2008 Collegiate Wushu Nationals

On Saturday...after 5 months of preparation.....the Collegiate Wushu Championships finally are here!!  Calwushu team finished it's last run thru's on Friday and loaded up Saturday to drive down to Stanford University.  I however, could not leave with them because I had a Taiji Class and Wushu class to teach in the morning.  I finished this week's Sun Taiji Lesson with some Taosist Yoga....a really good cool down.  As I was about to leave one of the student's stopped me with  a question.  He wanted to know was it more important to stop and think about the application of the movement or to try for smoothness.  While intent is important if you are not relaxed and smooth you are not yet ready to think about application.  But yet you cannot ignore application otherwise the movement has no meaning and is of no use.  Each is a part of the whole....neither can exist without the other....this is yin and yang....a combination of polar opposites...the Tao of wushu!

Anyway, I finally left and started driving toward Stanford..........to past the time driving I listened to the SF Giants play at the Cactus League............boy are they going to be bad this year!  I arrived finally just in time to see the women's straightsword competition............Amanda from our A Team had just finished with a score of 7.65............no way!  I could tell it was going to be an interesting competition.........Then I watched the other form competition.......that was exciting....our A team men were competing.......Adam did Tungbeiquan, Melvin and Justin did Drunken fist......all well executed........Then came the Women's Spear Event..........Alyssa is on our C team....but her form was good enough to beat both girls from Stanford........but her form was short time.......of course she is only an intermediate and her form only has to be 1 minute in length......combining division is just not acceptable.......because of the time deduction when you combine divisions the intermediate student actually has no chance of winning since their time will always be short!  OH well this only means that the rules need to be revised in order to be fair to intermediate students....otherwise no reason for them to compete........the final consequence of this ruling was to end up having Calwushu lose by one first place.......But, the really cool thing was that after our A Team......had an accident ......one of our girls popped her knee............the C Team rose to the occasion and performed a really sharp group set.  This was a surprise.....since only two weeks earlier they were still trying to remember their forms.......and they had only been together as a team for only two weeks earlier!  Go C Team!!  In the end, the Team championships was won by Stanford A Team...followed by Calwushu B and C Teams!!

Congradulations to all competitors.  I am really proud that Calwushu did such a good job...they worked hard, sacrificed a lot of time, and pushed each other hard to excell........Also at this tournament was many old friends who came to judge.......including......Zhang Gui Feng, Li Jin Heng, Lily Lau, and Kung-fu Hustle star Chiu Chi Ling...............and of course everyone's favorite Spanish Wushu team member......Emilo Alpanesque...he just is everywhere!!  After, pictures and talking to the judges it was off to the Banquet............and boy was that an adventure, cause first we had to find my car in the dark......no mean feat as there are just parking lots everywhere.  After that it was trying to find our way to the freeway..........thanks Darren for leading the way!  We finally arrive in Cupertino at the Great Buffett....it was very good, nice selection and the food was fresh.  There are no pictures cause I filled up my SD card with videos of the competition........if I figure out how to upload them I will put them up for people to watch............but doesn't seem to be as easy to do as photos!?? Wish tech was easier to use.......have any of you ever read a manual...........I couldn't even figure out how my phone works from the manual.........aargh!  Ok cya!