Hey guys, sorry for the delay on new stories. I know there are a lot that have been asking for new content and I’m bogged down with transitioning into a new job, aka looking for a new job. I hope you guys can fogive me for not posting for so long. I’m working on a few new posts right now and I will get those up asap. There are many new schools to be added to the network and I will get to that soon also. Check back later this week!
The famous Taiji Legacy Tournament will now be known as Legends of Kungfu and it will be held in Dallas Texas July 17-19, 2009. Visit www.LegendsofKungfu.com later on to see if they updated anymore info.
Although the national economy seems to be going in a slump, competitiors from all around still came out to the 2008 International Martial Arts Shuai Chiao Division in San Jose, California. This tournament hosted in the San Francisco Bay Area has a long history to it. Its oldest predecessor comes from the Ohio tournaments in the 80’s when Grand Master Chang was still around to give a great show. Then a leap to create branch was formed on the west coast by Dr. Daniel Weng, head of the USSA, and the tradition was carried here on out. This tournament has been going on every year ever since, some years including international competitors from China and Taiwan from what I can remember. But the strongest part of the tournament is that the children’s division is always big, strong, and competitive. Overall, decent tournout with average accommodations; it’s targeted as a regional tournament, not a national or international. So the results of the tournament are:
Children’s Lightweight
1st Shangyu Hsu
2nd William Yang
3rd Spencer Chang
Children’s Middleweight
1st Shangway Hsu
2nd Mark Chang
3rd Steven Yang
Children’s Heavy 1st Leonard Ting
2nd Zac Bigbee
3rd Timothy Chen
Women Adult Light
1st Janet Chen
2nd Krisanne Litinas
3rd Stephanie Fox
Women Adult Middle
1st Christina Roman
2nd Krisanne Litinas
Men’s Adult Lightweight
1st Philip Tsai
2nd James VanDoran
Men’s Adult Light Middle
1st Ian Donovan
2nd Brent Kincer
3rd Carl Patience
Men’s Adult Middle
1st Daniel Cliff
2nd Barnaby Hazen
3rd Marc Willer
Men’s Adult Heavy
1st Charles Lin
2nd Emeric Chen
3rd Phil Willer
Men’s Adult Open
1st Eric Brooks
2nd Jeremy Siegrist
3rd Billy Pinkerman
I was reading Shuaijiao.tv recently and I came across a documentary on the author which was very nice and inspiring to all you Shuaijiao head out there. So I’ll share it with you guys, the link to his post is here. The only bad part is that it’s in mandarin. Sorry for those that don’t understand. But there are a lot of good techniques and Shuaijiao apparatuses shown.
I hope you enjoy and leave a comment for Michael on his site!
This is how people in old China used to compete to see who had the best Kungfu or who’s Kungfu was the best style. As Jet Li put it in his movie “Fearless”, I agree that there isn’t a dominant form of Kungfu or martial arts, it’s the person that matters. But Shuaijiao obviously wins here with all those take downs. I love this stuff. Enjoy!
I know I’m about 4 days late, but this is basically a copy and paste from the previous Monday’s post so here are the Upcoming Events for the year:
September 13th, 2008 - Yee’s Hung Ga Internationl International Kung Fu Championships
Location: Jersey City, New Jersey
Contact: Pedro C. Yee, pcyee@yeeshungga.com
Phone: (973) 772-8988
Notes: There should be Shuaijiao this year as claimed by their site and registration form.
October 11th, 2008 - 2008 Austin Martial Arts Festival
Location: Crockett Center, Austin, Texas
Contact: info@austinmartialartsfestival.org
Phone: (512) 451-3083
Notes: There should be a Shuaijiao division as usual but there is not much more information on their site.
NEW!!! October 26th, 2008 -Disney’s Martial Arts Festival, International Kungfu Quest
Location: Disney Sports Complex, Orlando, Florida
Contact: internationalkungfuquest@yahoo.com
Phone: (415) 752-5551
Notes: There is a Shuaijiao division!!!
NEW ADDED!!! USA Chinwoo announced that there WILL be a Taiji Legacy 2009 tournament July 17-19. Visit their site www.LegendsofKungfu.com for more info.
