It’s a week after the 2023 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championships, and I’m still reeling from the blow, still struggling to crawl out of the aftermath. I’ve been looking forward to this event for four long years, ever since the pandemic shut us down in 2020. And despite my own exhaustion, what a weekend it was. TCEC is back, baby! And it’s more glorious than ever.
But it wasn’t an easy comeback. Each TCEC has been met with unique challenges but coming back from the pandemic was a big one. Such is the nature of the beast and as a martial artist, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
To anyone who I might have offended at TCEC 2023, my sincere apologies. I do my best to be courteous, but it was a brutal run for me personally. From the moment I first arrived back at South Hall for load-in, to some sixty-plus hours later when I stumbled home, I estimate that I got about 6 hours of sleep. I could’ve slept a little more, but despite some melatonin and nightcaps, my insomniac brain circus was raucous. My mind kept replaying awkward moments from the day and reciting what I needed to do for the next day. Plus, there’s something about when I’m around that much qi – so many masters and competitors. Qi can be contagious, and it keeps me up. Even after I went home on Sunday, I couldn’t sleep in. That was partially because I had to work that following Monday, but also due to that residual qi overload. I was still vibrating from all that qi. My circadian rhythms still aren’t quite right.
I also walked nearly 15 miles over those three days. While that pales to what I might hike on a backpacking trip, this was on that unforgiving cement floor of South Hall, and a large part of it was in dress shoes that I almost never wear. When TCEC 2023 was done, I was physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.
But I love it. It was so wonderful to be back in the martial world amongst the Wulin. Ain’t no place I’d rather be.
Welcome to another installment of my behind-the-scenes recounting of TCEC, something I’ve done for years. It’s partially to document the memories but also as my own psychological therapy. Forgive me if I rant or vent.
This year was the biggest TCEC ever with 820 competitors and 1840 competitions in the KungFuMagazine.com Championship, plus 716 competitors in the Taekwondo Championship. That’s much bigger than ever before. We had about 350 judges and volunteers, which may sound like a lot, but it was the smallest team we’ve ever had. Just based on that alone, I’m grateful things went well. There are always complaints – someone must lose. In fact, most entrees must lose. That’s how competitions work. And losers complain. But overall, we kept to our schedule.
Before I dig into the TCEC 2023, let’s rewind. Let’s go back to a time when the word ‘pandemic’ wasn’t even in most peoples’ vocabulary, to before when the world broke.
Rewind to Before We Got Sick
The 2019 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship was a personal triumph, especially for my Kung Fu lineage of 2019 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship Part 2 – Is It Raining with You? That was the last in-person TCEC that we held prior to this one.
In the wake of TCEC 2019, development of the TCEC 2020 was going well. I’ve had this dream of staging a Heavy Guandao Championship for years and that was a focal point for TCEC 2020. I’ve always felt that to practice Guandao authentically, the weapon should be heavy. Today it’s hard to find a heavy Guandao. But when Tiger Claw began carrying two-piece metal-shaft Guandao, I found the way. I filled the hollow shaft with shot and got the weapon up to 13+ pounds. It’s not super heavy, but heavy enough to confound anyone trying to throw Pudao moves. I built that Guandao with the intention to run it as a special showcase championship.
I began training with that heavy Guandao in the mornings at the KungFuMagazine.com headquarters. I had an hour commute, so I used to go early to beat the commuter traffic. That would give me some time alone at the office before anyone else got there. I’d take a half hour before work to do my qigong and work a form. And just prior to the pandemic, the form was that heavy Guandao. Those were good times.
Working with our former senior graphic artist Patrick Lugo, we designed posters, T-shirts, logos, and medals around Lord Guan, the patron saint of Chinese martial arts, and Guan in Guandao. It was his signature weapon. We even developed a special video in a vlog series I was launching called Old School Kung Fu. The Heavy Guandao was to be the first auspicious installment. I had two more installments already in development. The second one had already been filmed.
But when the pandemic shut everything down, triggering the subsequent folding of our print magazineKung Fu Tai Chi, Patrick helped me complete that video. It went from being preparation for TCEC to a video goodbye from Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine.
My aspirations for Old School Kung Fu vanished. The footage from the second installment of Old School Kung Fu disappeared when our video department was shuddered. I suppose I could rebuild it someday, along with the third one which never got past the conceptual stage (but would be easy to shoot). However, the TC Media studio is long gone – it gave way to warehouse space – and more devastatingly, the TC Media crew is disbanded. Without my support squad, I’m undone.
We did manage to stage the 2020 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com ONLINE Championship without our video team. That was largely due to the lone surviving fulltime employee of TC Media, Kevin Ho. Now he works for Tiger Claw, which was TC Media’s parent company. We may even hold another online championship someday, despite the reopening in-person gatherings. It was well received by our readership, especially our global community.
As we embarked on the TCEC 2023, so many changes wrought by the pandemic became obstacles.
