10th Hong Kong International Martial Arts Festival

[GeneChing]

Did anyone here participate in this?

Martial arts festival kicks off in Hong Kong
Updated: 2012-02-29 11:08
(China Daily)

The 10th Hong Kong International Martial Arts Festival opened at the Asia World-Expo, Hong Kong on Feb 25. Chinese kungfu actor Zhao Wenzhuo appeared at the opening ceremony as the spokesperson. It's the sixth time Zhao has been chosen as the annual event's spokesperson.

Zhao began to learn martial arts at age 8 and won his first national award at 12. In 1991, the 19-year-old was champion of the National Martial Arts Competition.

He rose to fame when he was invited to play the title role of the Hong Kong kungfu flick New Fong Sai-Yuk in 1992. He has since become one of the hottest kungfu stars, after Jacky Chan and Jet Li. His latest two movies, Big Wudang and Special Identity, will be released this year.

Nearly 900 teams from 25 countries joined this year's festival. The oldest participant is 83, while the youngest is 4.

10th Hong Kong International Martial Arts Festival official site

[omarthefish]

I just got back.

The event was horribly organized. Others there told me it was better a couple years back. I think it grew too large. Events were scheduled mostly according to age and wether you were mainland Chinese vs. "foreign"/Taiwan/Aomen. This meant that despite being stuck in a big convention center all day long for 3 days straight, you still generally ended up with all your events scheduled at the same time which meant it took up to 2 hours or so just to sign in for each individual event. That's not including the 5 1/2 hours spent waiting in a stuffy hotel lobby in Shenzhen to sign in for the tournament and get your bus over to the mainland. We were told someone was going to meet us at customs when we came out and take us over to the hotel for sign in but nobody did so we wandered around with our luggage for about an hour just looking for the place.

Hotel accomadations were great. There was even a kitchenette with a microwave and a fridge and the room even had a washing machine so if I did it again, I would bring more ramen or other instant foods (they weigh less).

The most tireing part was that the bus to the tournament left at 6:10 am each morning and by the time we finished our events and got back to the hotel it was generally about 10:30 at night. I slept only about 4 hours each night I was there. I was also kind of peeved that they segregated Chinese and foreign competitors. I've already competed in China nationally but at this event I was only allowed to compete against other "foreigners".

That being said, of the 5 of us who competed...

1. I came home with 3 silver medals for Dabaji, Bajidao Baji Duilian and a gold medal for a tuishou performance with Shifu. (李随印)

2. My Shidi came home with a gold for Dabaji and a silver for the Duilian he did with me even though.....*grrrr* he lost his place in the middle and we both froze for a second untill I shouted under by breath: 打！

3. My shixiong, who mostly does Taiji and only learned Baji just this past year took gold in his division! (45 to 50 years old or something like that)

4. My other Shidi from Hangzhou competed Sanda and lost to the eventual champion, a russion monster who was a least a full head taller than him and my shidi weighed in at 100kg. This guy was huge. The russian Sanda team was ferocious. A bunch of combat Sambo guys with great footwork and excellent throws.

[omarthefish]

Did anyone here participate in this?


Nearly 900 teams from 25 countries joined this year's festival. The oldest participant is 83, while the youngest is 4.

Not true.

I personally took this video of a 91 year old master performance of a feeding crane form:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/1b73SmxlZLQ/

[GeneChing]

Sorry to hear the organization was so horrid, but it sounds like you made the best of it. Please share more pix and vids. That one above is awesome.

[ShaolinDan]

Very cool vid Omar. Thanks for sharing that.

[omarthefish]

I'll try to get some pics up this weekend. I just haven't got around to sorting out my pics and video from the trip. Most of the media is on my shidi's camera anyways and I won't see him until Sunday. Shifu is kind of weird about photos. He always yells at me for wanting to take a bunch of pics. He's old school that way. We take group pics at the really official moments but candid camera stuff is just a completely alien concept to his generation. He feels that being a shutterbug means you aren't focused on your competition. Never mind that the actual competition is still 2 - 3 days away. lol My events were all on Sunday but taking pics on Friday shows I'm not taking the event seriously.

In retrospect though, he was kind of right. Of my 3 silver's at least one of them, should have been gold. Not bragging either. I my Dabaji was scored at 8.73. First place was 8.76. Just staying super focused for the whole trip could totally account for that 0.03 difference between 1st and 2nd. Our Baji duida came in at 8.9 and that's with my partner totally losing his place in the middle. It didn't show too much. Just a weird pause in the middle where he spaced out for a second before he recovered and finished the set ok.

...ok..I threw a handful of photos up just now:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1...53518518501345

Here's a close up of the old guy who did the crane performance:


The opening ceremonies were enourmous:



Me and my shidi just outside the arena:


And some of that awesome HK dim sum:

[GeneChing]

I like your team jackets and hats. Stylin!

