7th World Traditional Kung Fu Championships

[GeneChing]

1st World Traditional Wushu Championships
2nd World Traditional Wushu Championships
3rd World Traditional Wushu Championships
4th World Traditional Wushu Championships
5th World Traditional Wushu Championships
6th World Traditional Wushu Championships

Official website: 7TH WORLD KUNGFU CHAMPIONSHIPS, EMEISHAN, CHINA, NOVEMBER 07 - NOVEMBER 11, 2017

Note that they have officially changed the title of this event from 'Wushu' to 'Kungfu'

[GeneChing]

World Kung-fu Championships set to get underway in Emeishan
By Daniel Etchells Monday, 6 November 2017


The seventh edition of the World Kung-fu Championships are due to begin in Emeishan in China tomorrow as the sport’s biggest stars battle it out for gold medals on the global stage.

The biennial Championships are the official world level sport-for-all event and are hosted by the International Wushu Federation.

They are said to provide a platform for thousands of practitioners of all ages and varying skill levels, within all traditional kung-fu styles, to "foster friendships through skill and cultural exchanges".

This year’s event has been organised by the Chinese Wushu Association and will spread across five days, reaching its conclusion on Saturday (November 11).


The biennial Championships is the official world level sport-for-all event ©2017worldkungfu

The venue for competition, which is due to begin on Thursday (November 9), is the Sichuan International Tourism Trade Expo Center.

Action will be preceded by the Opening Ceremony, which is scheduled to take place at the CITIC Guoan Emeishan Sports Stadium on Wednesday (November 8).

Teams are due to arrive tomorrow for registration.

The World Kung-fu Championships were previously called the World Traditional Wushu Championships.

A lot of my fb friends are there. I expect I'll glean more from their posts than I will from the English media coverage. But like with the recent WWC, I can't resist monitoring it here; it's on my newsfeeds and interesting to see how much coverage these events really get outside of the wulin circles.

Brunei is excited.

Brunei Wushu team to compete in China
November 7, 2017
| Abdul Hakiim Yakof |

THE Brunei Wushu team departed yesterday morning for the 7th World Kungfu Championships (7th WKC) in Emeishan, China which will be held today until November 11.

The delegation of six participants were accompanied by the team manager, Goh Kim Tian, and Coach Li Hui.

Previously called the World Traditional Wushu Championships, the WKC is the official world level sport-for-all event which is hosted by the International Wushu Federation.

Held biennially, it showcases thousands of competitors of all age groups competing in a wide variety of divisions.

[GeneChing]

3,800 kungfu masters gather for world championships
Source: Xinhua| 2017-11-08 22:55:28|Editor: yan

CHENGDU, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- More than 3,800 kungfu athletes from across the world have come to Mount Emei in southwest China to participate in a world martial arts competition.
The 7th World Kungfu Championship kicked off Tuesday in the city of Emeishan in southwest China's Sichuan Province and will last until Saturday.
Among the athletes at the biennial event are 2,400 Chinese and 1,400 overseas competitors from 56 countries and regions, mainly the United States, Japan, Chinese Hong Kong, Russia and Canada, according to the organizers.
The championship, known as the "Martial Arts Olympics," is co-hosted by the International Wushu Federation and the Chinese Wushu Association.
It aims to foster friendships and interest in kungfu for people of all ages and varying skill, as well as preserve the traditional styles and practices of Chinese traditional wushu.

What? No pix? srsly?

[GeneChing]

This is a repeat of the article above but with a pic

Kungfu Masters Compete at 7th World Kungfu Championship November 10, 2017 Editor: Yang Yang


Two kungfu athletes compete at the 7th World Kungfu Championship. [Xinhua]

More than 3,800 kungfu athletes from across the world have come to Mount Emei in southwest China to participate in a world martial arts competition.

The 7th World Kungfu Championship kicked off Tuesday in the city of Emeishan in southwest China's Sichuan Province and will last until Saturday.

Among the athletes at the biennial event are 2,400 Chinese and 1,400 overseas competitors from 56 countries and regions, mainly the United States, Japan, Chinese Hong Kong, Russia and Canada, according to the organizers.

The championship, known as the "Martial Arts Olympics," is co-hosted by the International Wushu Federation and the Chinese Wushu Association.

It aims to foster friendships and interest in kungfu for people of all ages and varying skill, as well as preserve the traditional styles and practices of Chinese traditional wushu.

(Source: Xinhua)

And here's another with a random pic.

Saturday, November 11, 2017
Four Prizes at World Kung Fu ChampionshipsFour Prizes at World Kung Fu Championships

I ranian Kung Fu practitioners achieved first, second and third category prizes at the 7th World Kung Fu Championships (WKFC) in Emeishan City in Sichuan Province, China, November 7-11.

