Posts Tagged ‘videos’

I know .. I know …

It has been forever since my last blog.  Well, that is because it has been just as long since my last training. 

Well, okay, maybe not “forever.  Technically it was 10 days.  But that is a long time to not be training.  Surprisingly today’s workout wasn’t too bad – mainly because it consisted primarily of running.

Normally running is a hard pill for me to swallow.  i get cramps in my calves and usually don’t have the endurance to go very far.  i presumed that since it had been at least a couple months since the last time I ran at the track that today would be no exception.  But for some reason today’s track run went pretty well and I ended up with a 3 mile total with the following breakdown:

(Run 1 lap, Walk 1 lap ) x 6 = 3 miles total.

Of course, all the other athletes were pulling in a 10k run.  And by “all the other athletes” I mean that it wasn’t just my class running but the Taiji group as well as the youth group.  And on top of that there were two kids wushu groups at the track, as well as a men’s and women’s soccer group, and then top that off with a couple sanda groups and you have one very crowded track. 

One of the reasons I haven’t been training too much is that right now is the Baha’i Fast.  Each year Baha’i’s fast for 19 days (which is one Baha’i month) from March 2 to March 20.  That means from sun rise (around 7:00 am here in Xi’an right now) to sun set (around 7:00 pm) we don’t eat or drink. 

So, I suppose that I was hesitant to try and go all out at the wushu guan when I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink or eat.  Today seemed like a good testing ground since it was a run and not a wushu class.  I brought a bottle of water just in case I felt dizzy or it felt unhealthy, but I managed to make it without any problems.  Back in the U.S. during the fast my classes were in the evening and I could usually get in a small bite or a power bar before I trained so it wasn’t as much of an issue.  But my training here is earlier in the day and a bit more intense – plus the air is rather dry – so I wasn’t sure how things would go.

My next class is on Saturday afternoon – this time in the wushu guan.  I’ll bring another bottle of water as a safety measure, but hopefully things go okay.

No pictures today, but I managed to do a quick little vlog from the track.  It includes a bit of kids wushu training and wind sprints.  I filmed this after the adult class had already left so this is mostly who was left after the first hour.  Enjoy!

 

Last night Ruhi and I had a wonderful dinner with Khalil and his mom at their home.  While there he showed me these videos he made that were quite funny and I thought you guys would appreciate the martial arts humor.  There are three of my favorites.  Enjoy!

I am still in Hong Kong and will return to Xi’an on the 24th.  I will blog and provide photos and what not from my trip once I have had a few days to reacclimate to home.

As you can see from the title, I’m going to do a bit of an experiment this month and instead of writing out these super long blogs (which actually don’t take THAT much time) I’m going to try to use my small camera to record more in-the-wushu-guan vlogs (video blogs), which I can just put up quickly.   This one is actually a little long because I took a few different clips and had to string them together, but if I can get things working right it should make the process much faster in the future.

A few things that aren’t on the video …

1. My nanquan section run-down for today: 4 x 4, 3 x 4, 2 x 4, 1-2, 3-4.  So, 12 single sections and two half sets.  Considering that I felt like crap most of the class, thats not too bad.  I actually noticed my endurance and recovery was markedly improved from the previous week. 

2. Xiao Yu mentioned that their commissary (lunch room) has a card system for non-athletes.  You can buy a card and put money on it and then just use that to buy various ala carte items from their food offerings.  I might try that out some time and put up a vlog about it so that you guys can check it out. 

3. Today Zhang Laoshi wasn’t there so Han Laoshi coached us.  He gave me a few “Ma Ke! (Mark!)” which was nice.  He actually remembers my name now.

Enjoy the video, and let me know what you think.  Do you like this sort of thing or do you prefer to read the written word.  Leave a comment! (BTW, if you have been having problems logging in, it isn’t you. My site is a little wonky and I haven’t had time to fix it yet.  Until then you can go here to login.