Here's a random news piece on this event.

Taiwan bags 12 golds at Hong Kong Wushu Championship
2012/03/07 22:46:29
Taipei, March 7 (CNA) Taiwan won 12 gold, nine silver and two bronze medals at the 2012 Hong Kong Wushu International Championship, according to a local martial art association Wednesday.

Seven members of the Chinese Shaolin Zen Martial Association attended the invitational competition held in Hong Kong in late February and won a total of 23 medals at the contest, excelling among more than 8,000 participants who competed in the event, said team coach Hsiao Chin-tsai.

They shined in the categories of spear, long and short weapons, double boardsword, apparatus duel, imitation boxing, gun shu and southern fist, he said.

The association's Huang Yun-chen and Wu Tsai-yu, both high school students, took three gold medals and one bronze, and two golds and one silver medal respectively, while brothers Teng Lo-hsin and Teng Lo-ang won a total of two gold and four silver medals, Hsiao said.

Hsiao said their performances shows that Taiwan has many talented martial artists, adding that even better performances can be expected from the athletes in the near future at the East Asian Games and the Asia Games.

The championship was held Feb. 24-28 in Hong Kong.

(By Lee Yu-cheng and Ann Chen)

[omarthefish]

The hats were not team issue. All competitors got a hat and a dufflebag as souviners.

As for the Taiwan team mentioned in the article you linked, one of those Taiwanese dudes took gold in my Saber division.

I wish I had more Sanda video from the later rounds. I have a lot of clips from the first day but that was still a lot of wild flailing. By the final rounds there was some serious action going on. The Russian Combat SAMBO team brought some amazing fighters that year.

[Gru Bianca]

Were you by any chance in Shanghai middle/end of December last year?
Perhaps having a coffee with your girlfriend and her mom in a Starbuks coffee in 徐家汇at the 港汇广场?

[omarthefish]

Nah...

I avoid Shanghai like the plague.

Seriously, I passed through Shanghao once about 10 years ago and that was enough for me. I've been to Hangzhou more recently but I kind of like the more rural areas...it was probably a suburb of Hangzhou actually. It wasn't very "big city" at all.

I think the big attraction of Shanghai is mainly just for foreigners who can't acclimate to Chinese life very easily. Shanghai has such a huge expat community and is so modern it's easy for westerners to adjust. Just not my cup of tea.

[GruBianca]

Nah...

I avoid Shanghai like the plague.

Seriously, I passed through Shanghao once about 10 years ago and that was enough for me. I've been to Hangzhou more recently but I kind of like the more rural areas...it was probably a suburb of Hangzhou actually. It wasn't very "big city" at all.

I think the big attraction of Shanghai is mainly just for foreigners who can't acclimate to Chinese life very easily. Shanghai has such a huge expat community and is so modern it's easy for westerners to adjust. Just not my cup of tea.

Well,... yes...Shanghai is for expats who works there cause it's really tough to find expats willing to relocate to places more rural as you put it

But I get your point, surely Xian has an appeal of its own, was impressed with it when i visited it in '94

[omarthefish]

They even have a saying in China about Shanhai: "Foreign heaven; Chinese hell"

If I wasn't so commited to my teacher here in Xi'an, I would totally move to Shanghai if there was a decent job in it. I probably shouldn't make it sound so bad. I just meant in the context of getting a full on "China experience". Everything that the folks in Shanghai were the most proud of when I visited back in '99 or so were things that just struck me as Los Angeles knock offs. lol. My main reaction was something along the lines of, "Well if this was the life I was looking for, there was really no need to get rid of everything I owned and move to China." Now more than 10 years later I imaging it's even more that way. Heck, if I was in Shanghai, maybe instead of kung fu I might even be training BJJ.

[Gru Bianca]

They even have a saying in China about Shanhai: "Foreign heaven; Chinese hell"

If I wasn't so commited to my teacher here in Xi'an, I would totally move to Shanghai if there was a decent job in it. I probably shouldn't make it sound so bad. I just meant in the context of getting a full on "China experience". Everything that the folks in Shanghai were the most proud of when I visited back in '99 or so were things that just struck me as Los Angeles knock offs. lol. My main reaction was something along the lines of, "Well if this was the life I was looking for, there was really no need to get rid of everything I owned and move to China." Now more than 10 years later I imaging it's even more that way. Heck, if I was in Shanghai, maybe instead of kung fu I might even be training BJJ.

Yeah,, hard to disagree, I'm not a huge fan of Shanghai neither and in fact I believe Beijing is much better in many ways but the weather.
To find a decent job in Shanghai shouldn't be that hard, you know how it goes.... a friend that knows a friend that has a cousin which has a father that this and that