According to 2017worldkungfu.iwuf.org, Saeed Atazadeh won the first prize award of the Chen-style tai chi category.

Seyyed Hamed Katouzi, traditional tai chi athlete, stood on the second place of the championship to win the second category prize award.

Another athlete from Iran, Hassan Qasemi conquered the third category prize. Also Mohsen Rouzbahani ended up third in the Shaolin class.

The WKFC is the official world level sport-for-all event hosted by the International Wushu Federation. Previously called the World Traditional Wushu Championships, the WKFC in principle takes place biennially and features thousands of competitors in all age groups competing in a wide variety of divisions.

It provides an excellent platform for practitioners of all ages and varying skill levels within all traditional kung fu styles to foster friendships through skill and cultural exchanges.

With a spirit of interaction, the event aims to build friendships and interest in the practice of kung fu, traditional wushu. The Chinese Wushu Association is responsible for the organization of the 7th WKFC under the auspices of the International Wushu Federation.

Any news of this in the Wushu newsfeeds was totally overshadowed by GSD.

[GeneChing]

Golden trip to China for wushu standout
Bianca Go teams with Lissy Lu to reach top of podium at 7th Traditional World Kung Fu Championships
Mark Booth / Richmond News
NOVEMBER 15, 2017 09:45 AM


Richmond's Bianca Go (right) and Lissy Lu proudly represented their country with Lissy Lu gold medal performance in the Wushu Duelian event at the 7th Traditional World Kung Fu Championships in Emeishan, China.

It was a gold medal performance for Richmond wushu standout Bianca Go on the weekend at the 7th Traditional World Kung Fu Championships in Emeishan, China.
The recently-turned 18-year-old teamed up with Lissy Lu to capture gold in the Duelian (international weapon versus weapon routine) event. The pair, coached by Wang Heng, were up against 16 other entries.

The Canadian team returned home with two gold medals and five bronze.
The result capped an impressive return to competition for Go after recovering from injuries following her 10th place finish a year earlier in single straight sword at the Wushu Junior World Championships.
She will now focus on her studies at Langara, starting in January, where she is enrolled in the Early Childhood Education program. Go will also continue to train at the local Wang Heng Wushu Taichi Institute, as well as lead junior classes. She also will teach ballet and hip hop at Richmond community centres.

I've been getting most of the coverage off social media from friends that went. Of course, we plan to have a full report in our next issue - the MAR+APR 2018.

[GeneChing]

Timaru's Dave Thew narrowly misses out on Tai Chi martial arts gold
MEGAN SUTHERLAND
Last updated 15:51, November 21 2017

Dave Thew has come back from a Tai Chi competition in China with two silver medals.

A Timaru man narrowly missed out on gold at the World Kung Fu Championships in China, but that hasn't knocked him back from eyeing up the top spot again.

Dave Thew, 53, competed in his third world championships from November 7 to 11, and came away with silver medals in both the Tai Chi bare hands and the Tai Chi sword categories.

Previously he had won gold in the Tai Chi bare hands category in 2010 and 2012, and silver in the Tai Chi sword category in 2010 and 2012.


MYTCHALL BRANSGROVE/STUFF
Timaru man Dave Thew, compete in his third world championships in China, from November 7 to 11 and came away with a silver medal in both the Tai Chi bare hands and the Tai Chi sword categories.

Thew said he was 0.1 of a point away from getting two gold medals.


MYTCHALL BRANSGROVE/STUFF

Dave Thew said we would be aiming for gold at the next world championship in two years time.

"It was so close."

While he was "a little bit" disappointed he hadn't achieved the goal he set of gaining two gold medals, it had "upped the ante" for the next time he competed at the event in two years time, he said.

He was aiming to come home with two gold medals next time, he said.

"I didn't come away with nothing and when I go to the next one in two years time it has upped the ante even more."

About 3000 competitors from all over the globe competed across a range of categories, he said.

The calibre of competitors was "very high" with competitors coming from all over the world to showcase thier skills, from those in their teens right up to people in their 60s and 70s, he said.

Thew's age category had men in their 40s up to those aged 59.

He said being near the upper end was a good challenge to improve his skills and try to beat out the younger competitors.

Each competitor had three minutes to complete a routine. They were judged on their balance, timing, energy and how they expressed each movement, he said.

The six competitors on the New Zealand team walked away with a range of medals, including one gold, and a handful of silver and bronze medals, Thew said.