 

For those on alivenotdead and facebook, be sure to visit wushuzilla.com to read this blog in its entirety, with the full glory of videos and media!

I entered the wushu guan a little late on Friday thinking that the athletes would already be running around and getting warmed up. But when I walked in only Xiao Yu was on the carpet rolling her ankles and wrists.  I looked at her inquisitively and she shrugged her shoulders.

“Its just me!” she offered.

Oh right.  Fridays were light because most of the athletes in my group had school (or something) going on so it was just the non-school-attending professional athletes that showed up.  Today that was just Xiao Yu, Yuan Min and myself (sans the “professional” part).

To warm up Zhang Laoshi and the three of us played a little game of keep-away soccer.  On the other carpets were the taiji group as well as the kids from up north.  I also noticed that a few very young kids were training on the far side.  3 new children that I hadn’t seen before, 2 boys and a girl, probably around 7 or 8 years old.

While they were stretching out I noticed that the three of them were pretty flexible, but I thought that wasn’t particularly unusual.  But when the little girl did her front stretch kicks I had to pick my jaw up off the ground.  They were really, really impressive.  Whoever has been training her is doing a bang-up job because her zheng ti tui was spot-on.  Her other kicks need a little work, but she has that unique combination of power and flexibility that eludes a lot of younger kids.  You will see kids that have a lot of one or the other, but it is hard to find someone who can use both effectively.

I was doing my own training so I didn’t get any footage of her front stretch kick, but I did manage to get some of their other basics training.  Here are some of their kicks for your viewing pleasure.

 

For myself, I spent most of the class working on my choreography.  I worked through the rest of my nangun form, fine-tuning it and working out all the sections.  I now have something I can practice, which is nice.  I just have to be sure to keep it up so that I don’t forget it.

While I was training I also managed to get a bit more footage.  The benefit of it being a light day for me is that I can capture footage of other people training.  Here is a young woman practicing some taiji jian.

The wushu youths from up north were hard at work too.  Their coach (Coach Zhang’s assistant, who’s name I’m not sure of.  And for some reason he calls Xiao Yu and I “Garfield” –- ironically the same name that Han Jing called me back in 1999 in Beijing … Do I really look like Garfield?  No, wait – don’t answer that.) has really been giving them their money’s worth and they get tons of pointers.  Here is him giving them some pointers.

And here are the same youths running through some sections at the end of class.

And finally here is some footage of the wushu kids.  After their basics, but before they started conditioning they took a little break on the side of the room so I captured some of that.

And I also got some of their conditioning too. 

And that is pretty much it for Friday’s class.  I have already posted up my vlog and have prepared the blog for Monday’s class (2/1) so you get a double-dose of wushu blogginess today.  yay!

NOTE: For those of you on Facebook, you will want to visit my YouTube Channel to view all of the videos, since Facebook’s lame importing functionality doesn’t allow for embeded videos.

As I mentioned before, I had gotten permission from Zhang Laoshi and Han Laoshi to have a couple of my 外国朋友 (foreign friends) visit the wushu guan to check out the professional athletes doing their thing.  James and Charisse, along with Ruhi, jumped on the bus with me at the crack of morning and we made our way to the morning class.

Of course, what you are really wanting to know about is whether or not Ruhi was able to take any videos of the practice.  Well, you had best throw some appreciation towards the wife because she got a ton of really good footage which I am still organizing and editing to put online for everyone to watch.  Of course, by the time you read this I should be done, but just pretend that you had to wait an unreasonable amount of time, okay?

James even brought his camera along and was nice enough to toss his photos my way for posting online.  So, you can also throw a few “谢谢”over to him as well.

