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At The Tourney

So I decided to try my hand again at a push hands tourney. This was the USAWKF West Coast Regional tourney held in Berkeley, California on April 21st, 2001. My first match was against a fellow who showed up wearing a black hooded cloak. His brother showed up wearing a Jedi costume (complete with lightsaber).

Here I'm doing my patented "Chew Style" push. In Wu style, almost all the pushes end up with the palm down. This is so that the utilization of the body causes your opponent to be "bounced" into the ground. However, often times, I end up pushing on the side of my opponent's arm and rotating my palm up (like in the fast form's version of Wild Horse Parts Mane).

This second picture shows my phenominal empty force power, causing my opponent to move without me having to touch him. Just joking, of course! The picture was taken after my hand had already retracted from the push.

And here's Mr. Hong talking to Hong Lee and me during a break between matches. You'll notice the sleepy look on my face. One of the reasons I didn't do very well at the tourney is that I wasn't aggressive enough. I guess I need more red meat in my diet or something. :)

At any rate, since I didn't engage in the brute force little man's sumo wrestling that most of the other competitors did, there were quite a few inquires after my matches into who my teacher was and whether or not he was still teaching.

For those of you that are curious, I lost my second match to some guy from mainland China. I was up one point with my right leg forward, but after we switched to the left side, I lost 6 points to him.

And here are some pics from the US Wushu Union's 2002 National Tournament in Orlando, Florida. I got a bronze in the moving push hands event.