2025 Tiger Claw Elite Championships Part 2

By Gene Ching

Photos by Kevin Ho

For Part 1, see 2025 Tiger Claw Elite Championships - Snake Sheds its Skin

The 2025 Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championships

TCEC 2025 had 427 competitors competing in 1114 divisions. We had capped enrollment earlier to keep the number of competitors lower to fit everyone in on Saturday. We know our competitors pay a lot of their hard-earned money for a chance to compete fairly, so we always aim to end our competitions at a reasonable hour and not make them wait all day and all night. For any tournament, the more competitors there are, the more money there is to be made. Greedy or poorly managed tournaments can run past midnight, which is absurd. But Tiger Claw is a business, first and foremost. But part of doing good business that truly serves the martial community is to run a good competition. So, we capped early and took the loss.

The Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championships staged 8 rings plus the main stage. The Tiger Claw Elite Taekwondo Championship added 8 more rings. All told, it was a seventeen-ring circus.

Without any internal divisions, the Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championships 2025 was divided into only three major categories: Traditional Kung Fu, Modern Wushu and the Shaolin Kung Fu Games.

Traditional Kung Fu absconded with five of my Dragon Crew, the Chew family (Nicole, Stephen, and Wendy), Jeff Hung, and Keith White. Stephan, Jeff, and Keith are all my classmates from Lam Kwoon. Keith and I go back to the late 70s (Man, that’s like half a century now). Stephen and Jeff joined later. Jeff has earned a position as a Ring Manager and Stephen, a head judge; he requested that his wife and daughter assist him on his ring as score-tabulator and timekeeper. I had foolishly miscalculated the impact of losing them. It meant that later, when some of my morning crew had to bail, I had barely enough volunteers to hold the ring gates. Typical. That one was on me.

Emilio has been a head judge for Modern Wushu from the beginning. He drifted into the Dragon Crew because he was the only designated writer for Kung Fu Tai Chi, and he has been helpful with Load-in and the After Party. With CMAT taking over our Wushu rings, I was more detached from this division than ever. There was some trepidation about the lack of organization just prior to TCEC. CMAT did not announced ring assignments for judges until the tournament started. Nevertheless, they came together very well and even got ahead of schedule. Towards the end of the day, Mason Tong from CMAT (and my fellow TCEC MC) shared the program CMAT had developed which allowed me to see the ring progression in real time on my iPhone. I could’ve used that earlier. Nevertheless, it was impressive and certainly made things run more efficiently. Leave it to Berkeley…

We presented Master Bryant Fong with our Lifetime Achievement award. Not only did he found CMAT, but he’s also my elder Kung Fu brother having trained for a short time at Lam Kwoon long before I was there. And having run CMAT for so long (this year marked the 28th CMAT), I have often sought his wisdom regarding how to run tournaments. He joins Wu Bin, Lily Lau, Liang Shou-Yu, Ren Guangyi and Grace Wu-Monnat as TCEC Lifetime Achievement recipients.

It was the second time that we held the Shaolin Kung Fu Games, officially recognized by Shaolin Temple. Last year, our Songshan Shaolin division became officially registered as part of the Shaolin Kung Fu Games. We launched our Songshan division back in 2011, first as a Showcase competition with only one champion. And then as it continued to grow, we expanded it to its own division, one the level of Traditional Kung Fu and Modern Wushu. That expansion was in 2018.

In 2023, at the first North American Shaolin Kung Fu Games, our Publisher Emeritus Gigi Oh was elected as Secretary General of the Shaolin North American Association. This sealed the participation of TCEC in the Shaolin Kung Fu Games. However, it is a volunteer position and Gigi officially retired from Kung Fu Tai Chi in 2017. It is unclear how much longer she’ll continue to serve in this role for Shaolin Temple. She never took any disciple vows, nor does she even practice Shaolin Kung Fu. She only does it out of the goodness of her heart and for her many Shaolin friends. But being Secretary General can be a thankless task, so we’ll see how much longer she stays with it.