First up are some basics.  You might notice that I intentionally cut my own basics out of the videos.  I figured that (a) you don’t want me wasting precious bandwidth and resources with my sub-standard jibbengong and (b) it wasn’t something that you don’t probably see in your own wushu guan all the time anyway.  Not to worry, I will have a video of my own wushu later on in the blog …

It turned out that this particular day was a heavy nandu focus for training.  All the athletes had to do full nandu combinations many times.  So, of course that means we were able to get some pretty good nandu footage of the practice:

On the far carpet, as you can see from the previous two videos, there was a group of younger athletes training.  I mentioned them before – they are the ones from Northern Shaanxi.  It seems that they are here much in the same way that schools from the U.S. come to China for a month in the summer to train in Wushu.  The main distinction is that these kids are from China so there is no language or cultural barrier, and they are all much better than kids their age in other countries.  But the idea is sort of similar, since they are currently on a break from school so their coaches brought them to train with the “professional” wushu athletes.  Here is some of them:

And, as I mentioned, James was nice enough to snap some pictures of the practice.  Here are a few from the basics and nandu training:

 

 

 

He managed to take some pretty nice shots, huh?

Anyway, after basics and nandu it was time for forms.  Yuan Min told me that we were going to do 16 sections, so I decided to run through 3 of each of my nanquan sections, for a total of 12, and then go through my first section of nan gun 4 more time to flesh out the full 16.  I actually ended up doing something a bit more like this:

1 x 3, 2 x 3, rest 1 rotation, 3 x 3, 4 x 3, ng x 3

I really needed to take a short break in the middle there.  I’m not quite up to the endurance required for 16 sections in a group of just 6 other people.  The turn around is about 2 – 3 minutes for your physical recovery so it is pretty intense.  Not quite as intense as that SCWA practice in 2001 where I had to do 8 full forms in a rotation with 3 other people … but it was almost like that.

Here is some of the athlete practice media.  First up is Yue Xiao Yu.  You can see some really good intensity in the video of her nanquan.  I also like some of the pictures James took of her:

 

 

 

After her we’ll watch Yuan Min’s video.  i really like how his nan gun form is shaping up.  As you might recall, 2 weeks ago he taught me his nangun form.  Then a week later he proceeded to rechoreograph almost the entire thing and make himself an even cooler form.  So I’m stuck with his outdated hchoreography and he gets to look bad ass.  I don’t really mind though.  Even his outdated choreography is better than what I could have come up with on my own.

 

He was giving me a few pointers in that last picture, although the suggestions he gave me during class were way out of my ability level.  Some day though …. some.day.

Here are two more southern athletes.  One is a younger man who’s name I don’t know (practicing nan gun) and the other is Tian Jing Fang doing some nanquan.

 

 

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a wushu practice if someone wasn’t doing a bit of chang quan in the room.  Here are two athletes demonstrating a bit of that. The younger man in the first video is actually practicing with a wrapped ankle, so that is why he is sort of taking it a bit easy on some of the moves.

 

 

While we were doing our wushu thing, the taiji group was practicing over on the left side of the carpet.  Ruhi managed to get a bit of them doing some taiji.  So here is some of that.

Recently after practices the coach has had us do some stretching together in a circle.  A new development that I am actually rather enjoying. 

After class I asked James, Charisse and Ruhi what they thought of the class.  For James and Charisse this was the first time they had ever seen wushu, so it was nice to hear a fresh perspective on things.  I’ve been around wushu for so long that it is sometimes hard to remember how it felt to discover wushu for the first time.  As a bit of background on them, Charisse has around 10 years of dance/ballet experience and James did crew (rowing) at Stanford, so they both have an appreciation for physical sports and exercise.

And, as promised, here is a video of my nanquan practice from Thursday.  I will just say right now that my form needs work.  But it is at least better than it was before, and I am hopeful that it will continue to improve in to the future.

I realize this was a few days late but hopefully the abundance of wushu videos made it worth your while.  I have some more footage from Friday’s class too, which I will try to post up tomorrow if I have any time, including a pretty amazing little girl that has some pretty killer basics.  I don’t know who she is, but if she is up for adoption I might have to put in a bid.

