Posts Tagged ‘retrospective’

I can remember the first time I saw a wushu video.

I was at Mai Morgan’s house one day after an early wushu class on Sunday (she was a Cal Wushu student who was training at Wushu West) and I noticed she had a video tape labeled “Beijing Wushu Team” on it.

My eyes bugged out. “What is that??” I asked.

She explained that she had gotten the video from this guy named Ishmael and it was footage of the Beijing Wushu Team doing some demos. I begged and pleaded with her to watch it so she let me sit in the back basement of her home and plop it in the VCR.

OH. MY. GOD.

It was a video of the Beijing Wushu Team’s 1995 demo at U.C. Berkeley during the U.C. Martial Arts Expo. After that it was footage of the Beijing Wushu Team training in 1994 — footage taken by Daniel Wu and Patrick Lee while they were training at Shi Cha Hai.

I was floored. I watched the whole thing through .. all 3 hours of it.

Then I watched it again.

And then I watched it two more times.

Mai had gone off to run some errands and was doing something else the whole time. I felt like a mooch, but I couldn’t get enough. By the time I left her home it was almost midnight and I was on a wushu high.

It took a while but I finally managed to get a copy of the video myself. Ishmael had this whole operation going where he would charge people for videos he made which were from footage he copied from someone else. Today it would be laughable, since most videos are online in less than a week.

But this was 1996. There was barely an internet (compuserve, anyone?) and certainly no digital videos uploaded to websites. Getting wushu footage back then was akin to finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

When I got my hands on that tape I would watch it everyday.

Literally.

I would push play when I woke up. I would keep it running when I came home from work. I would keep it running all night until I went to bed. Even if I wasn’t watching it closely, I was still absorbing it.

To this day, if you just play me the audio from those videos, I can tell you which part of the video it is and who is doing which form. I had memorized every nook and crevice of every movement.

But it was more than just being in awe of the physical performance of the professionals. It was an education. I learned what wushu was supposed to look like. I could disect, slow down and pause techniques to study them carefully. I absorbed it like a sponge, trying to understand what the difference was between people like them and people like us .. and then working to figure out how to bridge that gap.

Aside from Patti’s instruction, I would say that watching wushu videos was the single biggest factor in any improvements I made with wushu.

In 1997 David went to China. When he came back he had videos! It actualy took him 6 months to make a copy for me, but back then it wasn’t unheard of. We would wait months and months to get the latest footage, and then clutch it tightly to our chests like it was the holy grail.

There were 5 videos in particular during the 1996-2000 period that really had a strong impact on me.

The first was the 1995 Cal Martial Arts Expo performance. I wish I still had that footage today but the video tape has long since gone bye bye. However, I do have the same performance, but from a different camera. The quality isn’t as good and you can’t see things very clearly, but at least it will give you an idea.

Here is their opening group set. When I watched this I practically had a canniption.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRddZ86Gdw

What really struck me was the level of their basics. It was a whole different level than what I was used to. Yes, I had seen the Beijing Wushu Team perform when I first started wushu. But when you’re that new you aren’t able to grasp what you’re seeing — you have no basis for comparison.

But I had watched wushu basics for a year or two and I had a better understanding of what was involved. But this blasted my paradigm out of the water. Here is footage of their basics from that performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YEqXcoClvs

In that footage I found my first wushu idol. Zhu Gui Jun. She was the 1994 National Southern Fist Champion. And when I saw her wushu I suddenly had an urge to move to China, marry her and have lots of little southern fist babies.

All joking aside, she really was amazing. Up until I had seen this video I was really on the fense about nanquan. I was still more interested in jumping around with chang quan. But after I watched this I realized that it was possible to do nanquan and make it look awesome.

Here is her southern fist performance from that demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry7DthzqHJs

The second video was the 1995 Palace of Fine Arts demonstration. Yes, it was the same demonstration that I attended. Except this time I could actually see what was going on as the cameras were closer to the action that I had been in the back row.

On that video I was particularly amazed with a few performances. Qiu Dong Xing’s staff. He Jing De’s broadsword. Jiang Bang Jun’s spear. Kong Xiang Dong’s drunken sword.

Okay .. so maybe it was all amazing. Unfortunately I don’t have the footage for that event. A pity though since it was really quite amazing. (This is also how I learned to never loan out wushu videos, regardless of whom asks.)

The third video was the one Pat and Dan took in Beijing in 1994. It was the first time I had seen real Chinese training before. Until then the only wushu classes I had ever seen were at Wushu West or some other Bay Area school.

But this was totally different. I think what surprised me the most was that they all did basics at the start of each class. I mean .. I knew they did. But I guess I had assumed that their “basics” were some sort of super human version of what we did. Or that they only did basics for demonstrations when they were travelling to other countries.

But it was the same thing! (Just done way way better.)

But it gave me hope, because I realized that it isn’t so much that they are born with better ability than me, but just that they’ve put more time in to their training — the same training that I was doing over in the U.S.

And on top of that it made me realize that if people of their calliber were still focusing on their basics, then that meant I had to focus on them even more. It really instilled in me my focus on having strong fundamentals in wushu (and in pushing those fundamentals on to anyone I teach).

Here are some of their basics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghw5wUCZZf4

And, of course, here are some clips of my personal favorite, Zhu Gui Jun, demonstrating her Nan Quan skill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmle9bC-II

Another strong person from that video, and one that most current wushu folks have never heard of, is Shang Yu. He was the staff champion in 1994. In 1997 He busted his knee doing staff and had to switch from Chang Quan to Nan Quan. It was a pity because, as good as his nanquan was, I think his chang quan was straight off the hook. Here he is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmcdwlh96mo

The fourth video that had a big impact on me was the one David brought back from China in 1997. Again, it was training, but this time even more of it. What made it even better was that David would provide some commentary when we watched the video, so I had someone who could actually tell me what they were doing, why they were doing it, and how they were training.

It made it seem even more real to me, I guess. Sort of like listening to the director or actor commentary for a movie. You just get that extra dimension of understanding.

All of those videos are now available on wushucentral.com, so here is a link to some of my particular favorites.

