Katy Texas Branch going to Legends of KungFu in Plano Texas

Congratulations to our growing competition/fight team for demonstrating excellent kung fu on and off the mats this past weekend at the 2010 Taiji Legacy Martial Arts Championships. Sifu Ryan and I are very proud and honored to have coached and trained with each of these individuals. We had 7 students all competing in point & continuous sparring events and also competing in the full contact San Shou tournament. The results are as follows:
Youth:
Nitai Duran (age 10) placed 3rd,Bronze Medal
Rogelio Santos (age 10) placed 2nd, Silver Medal
Teens:
Darius Welch (age 13) place 1st, Gold Medal
Adults:
Andrew R. Yellow Sash- placed 3rd, Bronze Medal
Eric Murphy Yellow Sash place 3rd, Bronze Medal
San Shou:
Kevin Hill, Blue Sash- lost his first fight on points
Ricardo Deluque- Blue Sash-won first fight, lost his 2nd fight on points

Like many past years, this years Taiji Legacy Legends of Kung Fu International Championships started off LATE! LOL! All kidding aside it was a bit disappointing because Saturday's events did not get started until 2:45, the opening ceremonies were suppose to begin at 1pm. The actual competition events did not get started until 4pm. Myself, Nitai, Darius and his mother Anita had been there since 8:45am for the masters demo in the morning. All the other team members had been traveling all morning to arrive promptly by 1pm to experience the kung fu tournament scene. We stayed for a few events but stuck to our scheduled plans. At 4:40 we left the Plano Center to rest up and meet up for dinner. All our students would not be competing until Sunday.

Because of the late start, we did not get a chance to see any of the Wing Chun competitions. However, based on what I witnessed I do not believe there would have been much to see. Not because all the Chunners would have lame skill but because there were NO wing chun competitors. I only noticed two schools of Wing Chun, Sifu Randi Li's and 2 guys that were from a school in Boston. At the opening ceremonies after all the Taiji people came out for the “all in the family” Taiji expression demo, they asked for all the wing chun people to come out and perform a wing chun demo. Only myself, the 4 or 5 wing chun judges and like 2 or 3 of Sifu Randy Li students came out to demonstrate. They had to ask 4 or 5 times for chunners to come out stating “come on wing chun people, you are not known for being shy about your kung fu”, but nobody came out.
Then on Sunday they kept calling for all the wing chun people to report to the Chi Sau competition ring. Later, at a glance, I noticed only few guys doing Chi Sau. I did not get to watch them because I was running around making sure I did not miss any of our students matches. What is interesting and funny at the same time, later that night as I was hanging out with family members who had attended Sundays events. My sister-n-law and brother were talking about how much they enjoyed watching the competition, however they were very curious and expressed concern about one particular event. They commented that this event seemed very odd and they could not make sense of how such a contest had anything to do with martial arts. After my brother described what they saw I immediately recognized that they were talking about the chi sau competition. So, I responded to their comments “that is called Chi Sau” and my sister-n-law stated “well, whatever it is called... grown men should not be allowed to that in public.” My brother stated “I don't think its right for children to be exposed to such inappropriate behavior, those guys should be ashamed of themselves” they were both joking of course but at the same time a little serious. I could not help but burst out laughing, hysterically! I knew they must have seen those guys doing chi sau. I did not even try to explain what they were seeing a demonstration of, I just thought to myself “damm, I should have competed this year!”
Needless to say, Wing Chun participation was very low this year.

Besides this, our team did awesome!! Nitai and Rogelio were in the same division and had to fight an older, much taller opponent whom did not have anyone in his division to compete with. They both showed great poise and composure. Darius has been putting a lot of time into training and he dominated all of his opponents with strong technique and great footwork. Both Eric and Andrew fought well but were caught off guard, literally, by the intense high level of energy being expressed. We trained very hard with tremendous focus on controlled energy. Both opponents were “swinging for the fences”, coming in with full energy with the refs not calling out anyone and every time our guys gave it back and scored we would get warned for bad contact. None the less, both Eric and Andrew walked away with honorable performances.
In the San Shou tournament we had Brazilian and Israeli national teams competing plus many MMA clubs. Competition was thick. Kevin Hill faced a very strong opponent with a huge reach and height advantage. He fought hard with continuous forward energy but did not get in as many strikes and takedowns. Ricardo Deluque dominated his first opponent out striking and getting many takedowns. In his 2nd match He faced a very strong Brazilian fighter that had at least 10-15 lbs on him. Ricardo gave him a great fight. Being evasive and using great footwork Ricardo did not take any heavy shots. However, he was not able to let his hands & feet go and several takedown attempts were checked by his opponents size advantage. From a conditioning perspective both Kevin and Ricardo admit they failed to prepare to best of their potential. They both recognize the need to be a serious athlete and know their conditioning fell short this time. Once again everyone, from the refs to other fighters, gave both our fighters lots of props for making great fights and that is what it is all about.

We are excited to bring this experience back to our growing family in Houston and even more excited about training and preparing for our next opportunity to demonstrate Meng's Matial Arts Shaolin Wing Chun Kung Fu.