Tiger Claw Elite and Earthquake Benefit

Well, the Tiger Claw Elite Championships is done and so is the Earthquake Victims Benefit Performance...Whew, are my feet tired and voice hoarse!!  The week began with lots of calls and emails to make sure we had enough judges.......turns out we did but we worked the ones we had......until they could barely keep their eyes open!!   Sorry guys!  Being a  judge often is such a thankless job.....the students don't get a good score the parents want to know why...........I had one irate parent complain about his son's score......but not having seen the performance I could not comment other than to say you have to trust the judges know what they are doing........then my favorite is aren't those guys judging all from the same school?  I told the parent that if you really want to have it arbitrated you have to produce a video for me to see and $100!!  I was very happy that the parents took my word for it.  This of course is one of the things holding back wushu as a sport...you cannot have coaches be judges, and everyone needs to be certified.....that will get rid of any feelings of favoritism.  Actually, many of my students would prefer me not to judge them, as they know I give them even lower scores....ouch!  The Tournament was held in the Hyatt...a very nice venue......but I find it quite different from tournaments that I have been to.  Most of the time it is similar to our CMAT Tournament at Berkeley.......where every inch of the floor is maxed out with rings for competition....but at the Hyatt the Rings  are out on the outer edges of the room and the middle has a raised platform and all around the room are tables and chairs for people to sit and eat, or watch from seats.  There are no stands, and you can be right down where the action is.  The RDK Internationals is a unique event as it has everything.....Kenpo, Taekwando, Jiu Jit su, Karate, Caporiera, and Tiger Claw brought them Chinese Divisions.  Our events exist inside of theirs..........a good arrangement as we don't need to pay for the venue,  they help do the promotion, and we bring events for the promoter to make money off of.  The quality of the competitiors continue to improve, many of the good upcoming wushu athletes can be found here.......in the 10-15 year old  categories.......This year though I  was quite happy to have some of our CalWushu Team members compete....this is an area that the Tiger Claw Tournament has not been able to reach so far.....since this is a search for the best of the best we need to reach many of the top tier wushu players in the country.....this way Disney who is our sponsor can see that wushu has many high level athletes and will be more willing to sponsor future events...at the level of Disney everything is about the quality of the product.............having said that though they do look at numbers too............things are so much easier in China where the sport is supported by the country.  Congratulations to Kenny for qualifying for the Finals, and also to Loren...great job!

Sorry, I had planned to take video of the competition......I didn't charge  and my camera battery....so ran out of power!! =( 

We pushed really hard and finished the tournament by 5:30pm, we had a quick dinner and prepared for the Earthquake Benefit.  During dinner we my students and I hung out with Grandmaster Chen Giang, who is from Chengdu in Sichuan Province, he is the head of the Omei Schools in the United States, we talked about the situation in Sichuan......most of his family and friends were in Chengdu...which did not suffer a great deal of damage.....but the smaller surrounding cities and countryside did not fare very well...lots of roads are not passable

and millions of people are homeless and lack water, food and medical supplies.  Grandmaster Chen said that this was a very trying time and he was happy that many Martial Artist in the Wushu community were taking time out to be part of the evenings program.  I arrived back at the tournament site around 7pm.....and was given the mike and was made the English MC for the evenings event!  We delayed for awhile, as we waited for the performers to arrive.....but I could tell it was going to be packed.......in fact we sold 2300 tickets.....so were on our way to our goal of raising $50,000 this evening.  The evening's program began with an introduction of the Earthquake benefit organizing committee.......Tiger Claw, Master Tony Chen,and Master LiXu Dong represented the Martial Arts Community........they all did an excellent job.  I introduce next the Deputy Counsel General of PRC......who lead us in a moment of silence for the victims in Sichuan.  He then thanked the Bay Area for contributing over 1.34 Million Dollars to the Earhtquake Victims.  Then, next followed about 3 hours of Martial Arts Performances......the Shaolin Monks, and the Omei Schools were well represented.......the Omei Schools especially since the Omei style is from Sichuan Province, other schools included Li's TaiChi Wushu Academy, Zhang Ling Mei's Wushu Academy, Madame Chen Dao Yan's Hongdao Academy, Hao Zhi Hua's Wushu West, Tat Wong's Martial Arts, Salvatera Dino from Hung Sheng Choy Lay Fut, Richard Lee's Bak Fu Demo Team, Grandmaster Tu,  Daniel Weng represented Shuai Chiao, SF Wushu Team, and fellow AnDer Emilio Ålpanesque, and former US Wushu Team Member Kenny Perez.  After, the show and the raffle....it turns out we raised $55,000 that evening!!  Thanks from the people of Sichuan Province........everyone's donation of time and money is greatly appreciated.  And I wanted to thank our own students for their generous donations,  and staying to the end of the program with me!

This was the conference hall in the Santa Clara Convention Center the site of the days events.  The Competition Rings are all cordoned off so that people can't walk thru someone's performance.  Rather unique to this event is that you can sit right next to the rings and watch as well as eat.

These are some of the younger up and coming wushu athletes, this was the 15 and under Chang Quan Competitors. 

Finally, I wanted to congratulate SF Wushu's Pearl Tigers Team for winning the Group Competition at the RDK Event this weekend........hard work always pays off!!  Ok, I am plain old sleepy...keep nodding off as I am writing this......so  thanks to everyone...cya!

Please continue, helping the people of Sichuan in whatever way you can.  Donate to the Red Cross or Jet Li's One Foundation...or in the Bay Area to the Tiger Claw Foundation.  It's unfortunately, a comment on our times....there are scammers out there trying to siphon off your money....make sure you are donating to a legit organization.  Later!