He Jing De’s Broadsword

Believe it or not, this was back before he developed his ridiculous speed. In 1997 I was practicing broadsword and staff, so these videos were of particular interest to me.

Qiu Dong Xing’s Broadsword

This was a real favorite too. I loved the way he spun around into that bow stance. A few years later I asked him to teach me that section. Unfortunately he said he had already forgotten it.

Jiang Bang Jun’s Chang Quan

Who doesn’t remember this one? JBJ was the CQ MAN, and this video just propelled his reputation even farther. His spear was crazy good too.

Liu Qing Hua’s Chang Quan

And you can’t really call yourself an afficianado of wushu videos if you don’t have any Liu Qing Hua in your collection. She is probably the winningest wushu woman in the history of the sport. Her medal count probably is close to or surpasses Patti’s.

I remember David telling me once that she and Patti were talking about how much pressure there is on you after you’ve won multiple consecutive national all around titles. Truly a conversation that very few people in the world can have …

Han Jing’s Straightsword

Some people don’t like Han Jing’s flavor, but for me I really, really dig her style. There’s just something really “meaty” about the way she moves that I think is very unique. At a time when a lot of athletes were turning into speed machines, she developed her own unique style and flavor, and that is something I really appreciated.

Of course, these days she is a coach and athlete for the Macau Wushu Team. I should really go over there and hang out with her, but every time I see her she tells me I’ve gotten fat. (Gotta love the bluntness of Chinese athletes … )

You can find even more videos from the 1997 Beijing Wushu Team by clicking on these links:

1997_beijing_demo (12 videos)
1997_beijing_practice (15 videos)
1997_beijing_testing (28 videos)

And finally, the fifth video that really had a huge impact on me was footage that we took during my trip to China in 1999. They had a mock competition for the women and a bunch of women from various teams were going through their forms for some judges to get critiqued.

The best part of it was that there were members of the Guangdong wushu team there and I got to see some real southerners doing real southern fist for the first time ever. I still love watching that footage (which again you can find on wushu central).

One of the competitors in particular would become one of my favorite wushu athletes of all time. Her nanquan was really something special. Fortunately it would not be the last time I got to see it.

Guangdong Southern Fist

Actually, I lied. There is another video that had a big impact on me.

When I was in China in 1999, I managed to get the name, address and phone number of the Guangdong wushu team head coach. In 2000 my friend Matt Wong wanted to train in China so I gave him the contact info and he ended up training with the Guangdong team.

And thankfully he brought back some pretty awesome nanquan footage. Some of the best nanquan training footage I’ve ever seen because, not only were they working on lots of cool (and at that time never-before-seen) individual forms (up until then it was all compulsories), but they got footage of actual nanquan basics training.

It was the first time I had seen China athletes training in nanquan basics besides the standard combinations you get from the compulsory. In fact, it’s one of the few times I’ve ever seen nanquan basics at all. Up until 2006 when Johnny and I learned a set of basics from Li Neng Miao, I would say that this was pretty much the source of most of my nanquan basics knowledge:

(Isn’t it awesome that you can get it just by reading my blog? Yes, it is. You’re welcome.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E1C6uWhC1w

Needles to say, besides the two forms I learned in China in 1999, a lot of my first individual nanquan forms came from all of these tapes. In fact, my fourth section is still primarily comprised from the 4th section of the second video below.

This is Wang Lin, my second Nan Quan Female Idol, after Zhu Gui Jun. I only have two sections for you to look at today as I’m not sure where the other footage is at the moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-vk6r6FbX

And this is the girl that I refer to as “Spikey”. I can’t remember he name, so I gave her a nickname. In any case, I really like her nanquan and a lot of hers and Wang Lin’s moves have been incorporated into many of my forms over the years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjUa8WMlnYg

In the Wushu Community people who rely too heavily on wushu videos for their education and training are sort of made fun of. (Well .. not to their face, of course.) That’s where the whole “sifu video” thing came from. And while I agree that it’s not a good idea to solely learn wushu from videos, at the same time I think that videos can be an amazing supplement to your training program.

It can provide inspiration and motivation. It can demonstrate correct technique. It can show you new methods of training. And it can help you learn new choreography or movements to incorporate into your forms.

I only wish that I had received the benefit of all of these wushu videos earlier on because it would have come in handy from 1996 to 1998 when I found myself competing on the National level for the first time….

To Be Continued …

Before getting back in to the experience of learning wushu itself, I thought I would take some time to talk about something that had a huge impact on my experience with wushu over the years. In fact, besides my coach, I would say that this is one of the two factors that contributed the most to my development with wushu:

People.

More specifically, I’m talking about the people I have met through wushu over the years, and who have had a big influence on my views on both wushu and the world.

For the sake of this blog entry, I will limit this to just the people I met while training in the Bay Area before moving to Los Angeles in 2001. (I will tackle the rest of you people later.

Kaz and Tabala

The first two people I became close to through wushu were Kaz and Tabala. I mentioned them before, but I’ll explain a bit more about them here.

Kaz was half-Japanese like me. A friend of Green Day’s turned kung-fu enthusiast, he came to join Wushu West through an interest in Hong Kong movies. He eventually decided that he wanted a more traditional application-oriented path and went to the city to train at a different school, but even while doing that he kept in contact with Patti and I. We were roommate for a year or two as well, before I ended up getting an apartment with Brandon.  Has has since gotten married, had a kid, fell in love with soccer and moved to Malaysia.

Tabala was an african american man with tight, short dreads. He had grown up with Bruce Lee as his primary father figure and, truth be told, he didn’t talk much about himself. He had been training in some form of Chinese martial arts for most of his life and was very dedicated to his martial arts education. He was really friendly, but at the same time, somewhat mysterious. After a few years he moved to L.A. to get some work and pretty much dropped off the radar. Finally, after years and years he resurfaced on Facebook.  Its nice to be back in contact with him.

From Kaz and Tabala I learned that even if you stop training with your teacher, it doesn’t mean you stop giving them your respect.

Gio and Rich

We called them the Nan Quan Brothers. Two big Philippino guys from San Leandro who started at wushu west about a year after me. I would hang out with them fairly often and we would commute back and forth to class pretty regularly.