I like to think that our Songshan Shaolin division at TCEC helped inspire the Shaolin Kung Fu Games. Surely, Shaolin Temple would have come to it on their own eventually. They were already running Shaolin style tournaments locally. But TCEC was the first to demonstrate that it could be done on an international level. Last year, Shaolin Temple hosted the first World Shaolin Kung Fu Games, which Gigi and I were honored to attend as witnesses. Additionally, there were three Shaolin Kung Fu Games held in the United States – ours here in California, one in Colorado and one in Texas. I’m grateful to have been able to have had a role in this from the beginning, and even more so to see it continue to perpetuate and expand.

2025 Tiger Claw Elite Grand Champions

Traditional Kung Fu Grand Champions

8-9 yrs, Intermediate Female: Fong, Audrey - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

8-9 yrs, Intermediate Male: Prasad, Alex - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

10-11 yrs, Intermediate Female: Roy, Anisha - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

10-11 yrs, Intermediate Male: Yu, Micah - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

10-11 yrs, Advanced Female: Schnurr, Kendall - One Tribe Martial arts Academy

10-11 yrs, Advanced Male: Chin, Titus - Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy

12-13 yrs, Intermediate Female: Saini, Prisha - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

12-13 yrs, Intermediate Male: Hu, Hayden - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

12-13 yrs, Advanced Female: Zlochevskaya , Vera - Tomizaki Champions

12-13 yrs, Advanced Male: Eng, Justin - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

14-17 yrs, Intermediate Female: Pandey, Sanskriri - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

14-17 yrs, Intermediate Male: Cheang, Audrick - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

14-17 yrs, Advanced Female: He, Felicity - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

14-17 yrs, Advanced Male: Shih, Kyson - Tomizaki Champions

18 & Over, Intermediate Female: Kuldiner, Hanna- One Tribe Martial Art

18 & Over, Intermediate Male: Shen, Yuchen - Kung Fu Dragon USA

18 & Over, Advanced Female: Tam, Vivian. - Kung Fu Dragon USA

18 & Over, Advanced Male: So, Thomas - Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy

Wushu Grand Champions

8-9 yrs, Intermediate Male: Zhang, Osmond - Honor KungFu Academy

8-9 yrs, Advanced Male: Ly, Arvin - Kung Fu Dragon USA

10-11 yrs, Intermediate Female: Tesch, Thalia - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

10-11 yrs, Intermediate Male: Chu, Oliver - Kung Fu Dragon USA

10-11 yrs, Advanced Female: Yi, Charlotte - Omei Academy

10-11 yrs, Advanced Male: Taff, Timothy - Legend Kung Fu Academy

12-13 yrs, Intermediate Female: Yuen, Mikayla - Kung Fu Dragon USA

12-13 yrs, Intermediate Male: Yun, Charleston - Kung Fu Dragon USA

12-13 yrs, Advanced Female: Ding, Sabrina - Champion Wushu Center

12-13 yrs, Intermediate Male: Chuang, Alex - Kung Fu Dragon USA

14-17 yrs, Intermediate Female: Tsay, Calleigh - Kung Fu Dragon USA

14-17 yrs, Intermediate Male: Dong, Roy - Kung Fu Dragon USA

14-17 yrs, Advanced Female: Ding, Catrina - Champion Wushu Center

14-17 yrs, Advanced Male: Ly, Channing - Kung Fu Dragon USA

Shaolin Kung Fu Games

7 & Under, Advanced Female:

Gold: Kyi, Florence - Kung Fu Dragon USA

Silver: Chan, Thea - Dynamic Kungfu Academy

Bronze: Yu, Dora - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

7 & Under, Advanced Male:

Gold: Zhang, Andrew - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

Silver: Lo, Nixon - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

8-9 yrs, Advanced Female:

Gold: Tesch, Yelena - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

Silver: Yu, Angelina - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

8-9 yrs, Advanced Male:

Gold: Garcia, Alessandra - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

Silver: He, Lucas - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

10-11 yrs, Advanced Male:

