Wushu Notes
Wushu is reaching the next level! Congrats to the Fullerton club. Don't forget that they are hosting the next Collegiates this coming February. More info on that will be coming soon too, so check back soon.Dear Students, Starting next semester, there will be an exciting, new class. It will be worth one unit. The class is Wushu: Chinese Martial Arts. This is the first one unit wushu class to ever be offered in California. Wushu is a contemporary form of martial art and will be part of the Olympics in the year 2004. All you have to do is register to experience the national sport of China. KNES 153 Chinese Martial Arts 17575 MW 10:00-10:50 1 unit class Thank you for you time, Phillip Chen For more information: Contact Professor Dapeng Chen at (714)278-2514 or me, Phillip Chen at phillipchen78@hotmail.com
Some links -Men's Results: Changquan: 1. Sun Chunhe (China) 2. Leo Wen Yeow (Singapore) 3. Chan Dae Park (S. Korea) 24 Taiji (50+): 1. Puan Jooi Eong (Singapore) Nangun 1. Tran Trong Tuan (VN) 2. Chen Ka Ho (HK) 3. Kim Tong-tea (S. Korea) Nandao 1. ?? 2. Truong Quoc Tri (Vietnam) Taiji (42?) 1. Zou Yunjian (China) Women's Results : Straightsword: 1.Chung Tao Lan (Macao) (Both China & Vietnam did not compete in this event) Changquan 1. Wang Xiaona (China) 9.31 2. Nguyen Thuy Hien (Vietnam) 9.3 3. Dam Thanh Xuan (Vietnam Nangun 1. Nguyen Thi Phuong Lan (Vietnam) 2. Than Sweswe (Myanmar) 3. Tsang Angie (HK)
Some podium pictures from the second day
And on an unrelated note, check this out - http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20001029/en/mdf126644.html
Men's -
Longfist Champion: China's Sun Chunhe (Tianjin, 24yrs old)
Southern Staff Champion: China's Chen Shuaibo
Women's -
Broadsword 1: Nguyen Thuy Hien (Vietnam)
2: Wang Xiao Na (China)
3: Dam Thanh Xuan (Vietnam)
Nanquan 1) Huang
Chunni (China)
2) Thi Phuong Lan (Vietnam)
3) ??? (HK)
Straightsword champion was Macau's Zhong Xiulan
And here are some links to check out -
Openning Ceremonies -
http://www.laodong.com.vn/thoisu/cv.htm
- (in Vietnamese)
Results, etc -
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/2000-11/01/Stories/18.htm
- (in English)
http://www.vnagency.com.vn/Asp/Readnewse4.asp?FileN=frav0211.003
- (in English)
http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/sports/jcsj/200011/1101c.html
- (in Chinese)
Yes, that is a shocker - Wang Xiao Na got beaten in Broadsword! This maybe be the first time a professional athlete from China has ever been beaten by a non-Chinese athlete. Hopefully we'll be able to get more info on this division to find out how this happened (ie did Wang Xiao Na make any mistakes?). I hope to get more results in the next few days too.
The Asian Wushu Games are going on right now in Hanoi, Lisa found this picture from the People's Daily - Straightsword pose - People's Daily (10/31/00)
Also my good friend Kong Xiangdong is the featured athlete of the week at wushu.net.cn, click here to view a brief bio in Chinese and photo (scroll down about 1/2 way). Or you can skip to some nice photos of him at the World Games last November, where he took gold in taiji sword.
Anyway, hopefully I'll have results from the Asian Wushu Championships in English in the coming days, and I'll pass it along.