I remember one time a bunch of us met at a park in Alameda to train at a park (just for fun, believe it or not) and we were talking about the mechanics of the twist. Of course, none of us could do it and most of us were afraid to try, but Gio decided to go for it. Right there on the grass he went for it. And he almost landed it! He kept trying, each time crashing to the ground, but getting closer. After a little while he stopped, but he had made good progress.

To be honest, I was a bit ashamed of myself, because I didn’t have the courage to try it out. Looking back, I think I could have done it, but I was just too afraid. Now-a-days, if I was in the same physical condition that I was back then, I’d try it in a heartbeat. But again .. hindsight is 20/20.

They eventually left Wushu West around 1999. I think Rich studied with Tony Chen for a while (it was cheaper) but last I heard neither of them train anymore. They’re on my facebook friends list though (isn’t everyone?) and I was able to see Gio during my last trip back home.

From Gio and Rich I learned that fear should never be a reason not to try something — it’s a signal that you’re in the midst of a great opportunity for self-development.

David Chang

I mentioned David before too. He was the one that helped bridge the abyss between Wushu West and Cal Wushu.

Back when he first started he took his training very seriously. He had started only 5 months before me but his hard work and dedication made him improve very quickly.

Truth be told, he had a few quirks of the body and some might have said that his physique wasn’t well-suited for wushu.  But admirably,  he never let that stop him.

He went to China in 1997. Then again in 1999 with me and some other friends. And then again in 2000 .. and 2001. He would train at multiple-schools — Cal Wushu, then Wushu West, then Omei Wushu and then with Liu Bo and others.

He never did it in a way that upset any of his instructors though, because they could see that he was working hard to develop his abilities and you can’t really fault someone for seeking out as much knowledge and understanding as they can.

He would see something he wanted and then pursue it with a single-minded determination until he had achieved it. That’s how he got his awesome drop stance. He saw Amy Chow’s drop stance in 1996 and told himself he wanted one like that. And he got it too.

Eventually he went on to start his own school, Wushu Central, after which I didn’t have too much contact with him.  As I understand it, there was a bit of drama here and there, but the David I knew best was the one before all of that happened. The one that was enthusiastic about and dedicated to wushu training. The one that pushed other people to work harder and pushed himself just as hard.  That is the David I remember most.  I’m pretty sure he’s still there anyway…

From David I learned the importance of training hard and embracing all of one’s wushu opportunities.

Cal Wushu

There have been a lot of friends I’ve met at Cal Wushu over the years. More than I could really list out in any adequate fashion. Some of them have been positive experiences, and some of them have been negative, but all in all my time hanging out and training with Cal Wushu has been one of enjoyable growth.

I’ve been at Cal Wushu as a student; training hard and gasping for air and water after a hard session of training. You develop close bonds with people when you’re in that sort of mutually-exhausting environment. After classes we would all go over to Durant Square, a food court just off campus, and bond together over some Korean BBQ or cheap Chinese take-out. Sifu Bryant Fong or Li Jing were coaching back then and it was great to get to know them better too.

I’ve also been at Cal Wushu as an instructor. Teaching beginners or the advanced class and putting them through their paces. You learn a lot about yourself when put in that sort of position — your strengths and weaknesses come to the forefront of your attention when you teach others. But, as they say, the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I learned a lot about wushu by helping others understand its fundamentals.

There have been generation after generation of students at Cal Wushu — too many to count over the years — but one thing remained the same. It is a great place to meet people who are as geeked out about wushu as you are.

For some strange reason .. all of the students stay the same age, but I keep getting older and older. I used to be just a few years older than the students. Now .. they’re all half my age. How depressing is that?

From Cal Wushu I learned the value of wushu fellowship, and the important responsibility you take on when you start to teach wushu.

Patrick Lee

I would be remiss here if I didn’t mention Pat. Out of all the people I’ve met in wushu, he’s probably had the singularly highest impact on my life. I first met Pat through wushu when he was at Cal, and eventually I went to work for him at Design Reactor. It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 12 years since I first began working with him at our little web design firm. We’ve been co-workers, business partners, classmates, roommates and friends and I owe him a lot for some of the things he’s done for me over the years.

But, this isn’t about all of that. This is about wushu. And Pat’s wushu, believe it or not, was one of the best that had ever come around.  He originally trained with Zhang Gui Fung in Maryland before coming to Berkeley to go to school, and that early training paid off.

In 1994 he went to China with Daniel Wu to train with the Beijing Wushu Team. When he came back he was a wushu machine. His front stretch kicks were the things of legend and his front jumping slap kick would freeze the room as they watched his technique. Technique that was, at that time, almost God-like compared to the rest of us.

He became disinterested in wushu though.  Work, life and other things took priority.  I also remember him once telling me that, after his experiences training in China he realized that there was no way he would ever get to the level of a Chinese athlete. And, as he put it at the time,  if he couldn’t become the best at something, then why spend so much time doing it?  That isn’t to say he doesn’t appreciate or enjoy wushu.  I think it is more about how the level of committment that wushu requires for you to improve past a certain point makes it prohibitive for some people.

He would return to it from time to time, but none of them were quite as grand as his initial wushu fervor back in the early 90’s, fueled by Cal Wushu friends and a healthy dose of Jet Li’s Wong Fei Hung.

Pat taught me that having natural ability isn’t worth anything if you don’t commit to what you are doing, and that often times hard work can make up the difference for those who might not have been born with the right genetic make-up; either in Wushu, Business or Life.

Wushu West

And, of course, besides the people I listed above, there have been countless students coming in and out of Wushu West over the years. Here are some of the highlights.  It might be a little cryptic to you, but these are my lessons, not yours, so they really only need to make sense to me.

Lindsay: Taught me that just because someone is ignorant, doesn’t mean they are stupid.

Mai: Taught me to never let someone else’s critism let me to doubt my own abilities.

Laura: Taught me that you can never judge a book by its cover.

Anthony: Taught me that you’re never too old to feel young.

Roger: Taught me that having responsibilities for others doesn’t mean you are no longer responsible for yourself.

