Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
I recently attended the Third, World Traditional Wushu Championships held near Wudang Mountain in China, and I finally have a moment to give a short account of the trip and the events, for those who are interested. KenpoDave has already made mention of my silver medal in the Broadsword competition.
I made the trip as part of the US team attending the tournament. It is an international invitational tournament, and the US team was made up of members from both Coasts, as well as in between. I had never met any of the team members before, and I travelled with a group from the West Coast, who are students of a friend of my sifu. Great people, good travelling companions. The rest of the team we met when we arrived in Shiyan for the tournament.
We flew into Beijing after about a twelve hour flight. Just had time for some dinner, then went to the hotel and went to bed. The next day we had breakfast on the top floor of the hotel, and from the windows we could see the Bird's Nest Stadium that was built for the Olympics. We spent the morning and afternoon getting a tour of Beijing. First was a bicycle-rickshaw tour of the Old part of Beijing. Later we walked thru Tienamen Square, and the Forbidden City. That evening we boarded our flight for Shiyan and the tournament.
We arrived in Shiyan, and I was sick before we left the airport. I believe it was the meal that I was served on the airplane. It was kind of funky, and I got slammed with a full bout of Chairman Mao's Revenge. By the time we reached the hotel, I knew I was running a fever as well. As luck would have it, we had about three days before the competition began, so I spent most of that either in bed or on the toilet, trying to get over my illness. During this time the team took a trip to Wudang Mountain, which I declined to attend. I could not be away from the facilities just yet. It was a bummer, but it seems to be my lot in life to get sick when I travel abroad. Such is life.
By the time competition started, I was well enough to compete. Stomach was more stable, altho it seemed to have turned into a cold. I had a lot of congestion and lost much of my wind.
The tournament was scheduled for three days, and my two events were the mornings of the first two days. Forms competition in Empty-Hand Animal styles, and Broadsword. Both of my forms are from my Tibetan White Crane training.
I showed up the morning of the first day, ready to compete with my empty-hand set. I arrived and discovered that I was not on the list of competitors. Panic set in. Now I gotta back up a moment and explain that when we arrived in Beijing we did discover that I was enrolled in the wrong events. I believe it was a mistake made by the US team, in submitting the wrong information. But in the days before the tournament, our group leaders went to the tournament officials to correct the error. Three times. It was supposed to be fixed. But it seems that nobody had made the changes in the computer system. So one of the local volunteers (whose poor English was nevertheless vastly superior to my non-existent Mandarin) desperately tried to help me get the error changed in time for the quickly approaching event. We had maybe an hour before it started. We ran all over the stadium, trying to find the right people to make the changes. We finally found them, and were told that it was too late to make the change, the mistake was on the part of our team for submitting the wrong info. I could see that I was getting nowhere and time was quickly running out, and I was in no position to argue and it didn't seem there was anyone else who could help under such short notice. So I was simply cut out of my empty-hand competition. Too bad too, because I consider it my best form. And that was that.
That afternoon I enlisted the help of one of my teammates, who was raised in China. We went back down to the arena and found the officials, and he discussed the issue with them. Finally, we were told that they would see what they could do, but they didn't know if it would be possible to correct the error for my broadsword competition scheduled for the next day. We went back to the hotel and waited. Around dinner time an official showed up with a new printout of the broadsword competition, and my name was on it. Got the green light and I was back in the competition.
The next day I arrived for the broadsword competition, and it went smoothly. They only let the competitors out in the ring one at a time, and the rest of us had to wait in a separate room. We did our best to peek out and see what our competition was up to, but it was difficult to see much. I went out when it was my turn and gave them the goods. Since I hadn't seen much of my competition, I had no idea where I stood. The results were posted a couple hours later.
When I saw the results I was pleased, under the circumstances. I actually placed 5th out of 19. Considering that I had spent the better part of the last 4 days out of commission, and I still had a lot of congestion, I felt that was a pretty respectable effort.
Now I know that Kenpodave has posted that I won a silver medal in this competition, and that is true. But I believe in Truth in Advertising, so that requires a short explanation. The tournament directors adopted what was, in my eyes, a strange policy in awarding medals, and here it is: they awarded based on a percentage. For the larger groups like mine, gold was awarded to the first 10%, silver to the next 20%, and and Bronze to the next 30%, or something like that. Under this system, 5th place got me a silver medal. I suppose they wanted to make sure people didn't go home disappointed, so they tried to maximize the medals they gave out. I found it a bit silly, and I didn't even realize it until later. I had returned to the hotel, simply pleased with my placing. My teammates found me and said, "hey, let's see your medal!" Of course I didn't realize I had earned a medal, so I needed to go back and pick it up. Sure enough, there it was waiting for me.
The tournament was billed as "Traditional" wushu, altho I will comment that the line between Traditional and Modern/Performance wushu was certainly blurred. I saw a good deal of stuff that had the smell of Modern Wushu about it. Seemed that those forms tended to score a bit better as well, and I found that disappointing. Oh well. Such is life. I was there for fun anyway and didn't care much if I won a medal or not. Just show my stuff and see what happens.
