. Soon after she went to Hong Kong to film a stylish female assassin role in “Black Rose.” Chris Yen’s performance in Black Rose led to a profile in the South China Morning Post, which in turn led to a featured appearance with Matt Lauer on NBC’s The Today Show, broadcast live from Hong Kong to millions of viewers. Invited to LA for auditions by a top casting director from Columbia Pictures, she has been featured in several commercials and was cast as the lead in the youth market action film Adventures of Johnny Tao, as well as in a supporting role in A Good Day to be Black and Sexy, an official 2008 Sundance Selection. She continues to work hard and develop projects with her writing partners.

Her brother Donnie Yen has appeared in more than 40 films and TV shows, including: “Ip Man”(2008), “Flash Point” (2007), “Saat Po Long aka SPL” (2005), “Shanghai Knights” (2003), “Hero” (2002), “Blade II” (2002), “Highlander: Endgame” (2000), and “Iron Monkey ” (1993).

Interestingly enough in March 2009 I posted an article on Chris Yen on the WushuKicks.com Wushu News blog – http://www.wushukicks.com/chinese-martial-arts/tag/chris-yen/ It’s amazing that a year later we got to sit down to chat over lunch.

Enough with the talk. If you haven’t seen her demo reel… check it out. I particularly like the wheel kick at 1:12.

We got in touch through a mutual friend and originally met up to get some feedback on her thoughts on Martial Arts Complete and some sponsorship. If you’ll notice in the picture at the top that pink and white “M” is a Mooto hoodie courtesy of MOOTO USA. Much thanks Mooto! and of course we got love for WushuKicks.com up in there as well.

Chris Yen and Martial Arts Complete

This ad isn’t the FINAL version yet, but it’s pretty close. I must say I’m pretty proud of this because I took this picture on my Nikon D60 at a boba cafe, edited it, and did the design as well. And to do Chris justice I must say that it was not a planned out photo shoot or anything and she just came in her casual attire, but she came out looking great. After clearing out the background and putting in our martial arts complete background I think the whole thing looks pretty cool!

Business aside, we had a lot to talk about regarding wushu, martial arts training, movies, productions, refinancing, and the tasty ham and corn on french bread appetizers. Chris mentioned that she will be back and forth between Asia and the states and we talked a lot about her personal project Kore8Films and what it takes to get things off the ground. It was a really great meeting and I am honored to be able to sit down with such an accomplished yet humble martial artist. Definitely look out for her in some big projects ahead!

ham and corn on french bread

Mike Shinoda

Source: www.casualiscool.com | Stunts: www.alfredrocks.com

Am I getting better at manifesting my dreams or was this coincidence? I was thinking about Fort Minor’s song and the next day I wake up and meet the guy behind it. Let’s not forget the time I had a dream I met Jackie Chan while I was in Taiwan and the next day I get an email from Robbie saying we are demo-ing for Jackie Chan. Here is the Mike Shinoda manifestation story:

I went to the East West Players Visionary Awards yesterday to do some interviews for Pacific Rim. There were a lot of great people there and talented Asian artists. =)

The strange thing was this: 4am the night before I was writing song lyrics for my business fraternity’s 10 year reunion event…

Past present blending through the ages
Destiny scripted on your manuals pages
From E-xi till DnI we cry and laugh
That sig on the back you can keep my autograph

A fraction inspiration, the rest is sweat
Building boats and memories we’ll never forget
In you and I got u.n.i.t.y.
Reach for those dreams the limit is the sky!

…and that line “a fraction inspiration, the rest is sweat” was inspired by Mike Shinoda or Fort Minor’s song “Remember the name”.

So at 4am I fell asleep thinking about Fort Minor’s lyrics:

This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

and the next morning (same day) I wake up to a text from Pacific Rim saying “hey I know its kind of last minute but can you help cover the East West Players Awards at 6:30pm today?” So I said yes.. and BAM! I’m covering the event and then get to meet and interview Mike Shinoda! It was awesome because I really like his music and style and he seemed like a very cool person.

If you guys don’t know, Mike Shinoda is an Asian American artist best known for his vocal and musical endeavors with two-time Grammy-winning, multi-platinum rock band Linkin Park who also has his own project Fort Minor. He also is an awesome graphic designer that graduated from The Art Center — and I happened to have just come back from The Art Center that day watching a screening for a grad program short film I worked on.

Other actors/performers were at the event as well. Here are a few other pics:

Joan Almedilla Miss Saigon

Kaba Modern was there too!

kaba modern and mike shinoda

I had a good time at the event for sure. I also was hanging out with a fellow volunteer, Michi, and she taught me some improv games. There’s one where you pick a random letter of the alphabet like.. “G” for example so then I would say “Go get me some apples” and then the next person would have to start with the next letter of the alphabet “H” and they would say “Hellll no I’m not getting apples for you”.. etc / There’s another game where you can only ask questions.. and that was fun too. I think I might try to check out some improv groups when I have more time. I heard about OPM (opening people’s minds) and a few other improv groups. It would be cool to work with some really good improv people.

In summary- it may have been a coincidence or it may be that I have my hands in so many things that I’m bound to “accidentally” meet people that I am inspired by, but part of me thinks that the universe definitely does work in such a way that if you go about it the right way, paths will cross and dreams can manifest.

Martial Arts:

Mooto Backpack

Got a sick white backpack from my sponsor – MOOTO! They are sponsoring me with gear that I shall be sporting at my next competitions such as at the 2010 Sport Accord Combat Games! Mooto is known for being a high end korean taekwondo focused brand. They are expanding and are already based in many countries like the US, Canada, Mexico, Egypt, throughout Asia, etc. Anyways, I can’t repeat enough times how cool that backpack is.. it has pockets and zippers everywhere and a mesh lining that keeps your back separate from the actual bag to prevent your back from sweating. More details at wushukicks.com

As far as training.. I have been consistently working out of course, but not as much as I’d like. I’ve been trying to nail down a lot of work and projects so I had my competition focus diverted. With taxes filed, 2009 year wushukicks finances done, and site upgrades completed I should be able to go complete focus the next 2 weeks.

On Saturday we also had a crazy photo shoot for Martial Arts Complete. A lot of good buddies came out to help including Adam, Robbie, Tamiko, Greta, Kim, and Travis. Much thanks to our 2 professional photographers that drove all the way out from Fresno – Shaun and Boone! I’ll post some picture after we sort through all of them.

Here is one just taken on Boone’s iPhone for fun. It still came out dope though!

kung fu sidekick block

In website news… I contracted a web programmer to clean up and make wushukicks.com even more secure. We got the ssl encryption working flawlessly. Made a few other cosmetic changes as well and I am a happy camper. This took me a grueling 3 days of ocd style managing because I really wanted to get this locked down.

Misc:
Got new dryer installed – had to ghetto rig the exhaust in the back. Might have to fix that in time. – Shin sen gumi with Ant.
Dinner and sake with Ryan – Ryan learns the meaning of “unfiltered”
In the process of helping Audrey purchase her first home! =) Putting my real estate license to good use!