Mike: Taught me that the only value fear has is when you use it to excuse yourself from living life.

Jennifer & Cheri: Taught me the value of specilizing in a specific area.

Inyork & Hansie: Taught me that the cooler a person thinks they are, the less cool they become. And vice versa.

Bryan and Yolanda: Taught me that life is nothing if you don’t have passion for what you love to do.

Karen: Taught me that putting your heart out on your sleeve doesn’t guarantee that it will be acknowledged.

There are others too, but I think that is probably enough for now. Not that many ofthese people read this blog anyway. And I will be addressing more people when I talk about my return to Wushu West in 2004.

But I’m getting ahead of myself …

Final Thoughts

Sometimes I wonder what my experiences with wushu would have been like had some people not been a part of it. I’m sure they would have been good too, but each person you meet and each interaction you have, colors your life in very specific ways.

And when you put them all together you end up with a very special tapestry for your life. Each thread weaving around in seemingly haphazzard fashion, but when viewed with perspective, its clear that each is as important to the whole as any other.

My wushu friends have been, as I said, one of the two biggest factors that influenced my experience with wushu during this period of my life.

What is the other? Well, that will be the subject of my next blog. It’s a little something we in the wushu community refer to as “sifu video”.

Continued Next Week …

When I first started training at Wushu West my focus was pretty much centered on the world inside my school. It took me a couple months just to get to know my fellow students and start bonding with them.

But it became clear after a short time that there was a whole world of wushu outside our four walls, and that the world had it’s own sorted history that I was soon to get a crash course on.

In hind-sight it was all pretty silly, of course. But that’s the benefit of hind-sight, isn’t it? At the time what seems serious and important ends up really not meaning much at all. And the things that were really important in life, were the things we tended to take for granted.

In fact, looking back, I came to realize that a lot of what caused most of the conflict between Wushu West and (at that time) Cal Wushu, was really done by just one student. One person, acting inappropriately, caused a string of bad-impressions and bad-blood that went on for several years and took a considerable amount of time to resolve.

Without getting in to the specifics, a student from one school had gone to the other on legitimate business, but had acted quite disrespectfully towards the teacher there. I don’t even think it was intentional, because from what I’ve come to understand about this person, their personal insecurity has fueled a considerable amount of arrogant and condescending behavīor towards others.

This behavioral theme left a trail of bad blood and animosity in this person’s wake for quite a while, which is a pity, because my guess is that, once you got to know them, they are probably a pretty decent person.

Unfortunately, the result of this was that many of the students at Wushu West had a grudge against Sifu Bryant Fong. I even found myself developing this bias, without really knowing anything about the guy or having met him.

Such is the power of peer pressure.

A couple years later I ended up going to a dinner in Chinatown with Patti and some other students, and afterwards I was seated at the table with Bryant Fong and some of his students. One of the other Wushu West classmates had such a resentment against Sifu Fong that he decided to just go home, but I was of the mind that since I had never met the guy, I might as well give him the benefit of the doubt.  (Plus it was a free meal.)

I think part of it came from my personal philosophy that you can’t define the world solely by your interpretation of it. It’s all subjective, especially views on people. Obviously this guy had SOME merit or else he wouldn’t have any students and no one would talk to him. So, if someone out there liked something about him, then there was something about him that I could find to like if I searched for it.

There’s a quote from Abdu’l Baha that says “If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, look at the ten and forget the one. And if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten.”

It’s a good thing I made the effort, because I learned that he actually wasn’t such a bad guy. As the years went on I learned that Sifu Fong is actually one of the more decent people in the world of wushu — someone for whom I developed a good amount of respect and admiration.

And to think I would have missed out on knowing that if I had succumbed to the impulse to assume the worst about people.

But, for most of 1995 and 1996 there was a divide between Wushu West and Cal Wushu. There just wasn’t any sort of mixing of the two groups at all. Like … ZERO.

Until Lisa Nguyen and Alda Lee.

Lisa and Alda were two Cal Wushu students who had opted to supplement their Cal Wushu training by coming to Wushu West. Of course, as far as I was aware they didn’t tell anyone at Cal Wushu this and it was very hush-hush. In fact, when I saw Lisa at the 1996 Cal Wushu Tournament, she asked me to make sure not to tell anyone how I knew her.

In late 1996, at Lisa’s invitation, I went to Cal Wushu to try it out. I just wanted to see what it was like as I had heard the workouts were really brutal. Of course, I didn’t tell Patti about it since I was just doing it as an observation of how other people trained and didn’t plan on switching schools or anything.

It was the first time (I’m aware of) that a native Wushu West student trained at Cal Wushu.

So, the precedent had been set. The next person to bridge the gap would be David Chang. He came to Wushu West at the end of 1996 and was around for a good 5 years before going off to start his own school. (That’s a long story in itself .. )

But the significance of David Chang was that he really bridged the gap between Cal Wushu and Wushu West. He gave Patti and Sifu Fong something/someone to discuss in a positive manner. They were both sharing the experience of having him as a student. It led the way for other Cal Wushu people to come to Wushu West as well (Elan, Inyork, Hansie, Mai, Mike Chew, etc. etc.), and for Wushu West students to visit at Cal Wushu and train. Even Patti taught at Cal Wushu for a semester when Sifu Fong didn’t have available time.

As the years went on the divisions between the two groups faded away to almost nothing. Today it is hard to believe there was ever that much animosity between the two schools.

But the world of wushu politics wasn’t limited to just the interactions between Wushu West and Cal Wushu. I gave it so much attention, simply because it was the biggest issue I had to deal with for the first couple years of wushu, and as such it was the “biggest deal” for me as a young wushu enthusiast.

The truth is, there have been conflicts and issues between schools, students, teachers and the like, since the beginning of time. Almost every wushu school I’ve known or been a part of has had some sort of drama going on at one point or another (or several).

But, after looking at all of these conflicts, I’ve come to realize that it all really boils down to a specific trait that acts as a catalyst for these issues to crop up — one main attribute that contributes to so many of the problems that plague the wushu world.

Maybe it’s a result of the type of people who end up training in and teaching wushu — a certain personality type that inevitably ends up acting in certain predisposed ways. Or maybe it’s just that there are only so many issues that wushu people can deal with.