Men's - Straightsword: 1) Justin Ho 2) David Chang 3) Matt Nguyen Broadsword: 1) Arthur Chen 2) Wood Wong 3) Lam Nguyen Phillip Chen got firsts in Nan Dao, Nan Gun and Open Flexible Weapon. Women's - Straightsword: 1) Felicia Sze 2) Mae Hsu Open Emptyhand: 1) Felicia (eagle) 2) Rosa huang (mantis) Men's Internal Grandchamp: Duc Dong (previously of irvine, now in Wisconsin) Men's Traditional Grandchamp: Danial Tomizaki from Tat Mau Wong's school Men's Contemporary Grandchamp: Arthur Chen (Stanford Wushu Club) Women's Contemporary Grandchamp: Mae Hsu (Pacific Wushu Academy)Recall that the Grand Championship is the sum of places, and in the case of people having the same places (in this case Arthur Chen vs Phillip Chen (no relation)), they apparently give it to the person who has the higher scores. Congrats to all, this event while not perfect (when is anything perfect?) was a success and seems to be a major step forward in the WKF overcoming its leadership problems from this past year.
Men's - Changquan 1. Arthur Chen 2. Justin Ho 3. David Chang Nanquan 1. Phillip Chen 2. Mark Moran 3. Joe Scarcella 4. Hui Nguyen Staff 1. Arthur Chen 2. Joe Scarcella Spear 1. Woody Wong 2. David Chang 3. Brandon Sugiyama 4. Justin Ho 42 Taijiquan 1. Brandon Sugiyama 42 Taiji Sword 1. Brandon Sugiyama Open Internal Emptyhand 1. Brandon Sugiyama Women's - Changquan 1. Mae Hsu 2. Felicia Sze Staff 1. Felicia Sze Spear 1. Mae HsuFrom my reports the tournament is very organized, although the carpeting hasn't been well recieved by some of the competitors. There appear to be about 200 competitors, which is a good number considering that this event doesn't have seperate skill level divisions.
And yes, you read the results for spear right, Woody Wong is back in the ring and based on the results, apparently he hasn't lost his touch. Also from what I've heard, it sounds like a lot of well known names in our community are present for this event, some of whom haven't gone near a WKF event in years. It looks like the new leadership of the WKF is doing a good job fixing the problems of the past. Some of the people present include Chan Pui, Lily Lau, Tai Yim, Eric Chen, Li Jinheng and He Weiqi.
The short weapons, southern weapons and rest of the open divisions will be held tomorrow. At this point for the Grand Championships it appears that the Men's Contemporary Grand Champion is between Phillip Chen, Brandon Sugiyama and Arthur Chen. It looks like the Women's is between Mae Hsu and Felicia Sze.
I'll have more results by Sunday night, hopefully I'll get them up that night! Good Luck to everyone on the second day.
(Thanks again to Lisa!)
San Diego is this weekend, hope everyone going has a good time, unfortunately I am not able to make it, but I'm sure it will be a really good event. Good luck!
http://www.msnbc.com/news/462515.asp
I'm not sure how long this clip will stay up, and I haven't figured out how to link to it directly yet, so hopefully you guys will look at this soon. Click on this link - http://www.msnbc.com/m/v/video_news.asp, THEN click on the link titled - Training begins early for Chinese gymnasts under Nightly News with Tom Brokaw
Did you find it? At least some of those shots are from ShiShaHai. Here's a picture I took there last summer that I have on my photoessay on that trip. But also, I have some previously unreleased pictures that my friend Mike Hsu took for me and later scanned in for me, they are pretty cool and feature our friends on the gymnastics team -
Some
of the girls in front of their training center
Me
and Mike's girlfriend with the girls next to the track
Mark also has a "virtual tour" of the facility on Wushu.net, you can go there directly by clicking here - http://www.wushu.net/beijing/tour_01.html
China Issues New Rules on Practicing Qigong - People's Daily (9/19/00)
Hope everyone's getting ready for San Diego, it looks like its going to be a good competition. Unfortunately it looks like I will be /unable/ to attend, due to circumstances beyond my control. ;) But don't worry, we'll have total coverage!
Wannabe sports
queue up for Olympic recognition - Times of India (9/3/00) - Featuring
a quote from none other than our dear friend
Liu Qinghua!
