Tournaments:Tiger Claw

The Tiger Claw event happened before the Nationals, but I didn't get around to posting anything...so here goes!  The Tiger Claw Event this year was quite successful.....about 300 or so competitors....and we used many of the Judges from CMAT.......I hope we can continue this trend so after awhile the promoters will come and ask for judges from CMAT.  As I have said before...unless you have a professional non bias judging group will there be fair judging...a problem thazt no one really has talked about in Wushu.  The professional athletes......including Wudi and He Jingde will tell you in China it's not always the best athlete that wins....but the one whose most connected!!  Tony Katengill who is the promoter for the Shark City Nationals has done a great job of trying to integrate Tiger Claw Events and his event......there is a place for everyone and every style.  He  has made a real effort to promote the Chinese Martial Arts...they were featured prominently in the evening Masters Exhibition.  And a very nice touch he awarded me with a place in the BASKA Martial Arts Hall of Fame....thanks Tony...always worthwhile to be recognized for one's hard work in promoting martial arts.

This year Tiger Claw invited Coach Liu Yu from San Luis Obispo to be the head judge for Wushu events......Patti Li also was to be in charge of the other ring.  And as always it was good to see Grandmaster Liang Shou- yu from Canada.

Yim Pang Wei, who earlier came with Wudi to compete at CMAT, wanted me to take a picture with his Mom.......who it turns out is Coach Chen Wei Kun....I met her in 1980 when I first went to the Beijing Team School to train.  She's now the head of the competition committee for the CWA.

And no Wushu Event can be without Coach Wu!

Ben arrived in time the next day to judge the traditional Events.....he sat there for the entire day!

Tony presenting me with the Martial Arts Hall of Fame Award.

This was taken after my Taiji Team took the Gold in the Group Taiji Competition.  Good job!!....And most of all was the fact this   group we put together at the last moment...and they trained 5 days a week to get ready for the competition.

And a great surprise...was to see Amy Chow at the Event ready to Judge!  In the 90's Amy was the all around Wushu and Taiji Champion of the US.  Thanks for Judging , Amy!

Coach Wu was quite proud of one of the students from his Young Champion Schools in the Midwest...as he took home the Grand Champion award in the Teen Age Category.

Grace wu came out from Kansas to help judge........Grace gave me a copy of her Grandfatrher's book on Traditional Wushu Training.  Her Grandfather was the famous Wang Zi Ping....he helped create modern Wushu......and was famous for defeating a Russian Wrestler who challenged Wushu Fighters to a fight to the death in the 1920's.

Master Helen Liang and her husband were present to demonstrate in the evening Masters Exhibition. One of the events that I took great interest in was the Push Hands Competition.  I was asked to work on the rules and observe the competition.  The rules will have to be further modified, as the current rules requiring the competitor to keep his feet inside the Taiji Circle resulted in competitors trying to just shove people out.......and many of the competitors used too much strength...and no listening power and neutralization.

Overall the quality of the event continues to improve, still there is a need for more higher level competitors.....judging has improved this year, but there needs to be better organization to keep track of the registrations...too many wrong divisions or failure to correct wrong entries.  But that's all part of the learning process....Tiger Claw is especially hard to run as no one is from one school...but coordination  has tgo come from lots of places.  Anyway if any of you were there and have comments....please leave on my page and we will all work on it for the next year!  Whew, finally got this done...just been to busy to blog......but thanks for reading

Bye, all time to get to class!!