Whatever the reason, I’ve noticed that all of the problems that come from wushu politics essentially derive from one specific phenomena:

INSECURITY

I’ve seen teachers bad-mouth other teachers. I’ve seen schools isolate themselves like China in the 60’s. I’ve seen environments that foster ignorance and paranoia in their student population. I’ve seen arguments between teachers, both physical and emotional. And I’ve seen enough gossip, back-biting and negative displays of dis-affection to last me a lifetime.

But in the end it all comes down to insecurity.

In the teacher, the student, and sometimes the parents.

Sometimes it came across as paranoia or fear. Someone opens a school and suddenly develops paranoia that someone else might steal their students. Of course, that is really only because they are insecure in their own abilities as a coach. But instead of dealing with the cause of the issue (by improving their skills and abilities) they put down other schools and teachers to their students to keep them from leaving.

Or sometimes it is anger and hatred towards others. They see another school or teacher achieving something that they have not, so they develop a deep seeded resentment towards that group, when the truth is, if they would stop needing so much acknowledgement and social gratification, they could appreciate and acknowledge the accomplishments of others without thinking that it is a reflection on their own abilities.

Or sometimes it is pride. A pride so strong that they feel a need to put down the system or abilties of others. The irony of course is that the pride is really just an extention of their insecurity in their own abilities. If their system was truly the best, they wouldn’t need to put any else’s system down.

As Jackie Chan said in The Forbidden Kingdom, “He who talks, does not know, and he who knows, does not talk”.

I came to realize that the more someone talked negatively about others, (1) the less they had something worth contributing to a conversation and (2) the less they thought about their own abilities. Often what we say is more of a reflection on ourself than it is on those we are talking about.

Over the years I’ve seen all matter of issues pop up, but essentially they’re all really “non issues” at the core. It’s all just smoke and mirrors, vapor and noise — none of it matters and none of it is significant to what is at the core of wushu.

Wushu isn’t about which school is best or which teacher has the most students, makes the most money or has the most clout.  It isn’t even about the specific technique, crazy jumping or going to competitions.

Wushu, at it’s essense, is about self-development — going from the person you are, to the person you can become.

In fact, that is what “kung fu” is really about: the cultivation of inner excellence and mastery over time.

Whether your medium is cooking or calligraphy; computers or combat — the end goal is the same: To be a better human being than you were when you started.

And the wushu practitioner who keeps this in mind — who roots their training, beliefs and focus on this simple truth — will never need succumb to the allure of politics and gossip.

Because to them, those are not real — they are non-entitities. They are vapors of the imagination — with no true affect on their journey in life.

There are only three truths to training:

1. Who you are at the beginning
2. Who you are at the end,
3. And what you did to get from one to the other.

Interestingly enough, those are also the three truths when living one’s life …

To Be Continued Next Week …

This is part 3 of my Wushu Retrospective, a look back at my personal history with the sport of wushu.  Please note that there are syncing issues with the sound on the following videos that I didn’t have time to fix before posting them up.

———————————————-

It was round-about the time I was 3/4 of the way through learning the 1970’s compulsory form that I found out I would be competing in August. Part of the reason I agreed to compete was because I had gone to watch the Berkeley tournament in April and had seen what constituted a “beginner”.

Just before the Berkeley tournament, a few folks told me I should go ahead and compete in the beginner division, but having only had 3 weeks of wushu, that wasn’t so much an option. I wanted to see what was involved in a typical wushu competition.

It turned out that, based on the other people who were in the “beginner” division, I would have done okay. Maybe I should have competed afterall? Well, here was my chance. August was coming and I would have to start preparing.

Patti dumbed down my form a bit, since the original one was so long (8 sections!). I even got to include a butterfly kick in it, which the original didn’t have.

I also found out that my sister would be in town during the time I was competing so I would have a bit of moral support. Truth be told, I was pretty nervous, but I didn’t have much time to think about that. Before I knew it the competition had arrived.

It’s a bit of a blur, but I do remember having some pretty major butterflies in my stomach as I got ready for my turn on the floor. I tried to size up my competition, but I honestly had no idea how to do that. I was on my own. Patti was one of the judges, as were a few other former Chinese athletes (which back in 1995 was much rarer to find at a wushu competition than it is today), and the head judge was Debbie Chen from the National Wushu Training Center in L.A.

My form went pretty well. I guess my basics were solid enough and .. well. You can take a look and tell me what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrV3doqn7bc

I ended up getting first place. In hind sight, I realize that the reason was because I was competing in a beginning division with a more complicated form than the other competitors. Most people have a very linear form as their “beginning” form (such as the one I first learned at Wushu West), but the form I did, as you can see, moves around a bit more, and as a result I placed higher.

After I went I felt a big relief and just enjoyed the rest of the competition.

In the fall I started learning staff basics as well as the 1990’s compulsory long fist form. My staff basics eventually became a staff form and after a few months we had a demonstration coming up for Chinese New Years. It was being held at the Holiday Inn’s Chinese Cultural Center in San Francisco Chinatown and this time around my mom would be in town to watch me do my thing.

For this performance we joined up with the newly arrived Wang Zhen Tian, former member of the Jiangsu Wushu Team and a contemporary of Patti’s. He had just opened the “Achieve Gong Fu Wushu Training Center” in Santa Clara with his student from China, Liu Bo. (This was several years before “Wushu Link” down in Los Angeles.)

Those who know Liu Bo now, will not realize that he was once a svelt, lean former competitor from China. Years of living in the U.S. and being subjected to sub-standard experience has taken a lot of the drive out of him and he got a bit lazy over time. But back then he was at the top of his game.

That’s why I felt a little intimidated when I found out I would be performing after him. The two of them joined us for a few practices before the demonstration itself. It was the closest I had been to a top-level male wushu athlete. His jumps were mind-blowing.