China
gives up gold to save 2008 Games bid - On the Chinese olympic bid for
2008.
I've got some pictures scanned in from the Beijing Invitational Tournament, hopefully I'll get a chance to write up the HTML for it tomorrow or friday. Also my pictures from AZ get back tomorrow, can't wait, can you?
It was a really fun, really well represented tournament. There were about 200 competitors, about 3 times bigger than last year's. Some of the schools represented were SCWA, Wushu West, US Wushu Academy, Guo Jianhua's school out of Chicago, Zhuang Hui's National Martial Arts Academy in NM, Pacific Wushu Academy and the UC Berkeley Wushu Club.
Competition was pretty fierce in most of the categories. Brandon Sugiyama got the Men's Internal Grand Champ, Felicia Sze and David Chang won the adult contemporary grand champs.
I had a really good time seeing everyone there, I saw a lot of old friends again and made some new ones. In the process I took like 3 rolls of film, which I hope to get developed soon. Also Li Jinheng promised to get me a copy of the results to put up too (which would be awesome). In the meanwhile, Shaun, one of the SCWA guys has some photos up already, they're at:
http://www.geocities.com/kiepvesau_99/wushu/arizona.html
If you haven't decided yet, I strongly encourage everyone to think about the WKF nationals in San Diego next month!
Also Zhihao has helped us with (roughly) translating the 1936 Olympic
Wushu Demo paragraph (see below) -
Martial Arts
in the past has been taken to other countries. By means of overseas
Chinese and exchange students during the Republic of China. Many martial
arts teams have gone abroad to perform and teach such as; Shanghai Jingwu
assoc. and Fujian Yongchun "Minnan marial arts group" and other groups as
well. At that time groups with the biggest influence were the Central
Martial Arts group and the National Athletics School. June 6th 1936
selected matrial arts athletes accompanied the Chinese Olympic team to the
11th World Olympics in Germany to put on a demonstration. They were Zhang
Er-ding, Zhang Wen-guang, Wen Jing-ming, Jin Shi-sheng, Zheng Huai-xian,
Huo Lian-yuan(female), Fu Shu-yun (female), Liu Yu-hua(female), NanKai
Universities Martial Arts team Coach Hao Ming and team captain and Gu
Shun-hua as the teams affairs manager.
Martial Arts Promoted Abroad
Thanks Zhihao!
1. Paragraph - In Chinese
with
some background info. Does anyone want to help translate? My jiantizi
ain't so great.
2. Group pic
3. Chi-Na demonstration
Thanks to Emilio! By the way, I have the first part of my Collegiate Wushu Extravaganza almost done, and I've already started on the next part. I'll be posting stuff up this weekend.
Sinowushu.com has more results from the Beijing Tournament this week, mostly in chinese, but there are some articles in English.
Secondly, I just heard from my friend Jenny Tang that the famous He Weiqi (athlete and coach in China since the 70s, lives in NY now) will be featured on ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings on Friday night. (check local listings for time and channel).
Also the CAAT is this weekend, I'll try to snap some pictures of the competition to share.
They have added an English section, its at, http://www.sinowushu.com/english/english.html. There aren't any results there yet, but there are some articles on the competition and participants. There is also a list of the teams in attendance (3 from the US, Lily Lau Kungfu Academy, US Wushu Academy and the Pacific Wushu Academy (my classmates)). Check it out. Hopefully there'll be more info soon, so check back.
Baltimore International Wushu Competition Opens - CCTV (8/6/00) (in Chinese)
By the way, the "Wushu Festival" in Baltimore is this weekend. Anyone who goes, let me know how it is. I'm curious whether or not they'll make any statements about the recent developments in the WKF leadership (leading to the "new" Nationals in San Diego to replace this event).
Also that competition in Chian is this coming week. I'll let you all know if I find any coverage of it in the Chinese press. I think there probably will be something.