Friday Load-in
Having done most of the prep work for TCEC 2023 back in 2020 was helpful. Without our full staff, the workload would’ve been insurmountable when juxtaposed with our regular daily tasks. But a lot had changed here too. The price of everything skyrocketed – the venue, the hotel, the rentals – prices were doubled in some places.
I get it. And I don’t blame them. Remember that I moonlight in the music industry and have seen parallel issues there. During the pandemic, all these companies had no income so their trying to recoup a few years of lost profit. We all are.
What’s more, many of the point people that we worked with previously had moved on. On many fronts, we were dealing with completely new faces. We had some longstanding relationships with our providers, but those years of goodwill (and copesetic business) were no longer in play. This caused all sorts of issues. For example, the convention center typically provides a metal detector at each door for large gatherings. We would need two because we have two main doors – at a cost of over $3K for each one. But it’s ridiculous for our event because attendees are armed to the teeth with metal swords, pole arms, chain whips, and a wild assortment of other weapons. Imagine the traffic snarl that would’ve caused. Our previous contacts allowed us to waive metal detectors because they understood our event. And eventually our new contacts did as well, but it took some convincing. However, they did provide their own ticket checkers at the gates, which added up to additional charges to our final bill.
There were other additions from our providers, a lot of nickel and dime requirements, but those add up. We had budgeted TCEC 2020 for 2020. TCEC 2023 needed a much bigger budget than ever before.
Then the biggest challenge came in at the last minute. We were presented with an opportunity to host the very first Shaolin Duanpin workshop and examination in North America. The Shaolin Duanpin is a new global program of standardization and ranking put forth by the Shaolin Temple. A team of fourteen Shaolin representatives would join TCEC 2023, perform a show, and hold the Duanpin. If hosting the first in-person post-pandemic wasn’t enough, this added a whole other level of production needs. The show – Legend of Shaolin Warriors – was to be held on Friday, after I did Load-in. Friday turned into a bigger day.
Load-in went well, despite my trepidations. I arrived to meet Mr. Thomas Oh (Tiger Claw’s founder) and Jonny Oh (Tiger Claw President) first thing on Friday morning to survey the situation. We had a smaller crew than usual because several of our key Load-in crew people had moved on. Some of our stalwart team were still in – Miguel Carrasco is a key person in our infrastructure. Miguel and his wife Crystal (who helps with ring coordination) have been supporting TCEC for years and we are so grateful for them. What they give to TCEC is simply amazing. Ervic Aquino, our sound man, brought his electric unicycle to increase his efficiency getting around. You don’t realize how big South Hall is until you see it empty, knowing that you must fill it. It’s 80,000 square feet – that’s over six hundred feet lengthwise. Remember that nearly 15 miles I walked? It was mostly on Friday, setting up South Hall.
We had pulled in some extra crew people, including some of my beloved Dragon Crew. Here’s where I acknowledge my loyal squad of problem solvers – the 2023 Dragon Crew: Ben Alamillo, Emilio Alpanseque, Jordan Chew, Stephen Chew, Wendy Chew, Tara Ching, Svetlana Chyette, Maria Contreras-Mata, Robert Garcia, Nicholas Hancock, David Hardy, Jeff Hung, John Larson, Louie Mata, Brian O’Shea, Marcus Padilla, Hoel Rainier, Lori White, Mark Rodriguez, Peter Stoll. Two came out early to help on Friday. Emilio, who has served as a head judge for years, heard the call and pitched in so I adopted him into the Dragon Crew. John Larson, who trains alongside me at the Academy of Martial and Internal Arts was fresh blood. He had attended TCEC before, but this was his first time as part of my Dragon Crew. Both proved invaluable help on Friday.
But the biggest shift was the Shaolin warrior monks. They came to help assemble puzzle mats. That was awesome. They caught on quickly and were jumping all over, doing flips and aerials to make sure the mats were solid. They were so fast. John and I only assembled two mats. The monks came in around when we were starting our second mat. When we were finished, they had finished all the rest of them. What a relief.
The monks were having a lot of fun and in a moment of international cultural exchange, John showed them how to ride a pallet jack. The monks loved it – playfully riding about with glee. It was a delight to behold and a harbinger of the fun we were going to have over the weekend.
John and I moved to Tiger Claw poster assembly. You know those Tiger Claw posters that adorn the barricades? Those need to be prepped – unrolled, flattened, and taped together at the top to drape over the barricade. Normally this is a simple yet tedious task. But in a moment of inattention, it got sanguineous.
My first injury of TCEC 2023 was a nasty paper cut. I’ve done poster assembly before, so I know better. I even warned John to be careful. But the next thing I knew, I was leaking blood. My blood. That’s supposed to stay on the inside. So that’s how it’s going to be, TCEC 2023? You drew first blood. On me! Had it been John, I would have written off to a ritual blooding for the newbie. A part of me was pissed off at myself for misjudging the poster. Another part acknowledged that if TCEC was to be blessed in blood, it was my blood and not some hapless innocent.
So which would be the prevailing omen for the weekend – Shaolin pallet jack rides or poster paper cuts? Read the next installment - 2023 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship – Legend of Shaolin Warriors.