Stay tuned for that in the next blog! 

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 …

Well … sorta.

This week the schedule for training changed a bit.  They swapped a few days around, as well as a few of the activities.  This week’s afternoon schedule (the morning is always just wushu training) was supposed to be like this:

• Mon: Wushu
• Tue: Power
• Wed: Rest
• Thu: Running (Sprints)
• Fri: Power
• Sat: Running (Long)

But actually today (Wednesday) they swapped the morning and afternoon, so they didn’t train in the morning and we had wushu forms training in the afternoon.  That was good news for me, since I wanted to do forms training and not have another day off.  Later on I would find out why they switched it…

I also spoke with Coach Zhang about my training schedule.  Work is pretty busy right now so I let him know that I would only be able to come to class 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  He said that was fine.  My main concern is that if next week is the same schedule as this week, then Wednesday afternoon they might not have class.  I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Before class started I saw the familiar groups of little kids training.  Usually I just watch, but this time I saw one group of them practicing a beginning long fist form so I thought I would snag some video.  Keep in mind that they have only been training for a few months to maybe a year.  The starting point of every professional athlete out there today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q90jwG4dp1Y

The class was similar to Monday’s class.  The athletes seems to be in pretty good spirits today, and for some reason my legs felt really good.  Usually it takes me a good 15 minutes to get my horse stance stretch going, but today I was able to drop down in to it almost immediately.  Also, my endurance was improving so I was feeling pretty good during basics and even got a few low jumps in to the mix.

But I noticed that there was an older gentleman pacing around on one side of the room.  I asked Yuan Ming and he said that he was the head of the team.  ”Teacher.  Number One.” he said, which I took to mean that he was the team manager or head coach (or both).  I had never seen him before, but he might come to the morning class all the time for all I know.

Anyway, after we had been practicing combinations for a while one of the other coaches that I sometimes see in the wushu guan came in with some guy I hadn’t seen before.  He sat with a few of the coaches in front of the Taiji athletes, and then sat for a while in front of our group.  Then, after something was said by the head coach to Coach Zhang there was an immediate flurry of activity.  All of Chu Feng Lian’s kids grabbed their coats and headed in to the weight training room and shut the door.  Most of the older athletes in my group started getting ready for jumps and I was told by Yue Xiao Yu that I should train on my own on the side for the time being.

It turns out that the guy was a coach for the Army Team (解放军队).  For those of you who don’t know, the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) also has a wushu team, but unlike the other teams their athletes don’t train together at a central facility but are recruited from various regional and provincial teams where they live and train.  I suppose the host team gets some monetary compensation for training the Army team member, which might be good motivation for them to have some of their wushu athletes get recruited for competition by the Army.  (Thats just my speculation though.)

In any case, it looked like this guy was here to check out some athletes.  And here he had been watching me do combinations in front of him!  Yikes!

The jumpers in our group started practicing their nandu combinations while a bunch of us went to the side to work on stretching or stances or whatever (basically looking busy on the side while watching the crazy jumps of these athletes).  After about 15 minutes of that we switched up and started doing sections cycling through using the two carpets on the east side of the room.

Yue Xiao Yue said it was okay to work in to the rotation as they were done with the nandu demonstration for the visiting coach, but I still felt like keeping myself a little more distant from him.  I rotated through the farther carpet and didn’t go to the carpet next to him so that he could pay more attention to the Shaanxi Team athletes, which is really the reason he was there; not to watch some foreigner pretend to do wushu.

I managed to get 3 sections out, which wasn’t too bad considering how long it had been since I had done any full sections.  I really like training like that: basics followed by form combinations followed by full sections.  It helps me build up a work on specific problem areas of my form.