Oh, and the WKF.org site (ie Anthony Goh's faction of the WKF) has a report and results from the Pan Am Games. The address is http://www.usawkf.org/goh-update-5-Pan%20America.htm Its interesting to read how positive Anthony Goh is about it ("huge success," "most well run," etc). The reports I've heard of it aren't nearly that nice. ;)
Its an official page for the Beijing Wushu Team, hosted by Sinosports.net. Even if you can't read Chinese, its worth clicking around and seeing some of the cool pictures. You'll recognize most of the athletes are the same athletes in some of my Beijing Team coverage.
To all competitors and friends:OK everyone, it's official. The USAWKF National Competition will be in San Diego during the weekend of October 6, 7 & 8. Everyone can feel free to spread the word.
The facility is called the Concourse and is a part of the convention center complex although the rest of the convention center is a block or 2 away. It's only 3 miles from the airport and 12 hotels are within walking distance. The floor area is over 23,000 SF (157 x 151 ft) plus spectator seating in the balcony (1100 seats) so we should have plenty of room. The place is beautiful ! And the floor is carpeted.
Information about the location, divisions, etc. is available at:
www.usawkf.comThe site is still under construction, so check back frequently for updated and additional information, as well as on-line registration.
Please do not use any website or e-mail address involving the usawkf.org site, such as usawkf@usawkf.org, in conjunction with this National event, as that site is in dispute with Network Solutions and is currently being held by Goh's Kung Fu in Baltimore and as such, is no longer the official USAWKF site.
If you need more information, you can contact the official USAWKF from the www.usawkf.com website, or by replying directly to this address at WKFInfo@aol.com.
Also, the USAWKF Board of Directors and National Competition Committee welcome any ideas, comments, or suggestions that you wish to send our way. We know that you all have lots of ideas for making this the greatest National Competition ever, so don't hesitate to let us know!
Thanks and see you in San Diego,
National Competition Committee
Cool Deal. The venue looks pretty nice, check out the website.
Beijing
to Hold International Wushu Invitational Tournament - People's Daily
(7/25/00)
Interview:
Chinese Wushu in Ethiopia - People's Daily (4/4/00)
Qingdao
to Host International Wushu Tournament - People's Daily (7/21/00)
By the way, the WKF's new leadership has announced that its Official Nationals (not to be confused with the tournament being held in Baltimore early next month), will be held in San Diego, CA on October 6-8. Rgistration information isn't available yet, but when it is, you should be able to access it at www.usawkf.com. Of course any information will be listed on the upcoming events page once it is officially announced, so check back in a week or two.
In the meanwhile, there is the Kuoshu Federation's tournament next week in Baltimore, the "Wushu Festival" in Baltimore the week after that (no longer a WKF event according to the new leadership), the CAAT tournament out here in California August 12th, and Li Jinheng's tournament in Arizona on labor day weekend.
Just off the top of my head - present in the contemporary division included - Students from the USWA in Virginia, a big group from Jianhua Guo's school outside Chicago, my pals Pablo and Michael from Arizona, Melissa Gee from VA, some guy from China who's broadsword kicked ass, a big group from Luo Li's school in Florida (another Omei school I think) and my new best friends, the wushu athletes from the Splendid China theme park.
I just took three rolls of film to Costco, hopefully I'll get them back by thursday and scanned in quickly. I had a lot of fun and met a lot of new people, lots of people coming up to me randomly saying "you're that web page guy, aren't you?" I think the pictures should be worth the wait.
I also understand that Canada's Alan Tang got Men's All-Around. Thanks to Phillip for sharing the news. He's going to be sending me some pictures from the competition photos soon too hopefully. Stay Tuned. By the way, Phillip was the only US Team member who went to Worlds in HK in November to also compete at Pan Ams.Women: Anita Lopez - first longfist, first straightsword, first spear Deborah Yang - first tai chi, first taichi straight sword Vraja Grover - first nanquan, first nangun, fifth broadsword Men: Phillip Chen - second nanquan, second nangun, first nandao Ken Glynn - first tai chi and first tai chi straight sword
Jet Li Kick-Starts New Besson Film - Mr. Showbiz (6/13/00)
Fortune, Fame and Fansites - CNN.com's Asia Now (6/16/00 edition)
Basically Jet attributes encouragement from his fans via his website for him taking the part in the Matrix 2! A big congrats needs to go out to my pals at Rotten-Tomatoes for creating his website!