Gold: Huang, Jiaxun - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

Silver: Higashi, Brandon - Kung Fu Dragon USA

Bronze: Fu, Alex - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

12-13 yrs, Advanced Female:

Gold: Mendoza, Sophiena Cai - Kung Fu Dragon USA

Silver: Kao, Eleanor - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

Bronze: Ting, Yosan - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

12-13 yrs, Advanced Male:

Gold: Li, Enze - Shaolin Temple USA

Silver: Ho, Marcus - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

Bronze: Shah, Nivaan - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

14-17 yrs, Advanced Female:

Gold: Gong, Yiwen - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

Silver: 5825 Chung, Janella - Kung Fu Dragon USA

Bronze: Werden, Jacy - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

14-17 yrs, Advanced Male:

Gold: Monroy, Ian - Shaolin Temple Kung Fu Center

Silver: Shang, Yule - Shaolin Temple Fremont

Bronze: Liu, Derek - Dragon Rhythm Shaolin Kung Fu

18-40 yrs, Advanced Male:

Gold: Korenc, Karel - WKS PRAHA

Silver: Rumishou, Kavi - Shaolin Temple Kung Fu Zen Academy

41 & Over, Advanced Female:

Gold: Tam, Yolanda - Kung Fu Dragon USA

Silver: Koyama, Tomoko - Shaolin Temple USA

41 & Over, Advanced Male:

Gold: Lee, Ritchie - Shaolin Warrior Martial Arts

Silver: Kan, Ebert - Shaolin Temple USA

The 2025 Showcase Divisions

TCEC has always held Showcase Divisions. These are special competitions, held on our main stage, and many are one-off events. Most of them were my design. Back before the pandemic, I reported on many tournaments across the nation every year. But with any tournament, there’s only so much I could write about so the Showcase Divisions were a personal ploy to give me more grist for the mill when writing reports, just like this one.

The WildAid Tiger Claw Championship is our longest running and successful Showcase. And that’s my baby. In 2010, during the Year of the Tiger, the Tiger Claw Foundation committed to supporting WildAid’s efforts to protect wild tigers in the wild. All proceeds the inaugural the WildAid Tiger Claw Championship were directly donated to WildAid, a tradition that has been upheld to this day (Tiger Claw even rounds that figure up to sweeten the contribution). For the second year, the WildAid Tiger Claw Championship expanded its pledge to include all endangered species that WildAid aims to conserve. Since then, the WildAid Tiger Claw Championship has been held at every TCEC, and in 2015, it broadened to feature a Teen Tiger division for ages 17–12, and a Tiger Cub division for competitors 11 and under. It has become the most prominent event within the Tiger Claw Elite Championships. Local Chinese masters have nicknamed it ‘hu tao’ (tiger head) after the coveted tiger head trophies that Tiger Claw creates every year for this event.

The WildAid Tiger Claw Championship is a unique "any style, any form" division, allowing Taekwondo and Chinese martial arts competitors to compete against each other—though Taekwondo hasn’t participated in years. WildAid is an international non-profit organization dedicated to ending the illegal wildlife trade within our lifetime. Prominent spokespersons for WildAid include Jackie Chan, Yao Ming, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lupita Nyong’o, Maggie Q, Li Bingbing, Jay Chou, David Beckham, and many other global celebrities.

I’m extremely grateful for Tiger Claw allowing me to launch and perpetuate the WildAid Tiger Claw Championship. It’s been part of my karma work since long before I worked for Tiger Claw. One of my early articles for the Tiger Claw publication, World of Martial Arts, was Jackie Chan Saves the Tiger. That was in 1998, back when I was a freelance contributor. That article spotlights Jackie’s work with Asian Conservation Program, an innovative multi-media public education campaign designed and coordinated by WildAid in partnership with local wildlife groups, specifically aimed at reducing demand for illegal or unsustainable wildlife parts and products.

This year marked the 13th WildAid Tiger Claw Championship. Through this Showcase Championship, Tiger Claw Foundation has contributed over $17,600 to WildAid.