So that is the scope of the competition for me. The whole event requires a bit more, however.
This tournament was a HUGE deal for the people of Shiyan. It seems that they were planning and preparing for it for a couple of years. Shiyan is a city that I believe is not a big tourist destination. It is an automobile manufacturing center for China, and the government wanted to promote the area for business and to stir up interest in tourism, and the tournament was sort of a vehicle to do so. Its close proximity to Wudang Mountain was seen as an added bonus, I am sure. But even tho we realized we were sort of a tool of the government's promotion, I discovered that the citizens of the city were extremely interested in the competition and in the foreigners who came to compete. When I was walking around with my Team USA jacket, I would often be approached by people who wanted to have their picture taken with me. One afternoon I sat in the arena on the side where it was mostly locals sitting, away from most of the foreign competitors. I was mobbed by children who wanted to try out their English with me, and who wanted their pictures taken with me. I had a handful of lapel pins with the USA Team Logo on them, and I started handing them out. They all wanted one, even some of the adults, and I didn't have enough to go around. But the people were just very very enthusiastic about the whole thing.
Prior to the tournament, we attended the Opening Ceremonies, which were held in a big open-air sports stadium. All the teams marched thru the stadium in front of the cheering crowds, and that was when I started to realize how big this event really was for them. Prior to that, I just had no idea. They loved it. There were probably 50 or so teams from all over the world, Russia, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa, Greece, Poland, Venezuela, Germany, Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico and others, as well as several teams from China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and the National team. I think there could have been a couple thousand competitors. The USA team had close to fifty, and we weren't the only big team there. And we all marched out in front of the crowds, and they loved it. It was kind of like a smaller version of the Olympic opening ceremonies. And the whole thing was broadcast on Chinese National Television.
The competition itself was also broadcast. They had TV cameras on all four rings, and they were broadcasting live. I don't know if my performance was broadcast, but it is certainly possible. In addition, they had huge TV screens set up in the city where people could gather in the plazas and watch the events. Huge billboards were all over the city, advertising the event. And when I would walk thru the streets, I was often approached by people for a picture.
The hotel that we stayed in was a mostly-completed luxury hotel, I am sure nobody had stayed in it prior to us. It was built specifically for this event. Kind of blew me away, as I began to realize just how excited they were about this, and how much effort they put into hosting this event.
Anyway, the tournament wrapped up, and we took a 12 hour bus ride to Xi-An and spent two nights there. We visited the Terra Cotta Warriors. The museum was built directly over the archaeological dig site, where many of the warriors are still in the ground. Pretty interesting stuff.
From Xi-An we flew back to Beijing, then back to San Francisco. I've spent the past few days trying to bring myself back to normal.
I made the trip as part of the US team attending the tournament. It is an international invitational tournament, and the US team was made up of members from both Coasts, as well as in between. I had never met any of the team members before, and I travelled with a group from the West Coast, who are students of a friend of my sifu. Great people, good travelling companions. The rest of the team we met when we arrived in Shiyan for the tournament.
We flew into Beijing after about a twelve hour flight. Just had time for some dinner, then went to the hotel and went to bed. The next day we had breakfast on the top floor of the hotel, and from the windows we could see the Bird's Nest Stadium that was built for the Olympics. We spent the morning and afternoon getting a tour of Beijing. First was a bicycle-rickshaw tour of the Old part of Beijing. Later we walked thru Tienamen Square, and the Forbidden City. That evening we boarded our flight for Shiyan and the tournament.
We arrived in Shiyan, and I was sick before we left the airport. I believe it was the meal that I was served on the airplane. It was kind of funky, and I got slammed with a full bout of Chairman Mao's Revenge. By the time we reached the hotel, I knew I was running a fever as well. As luck would have it, we had about three days before the competition began, so I spent most of that either in bed or on the toilet, trying to get over my illness. During this time the team took a trip to Wudang Mountain, which I declined to attend. I could not be away from the facilities just yet. It was a bummer, but it seems to be my lot in life to get sick when I travel abroad. Such is life.
By the time competition started, I was well enough to compete. Stomach was more stable, altho it seemed to have turned into a cold. I had a lot of congestion and lost much of my wind.
The tournament was scheduled for three days, and my two events were the mornings of the first two days. Forms competition in Empty-Hand Animal styles, and Broadsword. Both of my forms are from my Tibetan White Crane training.
I showed up the morning of the first day, ready to compete with my empty-hand set. I arrived and discovered that I was not on the list of competitors. Panic set in. Now I gotta back up a moment and explain that when we arrived in Beijing we did discover that I was enrolled in the wrong events. I believe it was a mistake made by the US team, in submitting the wrong information. But in the days before the tournament, our group leaders went to the tournament officials to correct the error. Three times. It was supposed to be fixed. But it seems that nobody had made the changes in the computer system. So one of the local volunteers (whose poor English was nevertheless vastly superior to my non-existent Mandarin) desperately tried to help me get the error changed in time for the quickly approaching event. We had maybe an hour before it started. We ran all over the stadium, trying to find the right people to make the changes. We finally found them, and were told that it was too late to make the change, the mistake was on the part of our team for submitting the wrong info. I could see that I was getting nowhere and time was quickly running out, and I was in no position to argue and it didn't seem there was anyone else who could help under such short notice. So I was simply cut out of my empty-hand competition. Too bad too, because I consider it my best form. And that was that.
