5th Annual tai Chi Festival

I must congratulate Master He Xiao Dong on putting on a successful Tai chi festival at the Far East Cafe, originally it was slated to be at the Visitation Valley Middle School site....unfortunately money promised for the event was not forthcoming as a sponsor pulled out..... a sign of the times..........but Madame He did a fine job in getting the Far East Cafe to host the event.  The Far East Cafe is one of the original restaurants in Chinatown.....it is the only left that still has wooden enclosed booths........at one time all restaurants in Chinatown were designed this way.....Far East Cafe also used to be the meeting place for the Northern California Kung-Fu Association........and every Beijing Team that has ever visited the Bay Area had a reception there and often performed there.  A few year's ago it was sold and remodeled....it has a very large dance floor now and a state of the art sound and lighting system. The Tai Chi Festival drew about 330 guests and performers.  Groups from all over the Bay Area came to perform........Oakland, Fremont, Cupertino, South San Francisco, Sacramento.......and two Chinese Taiji Champions.  The performances were all good and showed a remarkable range in skill and choreography.

The day began with Senator Leland Yee presenting us with a Certificate of Recognition from the State of California for promoting Tai Chi and for our participation in the Tai Chi Festival.  I am standing next to Senator Yee, who interestingly enough....was my classmate at UC Berkeley.  when he was a student I help secure funds for his first community project....called TSI......a tutorial project for Chinese children who needed help with their English.  On the other side of Senator Yee, are the China's former Women's Tai Chi champion, Wu Amin, and the former Men's World Tai Chi Champion, Zou Yun Jian.  Wu Amin's father Wu Hong Cai is next to Senator Yee....Wu Hong Cai performed Cha Quan for us.  Wu Amin later performed a Tai Chi Fan set, and Zou Yun Jian did Wudang hand form, and Wudang sword set.  It was very refreshing to see that neither of them did any of the new Nandu Tai Chi! 

San Francisco Fitness Tai chi Group and USA O-Mei Kung-fu Academy started the program with a group 24 Tai Chi Performance.

Elaine from Li Xu Dong's Wushu Academy performed Modern Wushu Tai Chi......with all the Nandu moves.......she will be representing the United States in the upcoming 10th World Wushu Championships in Toronto.  Good Luck Elaine!!

We didn't have a lot of performers from the SF Wushu Team, but Bruce, Helen and Ben were able to make the event.  Ben wowed the crowd with his Mantis form..........it was a great wake upper after all of the Tai Chi performances!!  Helen and Bruce accompanied my Tai Chi Bagua Fan with a performance of the Tai Chi Banng......the Chen style Tai Chi Ruler, rarely seen outside of China.

The South San Francisco Tai Chi Yuen Team performed a group Wu Style Tai Chi form.  In all there were 17 performances, which finished right on time!  One important theme during the event was that we as Chinese need to make Tai Chi available to the American population and to make Tai Chi part of America's Culture.... This is a rather important step to take, as most of the performers were Chinese and we need to popularize the art of Tai Chi and Wushu with the American Public.

I should mention the food at Far East Cafe was excellent...everything was fresh and tasty.......so for those of you who have never eaten there...check it out...it has my recommendation!

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