After class I did some stretching to make sure I didn’t stiffen up too much.  Friday it is back to the wushu guan, this time for some more power training.  加油！

Ruhi had been asking to come watch me train for a while, and since I’ve been at the wushu school for a little while, and Yue Xiao Yu had thought it would be okay, we both headed over to the Shaanxi Provincial Sports Training Center’s wushu guan for a bit of Monday afternoon forms training.

My alterior motive for doing this was to get some videos of my own training so that I could see what I looked like and figure out what I need to work on.  (my own wushu videos will only be available for those registered on wushuzilla.com, just because it is a little embarassing.  lol.)

For the rest of you who aren’t on wushuzilla, you can still enjoy the ton of footage that Ruhi was able to take for me.  I discovered that the best way to get a lot of wushu footage is to just ask someone to take it for you.  Trying to train and get media for you guys to watch was a little problematic, but having my wife the film director there made it a breeze.  Thanks Ruhi!

As a result, I don’t actually have to talk too much about what happened.  I can just show you!  First off, here is some wushu tag and warm-up videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-y4pRQDQiE

For some reason the wushu hall was a bit chilly today.  Probably due to the snow falling outside (I finally get to see snow falling in Xi’an!) and the sub-zero temperatures coming in through the super drafty windows, but it took us a while to warm up.

After warming up we did basics.  Here are those …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_RjFrj9I8Q

And then it was time for forms.  I asked Ruhi to focus on capturing the nanquan athletes.  So for your viewing pleasure you can see Ting Jing Fan, Yuan Ming and Yue Xiao Yu practicing some southern wushu weapons.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPFQAfz8fKs

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f5i8GYAEBI

Over on the other carpet with Chu Feng Ling’s group I noticed that the kids were working on some cha quan combinations.  Pretty neat and a great way to really drill some good long fist technique.  Here is a short video of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cson11K_1A8

And, of course, Wu Ya Nan and his Taiji posse were hard at work on their Monday power training workout.  Ruhi was able to get a bit of them using the hurdles for some plyometrics and jumping practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PBC0j4SEz8

During class an interesting thing happened.  As I was practicing my form, Coach Zhang asked me to show him a combination from my 3rd section.  It was actually a combination I had learned back in 2006 from Zhu Wen Jun and worked in to my choreography.  I ended up showing him, as well as Yuan Ming and Yue Xiao Yu.  I have it on wushuzilla as a bonus video.

video management, video solution, video streaming

Also, After class I got to sit and talk with a few of Chu Feng Ling’s kids and introduce some of them to Ruhi.  It is fun to meet these kids and get to know more and more of the athletes.  I think they are slowly acclimating to me being there.  it has been about 2 months now so I suppose I’m becoming more and more of a familiar face.  Should be fun to see what the coming months will bring.  Another bonus video of the kids is also on wushuzilla.com

video management, video solution, video streaming

Finally, if you want to see my nanquan video, just go to wushuzilla, login (or register — it’s free and way easy) and then go to the “members” area where I have it posted.

Yesterday’s workout wiped me out so much that today was practically a non-workout day for me.  I considered not going, but I knew that I should go, even if I wasn’t able to really go for it.  Any effort > Zero effort,right?

The main issue was that my left knee was pretty sore from yesterday’s training.  It wasn’t a debilitating soreness, but it hurt enough for me to lay off it.  While they were playing tag I did wall sits and stretched my knee out.  And after stretching it was time for Power Training.

Power Training

This was the other reason I showed up today; because I knew we weren’t doing wushu so I wouldn’t be compromising my knee too much.

This time around, however, I was able to get a little bit of video of the training they do.  (You are welcome. )

First was the Pop Squats (as I like to call them).  I paid more attention to the weight this time.  Our group (smaller/weaker folks) did 30 kg (not including the bar), then increased by 10kg each set up to 70kg.  Each set they only do about 5 reps.  What I didn’t mention before that is very important is the quick sprint right after you do it, along with some hops to work the muscles.  The other group did much higher weights than us, but they’re also much stronger.