IMPORTANT!!! I need some info on the USKSF Tournament that was held July 25th to 27th, if anyone has anything on it or any clips, hit me up.
Notes: I will be posting an article on the recap of the Aug 2nd tournament soon. The AAU review should be up.
After reading some posts and messages from the Kungfu forums, even before the event, I got the feeling that the AAU 2008 competition was going to fall short again in the Shuaijiao division this year. And the results were no surprise at all. I’ve been told by multiple sources that the Shuaijiao event has been lacking the attention it deserves for the past few years. I don’t know this for sure because I’ve never actually physically been there but I’m just going to give my sources the benefit of the doubt because they have almost always gone and participated in the tournaments. All this info added with a grain of salt of course.
So for this year, the turnout was said to only have been a dozen or so. Not only were the number of fights low, but the matches were cut short because of time issues with the venue, where one fighter that was supposed to fight for 3rd place never got to fight in his deciding match. But it’s not just the Shuaijiao division that performed worse than last year. Many of the events were hit by the domino effect of today’s US economy. With the falling dollar and rising gasoline prices, travel expenses raised tremendously so the overall tournament participant turnout was far less than predicted. The fact that some people actually did come out ( I don’t have exact numbers ) gives hope for the future (if the economy fairs better next year). I’m hoping that more fighters will compete in this annual tournament next year because the staff did a good job in hosting and throwing a decent martial arts tournament in a time of economical strife. On a positive note, taken from KungfuMagazine.com forums, one of the members posted that “On the positive note I see the AAU CMA events getting more popular and numerous to the point where the title “National Championships” actually means what it says. Takes time.” I think It may not be necessarily true for the AAU tournament but there are a few CMA tournaments around the country that produce phenomenal turnouts of participants. I will be updating on those tournaments later on.
Here are some clips provided by some friendly competitors of the AAU 2008 Tournament: Shuaijiao Division and more. Enjoy!
Our good friend Michael Wix from Shuaijiao.tv was on the news for the Wallstreet Journal on the article “Who Needs Judo? China’s Shuaijiao Vies for Respectability” by Mei Fong. It’s a touching piece telling the story about what goes on with some of China’s sports. Here’s a exerpt from what Mike said.
It is a story that really needs to be told. But there is only one or two people i really want to see this story. I want President Hu Jintao to see it. I want him to see it and say: “We need to take massive action to protect and develop this aspect of our physical culture before it is lost”
That basically sums it up. Here’s the video.
Sat, 23 Aug 2008 Judo and wrestling may get the press and the medals at the Olympics. But in southwestern Beijing, a small group of enthusiasts aim to make the homegrown martial art of shuaijiao more popular, WSJ’s Mei Fong reports. (Aug. 23)
Bohk has been around for hundreds of years but I’m not sure where it dates back to. It’s Mongolia’s version of Shuaijiao although Mongolia still does compete in more traditional Chinese Shuaijiao tournaments. The main difference you can see is their attire. They were similar jackets but are collarless and shorter. They also don’t wear long pants, instead they were shorts., very short shorts. The rules are pretty simple and similar to Shuaijiao: get your opponent on the floor. For Bohk, all you have to do is get your opponent to get his knee, hand or back to touch the floor. According to Wikipedia, there are two different versions of Bohk so you can read up more on it there. They have a pretty comprehensive article on the sport so I’ll just send you guys a link to it. Bohk Wikipedia Page. So here is a video of what it looks like. Shuaijiao.tv also had a good post about one of their tournaments, here is that link.
Oh yeah, did i forget to mention that in Bohk, there are no weight classes. Last man standing wins.
SJNation welcomes the 3 new schools that have joined our network. First we got the “Temple of the Dragon” in Ohio, the “Northern New Mexico Kung Fu Club” and the “Temple City Kungfu Club” in Los Angeles, California. I’ll actually be attending the Temple City Kungfu Club on a regular basis. They usually start around 10am for beginner classes and 11:30 for Int/Adv classes. This club is actually coached by Coach Guan Da He from the National Beijing Shuaijiao Team, so this is a good opportunity to learn something different from Baoding Shuaijiao. Here is a clip of the techniques he’s teaching.