There was one other Showcase Division this year – a sequel. Last year, TCEC crossed May the Fourth, and I hold a seat on the TPLA Board. It was a perfect opportunity to launch the first LED Saber Championship. This was just for fun – a forms competition based on lightsaber. Like the year before, Chad generously contributed a custom lightsaber as a prize. He also oversaw a demonstration sparring bout between Jess and Alan. Lightsaber fencing is the fastest growing martial art in the world today and TPLA is the national governing body for the USA. Hopefully, the two LED Saber showcases will help plant the seeds for a West Coast team.

Showcase Championships

WildAid Tiger Claw

WildAid Adult (18+): Zhao, Youtong - Shaolin Temple Fremont

WildAid Teen (12-17): Taff, Timothy - Legend Kung Fu Academy

WildAid Cub (11 & Under): Liao, Randolph - Sun's Kung Fu Academy

Tiger Claw LED Saber Championship

Chuang, Alex - Kung Fu Dragon USA

In the end, TCEC ran like clockwork. It was even ahead of schedule on many fronts. And having warned my Dragon Crew from the start, they were on it when it came to load out. The convention center was clear astoundingly quickly, returning back to that bare hall, ready to host some other huge event.

With no obligations for the next morning, the After Party raged long into the night. At the end, there were only a few of my Dragon Crew left to clean up the party room. Several of us didn’t get to bed until early Sunday morning.

Enemy Action

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” Auric Goldfinger from Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger

The 2025 Tiger Claw Elite Championships were held on May 17th, the weekend prior to Memorial Day weekend. On Memorial Day weekend, two more Chinese martial arts tournaments were held: The Golden State Wushu Championships and the 1st Gold Mountain Traditional Chinese Martial Arts Championships. The Golden States used to be held in September on Labor Day weekend. Last year, they moved to Memorial Day weekend. The Gold Mountain was the first tournament to ever be held in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

It was awkward.

Ever since 2009, the Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championships has been housed in the San Jose Convention Center, and to support that house, we have cooperated with another style competition under the Tiger Claw umbrella. At first, it was Sport Karate. In 2013, it shifted to Taekwondo. Consequently, we have had the honor of working in tandem with these groups and what is striking about how they operate is their cooperation across tournaments. All the promoters make sure to space out their tournaments so as not to compete against each other. Competing can get expensive so grouping tournaments close together creates an unnecessary financial burden on the community. In Karate and Taekwondo, the promoters even arrange to send competitors and judges to each other’s events in a cooperative fashion, building a competition circuit. When people ask me about how to grow the Chinese martial arts, it’s these sorts of fractures that hold us back.

But this complaint is somewhat moot because this may be the last time - this may be the last time - maybe the last time, I don’t know.

On June 20th, Tiger Claw president Jonny Oh distributed an email to all Tiger Claw accounts that explained how ‘some price adjustments will be necessary to reflect the increased costs.’ This is due to those government-driven changes in international economic relationships that I mentioned in the introduction of part one of this report. It’s directly affecting our business, and not in a good way. Every martial arts supplier feels it, and that trickles down to the schools and consequently, the students. The outlook for martial arts supplies and gear is grim.

I have no fear that the Chinese martial arts will survive. We’ve survived much worse over the centuries. However, certain ephemeral luxuries like TCEC may not survive. TCEC may be reborn in some new incarnation, but it is extremely unlikely that we’ll return to the San Jose Convention Center next year.

When we finished packing TCEC up, Jonny pulled me aside with a warm embrace. “If this is the last one, we’ve had a great run.”

I couldn’t agree more. I’m grateful for every moment of TCEC. Even the bad ones. It has been a glorious adventure, and I truly hope it continues. We shall see what the Year of the Horse brings.

Until that time…

But now the winds I feel are only winds of change

I’ve been through the fire and I’ve been through the rain

But I’ll be fine

About author:

Gene Ching is the Publisher of KungFuMagazine.com and the author of Shaolin Trips.

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