Some Thoughts on the Earthquake in Sichuan

I hope you will all continue to try and find ways to help out the Earthquake victims in Sichuan, the numbers still continue to climb and the rebuilding in the province will require a tremendous amount of help and money.  Jet Li is taking his money and manpower right to the site of the earthquake.....good job, and best of luck!!   While everyone is trying to help out and raise money you find that too often the news and especially Americans have such a self righteous view of things.........Sharon Stone, I'm sure y...Read more

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'...Read more

Asian Heritage Streetfest

Saturday was the Asian Heritage Street Festival.........great music and lots of cars.  Sf Taiko Dojo opened the event...after that many groups played......including Calisus who gave away a free album of their music, A New State of Normal............there were also lot of DJ mixes thru out the day..............This year though the Festival seemed much more corporate and brought in lots of groups from around the country.......that was kool but since lots of people did not know these groups there was not a whole lot of people listening...Read more

Wushu Students

Wushu students often have great questions.....sometimes not realizing how finding the answer can lead to understanding how to lead one's life.  Wushu is not something you do but something you live!  Caan one of my younger Taiji students (Only 40's.....!!)............asked why should one compete in tournaments and can they help him to get better.  Too often the focus of students who compete is on winning a medal.......so you try to learn a more difficult form so you can show off more ,compete in a division where there aren't too man...Read more

Earthquake in Sichuan

As many of you may know, Sichuan Province recently had a huge 7.8 earthquake which may have killed or made homeless over 100,000 people.........China has moved quickly to help the people there.....however, most of the help is without big earthmovers and fast response teams......hopefully China will allow them into Sichuan to help dig people out of the rubble.  Money is needed to help the people there....already many artist have donated large amounts to the relief effort in China....including Jet Li 1Mil RMB, Andy Lau 100K RMB, Jackie Ch...Read more

Birthdays and Anniversaries

This last week was marked by the birthday of one of my instructors.......not a big thing...but for someone who's 80.....that's a very important milestone.  Alma teaches my tuth morning classes for seniors.  She credits her health and disposition to only one thing and that's...Taiji!!  She has had a bout with breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy.....and then had to have one of her knees replaced.  But despite these setbacks she always in class........she returned from breast surgery after only two weeks...when ask...Read more

End of an Era, New Beginnings

Thursday this last week, marked my last class at the Chinatown YMCA........I have been teaching there since 1984........the SF Wushu Team was based there for many years...some of the top Martial Artist and Hollywood personages took classes there as it use to be the only place in the United States to have a Wushu carpet and to give instuction in Wushu.  Ernie Reyes Senior and Junior, Mark Decascos, Cynthia Rothrock, Jeff Falcon, Anthony Houk, Kenny Perez, Eric Chen, Shane Lacey, Andrew Hartono, Amy Chow, and even Jet Li all worke...Read more

Taiji at SRI

The Hun Yan Taiji seminars ended on Sunday but I had one more visit to San Jose as I went down to San Jose with Glenn  on Monday for a private lesson....I went to help translate and hang out.  Glenn needed more instruction on the advance moves for the Taiji Ruler.........Master Chen Xiang had showed a few techniques during the seminars but the moves were way beyond what everyone could do.  But for the private lesson, Master Chen did not hold back and blew us away with some extremely complicated movements where the body rows and the ruler winds a...Read more

Catching up

Finally, starting to catch my blog up.......it's always busy but when you are not feeling well it's hard to keep up.  Btw, Pat or Raffi do you guys know what's up...takes way too long to upload pictures...sometimes even after an hour nothing happens.....but of course that's tech always be-

hind demand.......lol.  Anyways, before I started off for San Luis Obispo last week, it was time for lion dancing.........Jason and I were off performing with Corey and the Kei Lun Martial Arts Group at the Hilton Hotel for the 41st Sili...Read more

More Hun Yan Taiji

Haven't blogged for awhile as I am trying to recover from a little bout with bronchitis....started out like an allergy.....lots of itchy eyes and throat........then it kicked in hard.....coughed so hard my ribs ache!!  Yuck.......seems like it's going around.........so lookout keep your Purell handy.......and stay away from big crowds of coughing people!!

 Even though I had a bad cold.....no choice still had to do things so no time for resting in bed.......the coughing made things uncomfortable and made translating for the ...Read more