For the demonstration I would be performing in three different parts:

First, I would come out with my staff for the opening introductions. You can also see a few other Wushu West students (who have mostly long since gone away) as well as Wang Zhen Tian, Liu Bo and Patti doing a bit of double broadsword.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5P6TekV5yk

Second, I was performing the beginning hand form with two of the Wushu West kids and a guy named Peter who disappeared a long time ago. This was the form I originally learned in 2 days, but of course that didn’t mean I hadn’t kept practicing it since then. William and Max went on to leave wushu for ballet and now are professional ballet dancers in New York. Don’t I feel old now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEwZPTMZD2I

And finally, I was going to perform 2 seconds of a staff set I had been learning. But, like I mentioned before, I would have to go after Liu Bo. He performaned a small nanquan set based on the compulsory form. Looking back I can say he did a so-so job of it, but I’ve since been spoiled to death in China and my perspective is all whacked out. But back then, it was the most amazing thing ever, and was probably one of the things that got me interested in nanquan to start with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuBZAi7LrV4

After that my performance went well, except that my staff was a little long for the narrow stage and I ended up giving a small plant a bit of a hair cut. I actualy forgot my form half-way through too, and started to make things up, but I just kept going regardless, knowing that stopping was akin to suicide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVcGcg408IA

I was actually pretty happy with myself. I knew I had messed up, but I was mostly pleased that I instinctively kept going. Patti said that it was good that I did that too, which of course made me feel even prouder of having messed up.

Oh .. and just for James C, here is Patti’s Eagle Claw from that demo. She hadn’t worked out in a while so actually, she’s in better shape today than she was back then, oddly enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNW9-nsHEvA

Shortly after the demonstration the Berkeley tournament came around again. I chose not to compete, but I did attend to see how things went with my school-mates. This was a pretty big event for me because it introduced me to who a lot of the big players in the wushu world (at that time) were.

Amy Chow and her crazy drop stance. Eric Yeh and his nanquan. Nathan Tong and his horrible knee injury that I was sitting 5 feet away from when it happened. Anne Hsu, who came out of no where and totally amazed the room. SCWA and their amazing athletes who seemed like some sort of silent ninja army of death. It was all new and interesting. I wish I had the time to cut up and post up all the videos from that competition, but unfortunately I don’t. Perhaps some day I’ll do a video retrospective on previous CMATs.

Anyway, there was a funny thing that happened during the competition that I still find rather odd.

Liu Bo was competing for the Grand Champion prize (I think to help his visa application) but was also judging on the side as needed. At one point, he was tired of judging and, as I was sitting next to him and one of the volunteers asked him to judge, he told them that he couldn’t since he was going to be competing soon.

Then he pointed at me “He can judge” he said.

The volunteer looked at me with hopeful eyes. “Can you???” she asked, and I could tell that they were in dire need.

“Sure, I guess so” I said, shrugging, realizing at the same time that I really had absolutely no idea what judging entailed.

Soon enough I was whisked off to a ring of intermediate long fist students (all of whom had been studying for longer than myself) and told to sit in the corner with a flip book full of numbers from 1.1 to 10.0.

I managed to do okay. I was a later judge in the line-up so by the time I was supposed to put my numbers up I just took an average of what I had seen so far and gave that score I figured that I would at least be consistent and not hurt anyone’s chances with my ignorance.

The really amazing thing was that, towards the end of the competition, they were so short on judges that I was asked to judge for the advanced divisions. Advanced nanquan, and the Grand Championship.

I was in way over my head.

In those competitions, after the 3rd competitor went, the judges would meet together to discuss the general scoring method for the ring. I went up, not sure what to expect. Truth be told, I had been curious all day what the judges said in those circles, so it was nice to have my curiosity satiated.

“The guy in the gold silks is my student” the head judge said “so be sure to give him a good score.”

Say what?? I couldn’t believe my ears. But it was exactly what it sounded like; one of the judges was telling the other judges to bump up the score of their own student. I would come to learn that this was suprisingly common. But to be honest it kind of disgusted me and my opinion of some of the coaches and judges dropped a few notches. (Not the students, mind you, since most of them were never aware that the coaches were doing this on their behalf.)

From that point on I always made it a point to be completely and totally objective whenever I judged a competition. I NEVER wanted to feel that I had given any sort of advantage to any competitor, regardless of if I knew them or not.

I focused, in years to come, to only see the wushu, and not the person performing it. To view the technique, and not the personality. It wasn’t easy to do at first, but over the years I’ve trained myself to divorce the two aspects of a competitor in my head.

But, at this competition, I still had no idea what I was doing. Who was I to judge the Grand Championship with only a year of wushu under my belt? Lisa, a friend who trained both at Cal Wushu and Wushu West came up to me and said “Are you judging??” to which I answered with a confused “So it would seem”.

In the end Liu Bo got the grand championship. But after several years of looking back at the tapes of that competition, I think his scores were a bit inflated due to the fact that he was a China athlete. The truth is, he was a bit out of shape, and one of the other athletes held up much better than him.

Yes, he had that China power and crisp-ness to his form — but did that make up for his lack-luster performance and lower energy? Who’s to say? At that stage of the game, I had no idea what I was doing anyway.

Here is the video of his performance so you can see how he looked. Keep in mind this was 12 years ago, before the huge number of Chinese athletes had come over from China. Heck .. Wu Di was only 8 years old back then and hadn’t even started wushu yet.

And .. again. I feel old now.

(You can see me in the far left corner with my legs crossed, sitting there judging as if I know what I’m doing… )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDgnQ0v6t3U

One of the things that I was beginning to realize during that first year of wushu, was that the wushu community as a whole had a lot of unresolved issues that weren’t being dealt with. Lots of politics and personalities were in conflict and I was slowly being made aware that the world inside a wushu school is pretty idyllic compared to the challenges that persisted in the wushu community at large.

My next blog will deal with this new-found state of wushu politics and the wushu community.

To Be Continued …

I picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello. Is Mark there? I’m returning his call.” a woman’s Chinese-accented voice said on the other end.

I figured it was someone from the school’s office or maybe a parent that helps with registration.

“Yes, I’m interested in taking Wushu classes?” I said.

“Have you taken any martial arts before?” she asked.

“No”, I admitted. I hadn’t, really and certainly didn’t count the 2 months of Jungae Moosul when I was 19 and half year of Karate when I was 15.