Beijing Unveils Emblem, Slogan for 2008 Olympic Bid - People's Daily (2/02/00)
Remember that "Chinese Kungfu vs American Boxing" thing they had last year? Well looks like they're doing it again. I found this article too (hot off the presses):
Chinese and American Kungfu Fight Again (in Chinese) - People's Daily (6/01/00)
I didn't read the whole thing, but basically it says that the rematch will be July 15th of this year in Guangzhou. (btw, NJStar kicks ass!)
OK, here's the best I got for the Men's Nationals - The Beijing Daily has a really brief article on it:
Beijing Wushu Team - Heros of the entire country (sorry, thats my best translation) - Beijing People's Daily (5/30/00)
Basically it just says that The Beijing Team took the team championship out of 33 teams participating. They also took the all-around, changquan, and boardsword championships, as well as the top three places in staff. It mentions that Zhao Qingjian, Jian Zenjiao and He Jingde took firsts.
BUT if you want a little more specific results, check out wushu.net - Mark got Beijing Team results from NWTC.
People's Daily Article on the Shaolin Tours
ps - I'm working on a quick thing on the 2000 Collegiates (yes, it is 3.5 months late!)
BTW, I forgot to list in my previous entry about tournaments Li Jinheng's World Martial Arts Championship in Arizona during Labor day and the CAAT tournament in Cupertino in August. Sorry!
Also I just updated some old links and changed the random picture. Hope you enjoy.
Also I finally added the info for the 3rd International Wushu Invitational Tournament, to be held in Beijing August 8th-9th. I included the reg materials, but email me if you have any more questions (the english is a little /rough/, maybe we can figure stuff out from the Chinese version of the rules if there's a question). The deadline for registering is the end of the month, so hurry up!
Also coming up is Chan Pui's Tournament 2000, to be held in Orlando, FL July 1st-2nd. This thing looks pretty huge, including the contemporary divisions. I am trying to find a reasonably priced plane ticket right now, but seems like a lot of our regulars here will be there. Will you?
And last but not least... whats up with WKF Nationals? Well at first we weren't even sure if it was going to happen, but I dug a little on the WKF website, apparently it is going to be happening, in Baltimore again, (of course) on the 4th and 5th of August. Go to http://www.usawkf.org/events-fest.htm for more info. One wonders how the rift with the WKF Board will effect this event (see below for more info on that), I guess we'll find out.
Also I'm going to be posting information about the upcoming International Invitational Tournament in Beijing this August pretty soon. If you guys have a chance to go, I suggest you check it out. Check back on monday or tuesday, hopefully I'll have it all up by then.
One thing I wanted to share was news of more Shaolin Monk fakery being used. It appears that there's a show by the same Zhengzhou Martial Arts Institute team that performed here in Oakland in March. The're going to be performing in Ohio in July. When they were here (click here to view the flyer for their Oakland show) I took special note at that time that while they performed Shaolin Fist, and were bald and wore 'monk-like' costumes, they never used the word "monk" in any of their flyers or during the performance. I was happy to see this, since it was clear that these people (like all of those tours that come to America) aren't monks. At least the promoters of that performance weren't trying to cash in on the monk name.