Before Thew left for China he was awarded his masters scroll for energy work from Master Wan Su-Jian, from China, and Master Sunny Lu, from Auckland.

The title is used to describe or address senior or experienced martial artists. The title is typical honorary in nature, meaning masters do not confer rank, but masters are very highly regarded in terms of their chosen skill.

- Stuff

This article never explicitly names the tournament but you can tell by the dates.

[GeneChing]

West Windsor teen wins gold at World Kung Fu Championships
By Michele Alperin - December 26, 2017112


Alex Ni, who won several medals at the 7th World Kung Fu Championships in November, flies through the air during one of his routines.

When he was 6 years old, Alex Ni, a West Windsor native and sop****re at the Hun School, enjoyed watching the Power Rangers and Jackie Chan movies for the martial arts action. He loved it so much, that when Huaxia Chinese School, which he attended on Sundays, advertised a weekly kung fu given by Zhao Chang Jun Wushu Academy of America, he signed up.

Although his mother had wanted him to play volleyball, he “never really got into it,” he says, but his interest in Wushu—which, along with kung fu, is one of two categories of the sport—remained strong.

When he was in fourth grade, the wushu academy moved to a larger facility, which enabled Ni to take three classes a week. Eventually this morphed into hours of practice at home and, on alternate weekends, at top kung fu academies in Connecticut and Virginia. He got so good that he eventually started participating in international competitions.

In November, at the 7th World Kung Fu Championships in Emeishan, China, the 15-year-old Ni—one of 171 Americans from 15 states and 3,000 athletes from 50 countries worldwide—won gold medals in Imitation Styles Barehand and Double Broadswords.

The first is a form without any apparatus that imitates different creatures; the second is a weapon form using two broadswords with blades of flexible metal. He also earned a bronze in duilian, which is choreographed sparring between two or three people.

“My partner and I developed our own sparring form, so it is unique,” Ni says. “My partner and I live in different states; we could have done better if we had more time to practice together.”

Wushu, which derives from Chinese characters that together connote “stopping conflict and promoting peace,” is the collective term for the martial art practices that were the main form of battlefield combat in China for thousands of years.

“Originally it was a form of self-defense but was also how you showed you were skilled in a very high art,” Ni says, adding that the sport has a spiritual element. “Kung fu was not just about fighting with the body—it was about training with the mind.”

Wushu is divided into taolu (forms) and sanda (open-hand sparring). Wushu taolu comprises contemporary forms in three categories, each with very specific requirements that are somewhat similar to those in gymnastics and figure skating. Both wushu taolu and kung fu movements incorporate combat skills of attack and defense, even though there is no physical opponent. Ni prefers the complexity of Wushu, which is more acrobatic and includes modern movements like flipping and jumps that require more skill.



Watching videos of Ni’s performances—and they are indeed performances—suggests a sport that combines dance, acrobatics and martial arts. In some forms, flashing swords are part of his routine, but any “fighting” is imagined rather than real. From lying on his back, Ni lands upright on two feet in a split second. Flips and somersaults bring to bear the surefooted movements of gymnasts. The smoothness and elegance of his movements are reminiscent of ballet.

By 2014, he had improved enough to go to Washington, D.C., to try out for the U.S. Traditional Wushu Team that would represent the United States at the 6th World Traditional Wushu Championships (recently renamed the World Kung Fu Championships) in Chizhou, China. He made the team, whose members trained under their own coaches and competed for themselves but all represented the United States. The team came in sixth.

“It was definitely a very different experience than competing in the states,” he says. “People had a better understanding of the sport and were better practitioners.” He remembers, for example, higher jumps and better quality of movement overall.

Ni attributes his readiness for the 2014 Wushu Championship to training at the Wu Dang Kung Fu Academy in Orange, Connecticut, which he got connected to via a coach he met at the team trials in Washington. The academy specializes in kung fu forms, and in February 2014, he started to train there monthly for the world championships that November. He also spent a month training in the summer, and finally every week before the November competition.

Although his opponents at the 2014 competition seemed to be more experienced and stronger in wushu, he says, “I competed against them and gave it my best and had fun, and got a gold and a silver.” The gold was in fist form and the silver in 9-section whip.

After meeting the coach of the O-Mei Wushu Kung Fu Center, a professional coach focused on wushu forms, at another competition, he did a two-week stint at the Fairfax, Virginia, center in June 2015.


West Windsor resident Alex Ni shows off the medals he won in November at the 7th World Kung Fu Championships in Emeishan, China.

“I realized I could improve a lot and kept going there,” Ni says of the center, which is one of the premier training centers on the East Coast and has produced many champions. Starting in the 2015-2016 school year, he has spent six to seven hours a day every other weekend training at the Virginia school. At home he trains 1-2 hours every day, and manages not to have too many problems balancing schoolwork and martial arts.

