Dragon Boat Festival

Hope everyone had a good Mid-Autumn Festival.  Our team celebrated by performing at the Dragon Boat races at Treasure Island.  It was a beautiful day...not even windy.

"What is Wushu?"  You would be surprised lots of people have never heard of Wushu!!

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New Facilities for Tai Chi

While for now City College will survive the budget crisis in California...........it will be hard to say what will happen in the future as there is a projected $30 million short fall next year.  But for now, I am pretty jazzed as they have assigned me to a new site on the main campus. .......the Wellness Center.  Fortunately, the money for this building was allocated before the budget crisis......it is a beautiful facility........with workout rooms, basketball courts,dance studios and martial arts room.

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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 re...Read more

International Charity Work and other things

If you have been reading these entries by me, you will know that earlier this year I finally finished all the paperwork to become a charitable foundation.  I have been asked by the owner of Hunan Homes Restaurant in Chinatown to help raise funds for the relief effort in Taiwan for the survivors of Typhoon Morakot...........I know with everyone's busy life sometimes these kinds of disasters just slip into the background of the daily news and just get forgotten.  So if you would like to donate to the survivors th...Read more

More Lion Dancing

Well, as I said Lion Dancing hard to come by nowadays....so I was quite jazzed to have a chance to perform for a wedding at the Asian art Museum.......and if you haven't been there lately check it out.....big show right now is the samurai armor of Japan.......beautiful......but martial.....especially the swords.....not only great craftsmanship.........but especially good pieces of artwork in their own right.   Chinese often sell copies of these but....they can copy the exterior look.....but the quality of the medal just doesn't quit...Read more

Weddings and Lions

Lion dancing gigs have been at an all time low......which is certainly due to the economy....when Lion Dancing picks up the economy will definitely be on the rise....a Lion Market!!  Never thought wushu could be used to measure the state of the economy....now you know!  Simu and I went to her cousin's wedding banquet......and what does he have for his banquet........a Lion Dance of course.  Featuring Chinatown's best Yau Gung Moon  Lion Dance Team under Sifu Lee Lok Sang.  It was good to see him and his troupe good as always.  But ...Read more

Team Trials and other thoughts

Team Trials of course have come and gone.  It was of course, nice to hold the team Trials in the West Coast for the first time since USAWKF was founded.  But, behind the scenes lots of politics........Coach Li Xu Dong was the sponsor for the event and he tried hard to do it right.  He talked to me ab out acquiring the necessary carpets for the Trials, and asked me for a list of qualified judges.  Now, I have been running CMAT for more than 17 years, and have access to the largest pool of judges in the US......so I have a good i...Read more

Tournaments

Touraments are an important way to promote Wushu.....while we have CMAT at UC Berkeley...it is mainly a Chinese Martial arts Event and as such is not part of the mainstream.........that has been the major problem with promotion of  Wushu up to now....while it's good to have our own events we need to be part of the Martial arts scene of this country.  NASKA for instance is much bigger than anything USAWKF has ever done and it's athletes are of a very high caliber......and actually if China is insistent on Nandu....they should compete at th...Read more

More Signs of the times

There was a time when we use to Lion Dance at least once or twice a week for some convention or private event......nowadays nobody calls!  No conventions or business events to perform at...certainly a sign of a lousy economy.  Only weddings are available....and there is a fierce competition to undercut other schools to get these gigs.  but I'm real happy to see some of our newbies get into Lion Dancing.....and since we haven't had any gigs they have had time to really practice.  Ryan's been doing a great job working with n...Read more

Sign of the Times

Sign of the times.....business just disappear and jobs are hard to come by.  I was hoping to work this summer....but the State of California is in a big budget crisis....and the politicians are busy considering their political careers rather than fixing the budget....they would rather disagree and cost us a billion dollars a day!  I was hoping to work this summer....but no money for summer school......CCSF had to ask it's professors to volunter to not work a semester so we will have money to run the school...............so no Taiji this...Read more