But if you take a look at the website for this latest performance, at http://www.mdifilm.com/shaolin/, it would appear that this promoter (since he's the one making the website) is trying to cash in, with statements like "Why pay thousands of dollars for a trip to Shaolin Temple when now they are available here in Cleveland! Participate and learn directly from Shaolin monks!" Having seen this show, I can tell you, that first of all, all but like three of the 10 performers were like under the age of 12 (are they going to be teaching too?), and secondly, most of the stuff they performed wasn't even Shaolin Fist, it was Contemporary Changquan! I think if people go to this show/seminar and expect to see shaolin monks performing shaolin quan and learn from them, they're going to be disappointed. :(
They also claim that one person, Master An, is Jet Li's teacher. Which is a somewhat suspect statement. He well could ONE of Jet Li's teacher, but it would be more accurate to mention that he had many coaches and masters who taught him during his career. Perhaps several dozen. I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong?) that Master An (what is the rest of his name?) wasn't one of Jet Li's principle coaches at any point in his career. In China many times old masters are brought in to teach professional athletes in a specific style for a short amount of time (a few days or a few weeks, perhaps even a few months)
Just thought I should share this with everyone, the old addage of BUYER BEWARE! must certainly be heeded in the wushu world. There are a lot of people out there trying to make a buck off the public with less than accurate statements. (most notably, using the word "monk")
I want to apologize upfront about any problems w/ the registration anyone had, that was my role in this tournament, and as always, not as seemless as we'd have liked it. But otherwise the competition seemed to be going pretty well (even if I didn't take home any medals this time!) Big congrats goes to Mark "wushu.net" Moran for taking the Contemporary Grand Championship with his Nanquan.
I don't have an official number, but at this point it looks like there were at least 330 competitors, which is up from last year's number of 275. A /lot/ of taiji, but the kids divisions ended up actually being the longest. OK, hope everyone who came had a good time, share your opinions and thoughts in the message boards, ok?
So you want to learn the new compulsories? Here's your chance! CLICK HERE for seminar information. Only thing is, you better be willing to fly to China to learn it! No word on when/if the text books or instructional tapes will be released (but who wants to learn i from a book anyway?)
Special thanks to Lisa for passing along that one!
In the meanwhile, here's something to chew on... Jet Li in the Matrix 2? Click on the link - The Matrix Beckons Jet Li to read more about it. While you're at it, click on this link - Mel & Jet Create Hong Kong-Style TV to read about that proposed wushu-related TV show that Jet is working on with Mel Gibson.
And also, our friends at Cal State Fullerton have offered to host the 2001 Collegiates! When more information becomes available, I'll pass it along. In the meanwhile you can contact the organizers at intercollegiate2001@excite.com. For those of you not familiar with the Intercollegiate Wushu Championship - its a wushu competition open to currently enrolled college students practicing any style of Chinese Martial Arts. Its open to individuals, but the cool part is the team competition, where teams represting their universities compete for wushu-braggin' rights! All you east coast guys better start preparing now! We want to see you out here this time!
Also Master Yang Fukui will be in the SF Bay Area giving a number of seminars in different subjects. Click here to view the flyer for more information.
I think I'll take this chance to update the events listing page, I realize that I've been kind of behind on that, considering that a bunch of tournaments have come and gone and I never actually got around to listing them! Sorry! Again, if you've got any events you want me to list, let me know. I've been pretty bad about that and updating my instructors directory. I'll try to be more timely, and if you don't see your school listed, email me, if I still don't do it, email me agai to remind me!
(Hey, you try to earn a PhD, take two classes, teach a class, train, maintain some sembelence of a social life AND run the web's bestest wushu website! -- And you can guess that since I'm doing pretty well at with the website, I'm probably not doing so great with the other stuff!)
Check this awesome article that was pointed out originally by JianXia on the message board about the Shaolin Temple's name being abused by unscrupulous parties. I am totally excited about this article, because it totally bolsters the position that I have been promoting here on this website about the fraudulence of the Shaolin "Monks" springing up all over the place (see the news entry for 2/25/00 for example) -
Infringement of Shaolin Temple Rights is Illegal - People's Daily (3/6/00)
And I'd invite those who disagreed with my views on the temple in the past to respond (particularly my article on a Shaolin Monk Tour). Try to come with something better than just saying this article is just government propoganda though, please?