In 2016, Ni made the U.S. Junior Wushu Team, which represented the United States in Burgas, Bulgaria, at the 6th World Junior Wushu Championships, the highest level of Wushu for individuals 18 and under. Whereas the competitions in China tend more toward traditional martial arts, in Bulgaria they lean toward more contemporary styles, which Ni says require much greater skill. He ranked sixth in the competition Qiangshu (spear) in the 13-to-15 year old age group.

Describing what judges are looking for in the competitions, Ni says, “The scoring is based on the quality of your movements and how you capture the essence of the fighting aspect of the sport. Also there are some artistic aspects—rhythm and look or appearance—how you look like you’re a fighter and how you make your form more lively. When you do it alone, you have to make look like you’re fighting, using expression and rhythm.”

Wu has also performed his wushu in talent shows, either to entertain or to raise money—at senior and rehab centers, at Plainsboro Founders Day, at Chinese New Year celebrations, and at Lincoln Center in New York. In 2015 he won a bronze grand prize for his performance in the NYC Sinovision Talent Show.

At Hun, Ni has been teaching Xing Yi Quan, a fist form of wushu, at the martial arts club, and he recently has found the time to start fencing with his school.

One big plus of competing in China is that Ni gets to visit his grandparents and other family. His father, Bing, and his mother, Hong, grew up in poor families in China and came to America, Ni says, because “both of the families wanted them to get a better education and also to have a better life.”

His father lived in the province of Fujian with six or seven siblings, and he had to work while also focusing on academics. Bing was successful, ending up at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduated with a PhD in physical oceanography and also studied some business. Bing is now portfolio manager of an energy fund he founded a decade ago.

Hong’s family immigrated to the United States from Guang Dong, and she also ended up at MIT, where she earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemical engineering. Today Hong does analytical work and model simulations for Bing in the same firm; because she works primarily on the computer, she can work from home and has the flexibility to travel with her son.

Ni went to Dutch Neck, Village School and Community Middle School, and he started at Hun last November.

Ni says the last year in wushu has been more challenging for him, in particular his efforts to compete in adult team trials, which are open to any age. “To improve my movements and forms to get to that level was taking a lot of time, and I had to be patient,” he says, noting that he did make the B team of the U.S. Wushu Team, which is mostly adults.

As to the future, Ni says clubs and teams have been starting up at colleges, and he figures he will either join one or try to start his own. Although the sport has been recognized by the International Olympic Committee and was going to be one of the extra Olympic sports in Tokyo in 2020, he says, “it didn’t make it in the end.”

He admitted that he does feel some stress when he competes, but not actually during the competition. “Competitions are stressful in the moment before you get up on the arena and do your form for the judges. You’re seeing everyone else go up, and you’re thinking, ‘How am I going to be able to do a better form than them?’” he says.

The challenge for him, he says, is “improving the techniques so that they look sharper and more professional, and also trying to make forms that implement the style and the quality that a practitioner wants and the judges would like to see.”

Hold the phone - that vid don't look that 'traditional.'

We'll have some coverage in our next issue, our March+April 2018 on newsstands in a month.

[GeneChing]

...just a bit.

The Pei Lei Wushu Association has represented Australia at the World Kungfu Championships, coming away with a huge medal haul.
(Back-row): Samuel Man, Desmond Chung, Jimmy Chew, Mitchell Brown and then Rebecca Ho, Sally Lin, Krista Brennan and Cheryl Toi. Pictures: Annika Enderborg

HILLS SHIRE
Australia has claimed a whopping 32 medals at the World Kungfu Chanmpionships
John Besley, Hills Shire Times
January 7, 2018 5:22pm

When it comes to Australia’s international sporting success, martial arts is probably not the field that first comes to mind.

However members of the Pei Lei Wushu Association last month represented Australia at the World Kung Fu Championships in Emeishan, China, where the Aussies picked up a whopping 32 medals- four of which were gold.

The Pei Lei Wushu Association runs martial arts classes in Eastwood, Carlingford and throughout the greater Hills area.


The Pei Lei members with their World Championship medals.

The World Kung Fu Championships is an elite competition that includes many different styles of weapon and barehand Wushu and Tai Chi routines.

Australia came away with three gold medals for individual performances and one for the eight-person group single weapon performance.

Pei Lei representative Krista Brennan said she was thrilled with the efforts of her team mates.

“As much as I am proud of our medal tally, I’m also proud of everyone for making this huge commitment of time and effort to just get there in the first place.”