“You can come to watch a class.” she offered and explained how to get to the school on the following Sunday.

I had a million questions (mostly geeky ones) running through my mind but all I could get out was “Are you the instructor?”.

“Yes, I am” she replied.

GULP.

“Oh .. okay! I will see you on Sunday then!” We said goodbye and I hung up the phone.

I was pretty anxious for the next few days. I think I showed up a little early on Sunday to the small studio. I didn’t actually know where San Pablo Avenue was since I hadn’t hung out in Berkeley outside of the area near the University.

It was a small space, but I didn’t care. I was anxious to see what this wushu stuff was all about. After so many years I would finally see it in person!

I met the teacher, Hao Zhi Hua, who also called herself Patti Li, and I watched the class. I don’t think I even needed to stay through the whole class. I could have just watched them do the opening salute and I would have been sold. Not knowing anything about wushu, they all looked amazing. I couldn’t wait to get started.

I wanted to start as soon as possible, but I wouldn’t get paid until that Friday and I hadn’t enough money to pay the tuition, so it would have to wait a week until the following Sunday. Unfortunately she was going to be out of town to judge at the U.S. Team Trials in Texas.

She offered to postpone it for a another week until she returned but I was too anxious.

Sunday, March 12, 1995 at 9:30 a.m., I showed up to the studio ready and raring to go. A guy named Tony was going to teach that day. A former student of hers that I never saw again. The class was a bit of a blur, but I recall being taught the first half of a beginning form by one of the students named Yolanda.

By the next day I was sore beyond belief.

Around the same time I noticed a poster at the sandwich shop I usually ate lunch at advertising a performance by the Beijing Wushu Team at the Palace of Fine Arts on Saturday, March 17. I didn’t want to miss out so I went to the ticket office and picked up a seat. It turned out I was in the farthest seat from the stage possible, my back literally against the wall, but it was better than nothing!

Since I had signed up for class twice a week I came back to the studio on Thursday, where all the students were a-buzz about the upcoming performances by the Beijing Wushu Team. It got me even more excited. In class I learned the second half of the beginning form. Some people were looking at me funny, but I wouldn’t find out why until later.

Sure enough, come Saturday, I walked down to the performance hall from my apartment and was blown away. Not just blown away, but my brain was literally turned to liquid goo in my skull and I was all a-quiver.

These pictures and many more from the performance can be found on Raffi’s website, beijingwushuteam.com

These pictures and many more from the performance can be found on Raffi’s website, beijingwushuteam.com

After the performance I took my program and got it signed by the members of the team. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure who was who as I had only been doing wushu for 2 classes.

I saw a girl who looked like she was part of the group standing there and handed her the program and a pen.

“You want me to sign it?” she asked.

Okay … she spoke perfect English. Obviously not a Beijing Wushu Team member.

“Sure” I answered, shrugging with a smile. So she signed it and to this day I have no idea who she was.

(Oh, and Russell Wong was there too, so I got an autographed picture of him with his shirt off doing a high kick. My female roommate, Seema, was quite jealous.)

On Sunday I went back to class. This time my friend David Nixon from Seattle was visiting me so he tagged along to check it out. I figured since I had learned the beginning set in the first two classes that I would probably have to practice them for a while to get them down before learning something else.

Apparently I was wrong.

In the middle of class Patti pulled me and two other students aside and told us that we were going to learn the 1970’s Compulsory Long Fist Form. She showed us a little of the beginning and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. She proceeded to teach us the first several movements and we practiced them for the rest of the class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pH5QFOfNYQ

Zhao Chang Jun performing the 1970’s Youth Compulsory Long Fist Form for men.

I was getting strange looks from people in the class again, but since I had a friend there watching and I didn’t know anyone I didn’t pay much attention to it. After class we went home and as we were walking along David echoed a sentiment that has since been said dozens of times by dozens of different people I’ve met both in and out of wushu:

“Its interesting, because that one girl who was doing her form — she wasn’t particularly beautiful or anything. She wasn’t ugly, but just sort of average looking. But when she did her wushu, she suddenly became much more attractive.”

Amen, brother. And from what women have told me, it goes both ways. Men with good wushu are apparently hotter too. I suppose it’s true of any really intricate physical art. Proficiency and aesthetic excellence breeds attraction.

So, I continued going to class, and I continued learning my form. I met several of the other people in my school too. Kaz, a fellow half-Japanese guy, 6 months at the school, and originally from northern California and a good friend of Green Day (used to bum around Europe with them back before they were famous) and Tabala, an african american man who was one of the more advanced people in the class and credits his upbringing not to his father, but to watching Bruce Lee movies (which he could recite from memory, beginning to end).

There were a few others too, but those were the two I connected with the best and hung out with the most. In fact, both of them would eventually be roommates of mine.

Oh, and for those of you who know him, this is what Cary looked like when I first met him (at the tender young age of 4).

I later found out why people gave me strange looks in the beginning. In fact, I found out why one student, who worked with Kaz and started when he did, quit taking wushu right after I started (or at least it was a factor, so I was told).

Before I had arrived there, Kaz and the other students had all spent a minimum of 6 months to a year learning the beginning long fist form. Patti would drill them on the same (to be honest) simple/boring form for over half a year. They didn’t want to ask her to teach them anything new for fear she would think they were being impatient, but at the same time they were getting a little frustrated.

Enter this random guy who joins class, learns the form in 2 days and is then learning an intermediate form with them. It had taken them 6 months to get her to teach them something new, and it took me only 2 classes. Understandably they were a little upset about that, but it made me realize something about myself that I hadn’t really realized up until then.

I tend to pick things up quickly.

Even these days, I can look at a form and figure out most of the details on my own. Being physically capable to do the moves is one thing, as I’m limited by my body’s condition. But mentally, I learn forms quickly.

I’m not saying this to brag or sound special. It is just something I’ve learned about myself.

Granted, an ability to learn quickly and $2.00 still just gets you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, so it’s no big whoop unless you apply it to something.