That afternoon I enlisted the help of one of my teammates, who was raised in China. We went back down to the arena and found the officials, and he discussed the issue with them. Finally, we were told that they would see what they could do, but they didn't know if it would be possible to correct the error for my broadsword competition scheduled for the next day. We went back to the hotel and waited. Around dinner time an official showed up with a new printout of the broadsword competition, and my name was on it. Got the green light and I was back in the competition.
The next day I arrived for the broadsword competition, and it went smoothly. They only let the competitors out in the ring one at a time, and the rest of us had to wait in a separate room. We did our best to peek out and see what our competition was up to, but it was difficult to see much. I went out when it was my turn and gave them the goods. Since I hadn't seen much of my competition, I had no idea where I stood. The results were posted a couple hours later.
When I saw the results I was pleased, under the circumstances. I actually placed 5th out of 19. Considering that I had spent the better part of the last 4 days out of commission, and I still had a lot of congestion, I felt that was a pretty respectable effort.
Now I know that Kenpodave has posted that I won a silver medal in this competition, and that is true. But I believe in Truth in Advertising, so that requires a short explanation. The tournament directors adopted what was, in my eyes, a strange policy in awarding medals, and here it is: they awarded based on a percentage. For the larger groups like mine, gold was awarded to the first 10%, silver to the next 20%, and and Bronze to the next 30%, or something like that. Under this system, 5th place got me a silver medal. I suppose they wanted to make sure people didn't go home disappointed, so they tried to maximize the medals they gave out. I found it a bit silly, and I didn't even realize it until later. I had returned to the hotel, simply pleased with my placing. My teammates found me and said, "hey, let's see your medal!" Of course I didn't realize I had earned a medal, so I needed to go back and pick it up. Sure enough, there it was waiting for me.
The tournament was billed as "Traditional" wushu, altho I will comment that the line between Traditional and Modern/Performance wushu was certainly blurred. I saw a good deal of stuff that had the smell of Modern Wushu about it. Seemed that those forms tended to score a bit better as well, and I found that disappointing. Oh well. Such is life. I was there for fun anyway and didn't care much if I won a medal or not. Just show my stuff and see what happens.
So that is the scope of the competition for me. The whole event requires a bit more, however.
This tournament was a HUGE deal for the people of Shiyan. It seems that they were planning and preparing for it for a couple of years. Shiyan is a city that I believe is not a big tourist destination. It is an automobile manufacturing center for China, and the government wanted to promote the area for business and to stir up interest in tourism, and the tournament was sort of a vehicle to do so. Its close proximity to Wudang Mountain was seen as an added bonus, I am sure. But even tho we realized we were sort of a tool of the government's promotion, I discovered that the citizens of the city were extremely interested in the competition and in the foreigners who came to compete. When I was walking around with my Team USA jacket, I would often be approached by people who wanted to have their picture taken with me. One afternoon I sat in the arena on the side where it was mostly locals sitting, away from most of the foreign competitors. I was mobbed by children who wanted to try out their English with me, and who wanted their pictures taken with me. I had a handful of lapel pins with the USA Team Logo on them, and I started handing them out. They all wanted one, even some of the adults, and I didn't have enough to go around. But the people were just very very enthusiastic about the whole thing.
Prior to the tournament, we attended the Opening Ceremonies, which were held in a big open-air sports stadium. All the teams marched thru the stadium in front of the cheering crowds, and that was when I started to realize how big this event really was for them. Prior to that, I just had no idea. They loved it. There were probably 50 or so teams from all over the world, Russia, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa, Greece, Poland, Venezuela, Germany, Sri Lanka, Puerto Rico and others, as well as several teams from China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and the National team. I think there could have been a couple thousand competitors. The USA team had close to fifty, and we weren't the only big team there. And we all marched out in front of the crowds, and they loved it. It was kind of like a smaller version of the Olympic opening ceremonies. And the whole thing was broadcast on Chinese National Television.
The competition itself was also broadcast. They had TV cameras on all four rings, and they were broadcasting live. I don't know if my performance was broadcast, but it is certainly possible. In addition, they had huge TV screens set up in the city where people could gather in the plazas and watch the events. Huge billboards were all over the city, advertising the event. And when I would walk thru the streets, I was often approached by people for a picture.
The hotel that we stayed in was a mostly-completed luxury hotel, I am sure nobody had stayed in it prior to us. It was built specifically for this event. Kind of blew me away, as I began to realize just how excited they were about this, and how much effort they put into hosting this event.
Anyway, the tournament wrapped up, and we took a 12 hour bus ride to Xi-An and spent two nights there. We visited the Terra Cotta Warriors. The museum was built directly over the archaeological dig site, where many of the warriors are still in the ground. Pretty interesting stuff.
From Xi-An we flew back to Beijing, then back to San Francisco. I've spent the past few days trying to bring myself back to normal.