Here is an athlete doing his last rep and then a sprint:

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

The second exercise was the hops.  They brought the weight down to just 20kg and we did 3 sets of 15 reps.  Here is an athlete pumping some of these out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLhypXZ5BlQ

Then we went to the carpet.  I couldn’t do most of the following exercises except one or two, so for most of the time I did wall sits and taiji stance practice.  Their first exercise was the 3-jump.  It is the exercise where they jump up do high knees, jump up do butt kicks and jump up and do side splits.  Quick jumps, 10 sets of the rotating 3.  No video since I was doing my stuff on the side.

They did several lines of frog leaps and small hops as well.  I got some footage of that here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR06TxkuMEQ

It was also a power training day for the taiji group.  They do a lot more balance and core strength training than we do.  Especially the balance stuff.  Here  you can see them on the squishy balance things (I don’t know what they are called), doing some core strength and balance training.  They would also do a lot of exercises with the big yoga balls too, but I didn’t get any of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOhN_MC9D5Y

I participated in a bit of core training exercises on the carpet.  Our group brought out the yoga balls too, and also did some balance and core training, which is nice to see.  I filed some of that stuff too:

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

And then suddenly class had ended.  I mentioned to Coach Zhang that I would be going to GZ/HK on Thursday and would be back after the weekend.  I also appologized for having knee problems today.  He said not to worry about it, adding “everyone here has knee problems”.

Zhang Yang

As people were leaving I also got the name of another athlete.  Zhang Yang is the other main female athlete in our group (there are two young girls too) and she was at the Binzhou All China Games competing in Duilian for the Shaanxi Wushu Team.  Her main events are Chang Quan and Jian Shu.  I assume she does Qiang Shu too, but I have yet to see her practice it.  Here is a picture of her, as well as her competition footage from All China Games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF16qTVUSzM

Demo Practice

After class had ended (a tad early, I might add), the flags came out again and some of the guys from the 1 – 3 class came in to the room for demo practice.  I tried to get some details on the demo from Coach Zhang but he said he didn’t really know the details and could only say that they didn’t have much time before they needed to perform.  Then he took off.  It turns out he isn’t actually in charge of the demo.  His assistant coach is.

I stuck around to get some footage of their practice.  The angle wasn’t so great, but you can get a general idea of what they are up to here.  Keep in mind that they are still learning it and most of them are just walking through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fp8KOyuZhw

Embarassing Moments in Wushu

As I was leaving class today I happened to be walking out as the same time as Chu Feng Ling.  I mentioned her a while back, but she is from Zhao Chang Jun’s generation (they used to train together) and is known for her Fanzi Quan.  I happened to have some footage of her competition so I stuck it on youtube, which you can see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL-dQK2nkVU

In any case, as we were walking out, it was one of those situations in which we were both going in the same direction at the same time so we ended up walking next to each other.  Truth be told, she is from the Golden Age of wushu in China and I find people from that generation a little intimidating so I was sort of nervous.

Overall we had a fairly pleasant conversation.  I learned that she lived near the West Gate and had a 17 year old kid who was about to start college.  But since I was a little nervous I started asking random questions to fill up the silence while we were walking (in hind sight I should have just been quiet and waited for her to talk).  I won’t repeat what I said, but by the end I think she ended up running to her bus a little quicker than was probably necessary.  I seemed to have scared her off.

Smooth move Mark.

it was one of those situations where you wished the conversation had ended about half-way through when you were still doing well.  lol.  Ah well, lesson learned.

Tomorrow they are running at the track.  My legs felt much better after practice so my light training seems to have paid off.  I’ll come to run and see how things go.  They are going to be running sprints (2×800 meters +  8×400 meters + 20×30 meters = holy cow!) but as Yue Xiao Yu said “You can just run on your own.  You don’t have to run quickly”.

Until next time …

wushuzilla.com bonus footage

video management, video solution, video streaming video management, video solution, video streaming

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 …