Over the following weeks, during the Beijing Wushu Team’s stay in the U.S. I would get to see them on one more occasion. This time in April at San Jose State University. I had been training for a month and so I was able to carpool with Patti, her husband and a few other students. The show was equally amazing. But this time I was right up front in the first row having a major wushu conniption.

If you look carefully, I’m in a red shirt below the word “STATE” on the right side.

These pictures and many more from the performance can be found on Raffi’s website, beijingwushuteam.com

These pictures and many more from the performance can be found on Raffi’s website, beijingwushuteam.com

After the performance we even got to go to a dinner with the Team. And we took pictures with a bunch of them too. I must have used up 3 disposable cameras in the span of an hour. Unfortunately I don’t have many of them scanned in except for these two:

L to R: Tabala, Kaz, Ka Li (Beijing Wushu Team member), Lee (Taiji student) and a much younger me.

Patti and Wu Bin (her coach) at dinner

My first picture with my coach! Taken in Berkeley, California on University Ave.

The next several months were a wonderful, happy blur. I was learning cool moves, I was hanging out with people who were as geeked out about wushu as I was, and I was beginning to feel like I had joined a new family of like-minded souls who all enjoyed what I enjoyed.

Wushu had me wrapped around it’s finger and I was planning our future together with reckless abandon. For a whole year I could have told you exactly how many hours and days of wushu I had taken classes. I had planned out which forms I would learn over the following 10 years of my life. I was even taking some mandarin lessons with Patti’s aunt (to not much success).

But I knew that eventually the honeymoon with wushu would come to an end. The newness would wear off, or the first plateau of non-progress would hit. I knew it would come eventually, but I still enjoyed what I was doing. And I planned to keep enjoying it for as long as I could.

That was, until I came to class one day and was told that I would be competing at a tournament in August. Just 5 months after I had started wushu!

To Be Continued next week …

Back in 2008 I started to write this Wushu Retrospective, an accounting of my personal history with wushu.  Now that I have a smidge more time I am going to re-post the original entries (previously only posted for a select group of people) and continue writing them to completion.  I will post a new segment each Sunday.

It’s been an up and down sort of relationship  with wushu over the years and while I’ve always been fairly dedicated to wushu as a sport, my training will sometimes run cold before I get motivated and turn back on the heat.  I thought I would look back at some of the highs and lows of my training.

---

I had first seen wushu a few years before I knew what to call it.

One summer during high school when I was working in Tokyo, my host family’s son, realizing that I liked kung fu flicks, showed me some Jackie Chan films.  (“Fearless Hyena”, “Wheels on Meals” and “Project A”, I later learned) as well as a Jet Li film (“Shaolin Temple 3″).  I didn’t know who Jet Li or Jackie Chan was, and the Japanese names of the films were different than the Chinese or English, but those films were brewing in the back of my head for the next several years, fueling my interest in martial arts.

Here’s a slip from Shaolin Temple 3:

http://www.youtube.com/v/tPv4XTYs2U0

A few years later I happened upon a video tape in a rental shop called “Iron and Silk”.  Most wushu folks know of this film, but if you don’t it is based on Mark Saltzman’s trip to Hangzhou, China in the mid-80’s to teach English.  While there he trained with Pan Qing Fu, a well-known wushu coach.  That was the first time I heard the word “wushu”.  In the film he also mentions the film “Shaolin Temple”.

Shortly after that, during one of my short stints trying to pick up martial arts (in this case a Korean system called Jungae Moosul), I had asked the instructor about wushu and he mentioned the film “Shaolin Temple”.  Remembering it from “Iron and Silk” I expressed interest in watching it and he let me sit in the studio and put it on the small TV they had sitting in the corner.

No English subtitles or dubs.  Just Cantonese with Korean subtitles, but I watched it and was mezmerized.  It reminded me of how I felt watching those movies back in Japan.  I was hooked on martial arts films.

Over the next couple years I became engrossed with Jackie Chan films.  I still didn’t know who Jet Li was but I knew that Jackie Chan was making the kinds of films I wanted to watch.  I would go to the independent theater on the Ave next to the University of Washington in Seattle and start checking out their Jackie Chan film nights.  After a while I expanded my choices to any Hong Kong movie that came.

And there, on one of their schedules, I saw the name Jet Li.  I didn’t realize that it was the same person I had seen in the Shaolin Temple movies but the film and his name sounded interesting so I went to check it out.  It was “Once Upon a Time in China 3″.  I left that theater on a high.  The production values, the wushu moves — I couldn’t stop talking about it to my friends.

http://www.youtube.com/v/2Fjx9DyxzuI

They didn’t get it of course.  They liked Jackie Chan, but it’s hard to explain the appeal of a Wong Fei Hung / Jet Li film to someone who had never seen one.  I even dragged my sister to a showing of Fong Sai Yuk a couple months later, but she spent a fair bit of the film laughing out loud at the wire-work wall-running and silly plot.

I wasn’t detered though.  I searched around Seattle for a wushu school.  Kung Fu, sure.  Tai Chi, yeah.  Aikido, you bet.  But wushu?  I couldn’t find it anywhere.

At around the same time I realized that Seattle wasn’t really the place for me anymore.  I decided to move to San Francisco.  I didn’t really tell anyone that one of my motivations for moving there was to see if I could find a wushu school.  I don’t even know if I admited it to myself.  That was the fall of 1994.

I kept trying to look.  I went to Tat Mau Wong’s school.  I checked out the 8 Step Praying Mantis school in the Sunset.  I called up the number in the phone book for “Wushu Resources” but a young girl answered and told me “My dad isn’t here right now”.  (It later turned out that was our own Sifu Bryant Fong’s daughter Marla.)

But finally, on March 3, 1995, when I had almost given up on finding a wushu school, I spotted something on a co-worker’s copy of “The Open Exchange“, an independent newspaper in San Francisco.  I grabbed the paper from my co-worker and my eyes bugged out.

“WUSHU WEST”.

The words were on the page.  And there was a picture of a woman holding her leg up next to her head holding a sword.  The text said that she had been a member of the Beijing Wushu Team and had trained with Jet Li.

Well, that’s all I needed to know.

I grabbed the phone and called the number and left a message.

That evening they returned my call …

To be continued in one week …