Mark

cmat 17

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Saturday was the 17th annual Cal Martial Arts Tournament, at Cal Berkeley. For the 4rd year in a row I went, and as the last three years I was solely a spectator. I took some footage, and snapped a few pictures, but I wasn’t into staying from 8am till 11pm running around to each ring trying to film everyone. My experience with that last year solidified the idea that no matter what, someone (usually more than one too) will be unhappy with what you’ve worked hard to do, and I wasn’t interested in repeating that thankless job. Read More...

ip man movie day with wushu geeks

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It’s long overdue, but Mark, Shahaub and I finally got together for a movie. All three of us are movie geeks. Mark was part of the industry with Jet Li and Rotten Tomatoes, Shahaub is in film school right now (and posted a few demo reels, like this one, on vimeo.com), and I like to watch them and then write about what I watch. Our conversations immediately started off with George Lucas movies, Arrested Development, and then oddly to my fear of Bees and Black Widows. Read More...

wushu west 2009 02 26

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Another awesome class of basics with Mark. I like the basic wushu movements now more than ever, for two reasons. I’m so out of it now, I can’t remember an entire form, so its all I can do. If you can do basics well, then all of the rest comes a lot easier. Its something we should always work on. What I also like are little combination, you know, not a full section, but just a short string of punches, kicks, and stances. Read More...

wushu west 2009 01 22

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Mark was back, and when I walked in it was obvious that this is where he belongs :) Its always one of my favorite scenes to walk in on, and its because I enjoy the immense pain of simple leg conditioning. Mark is casually leaning on a staff, behind a line of the beginner students, calmly calling out “horse stance…” (pause 30 seconds) “bow stance…” (pause again for 30 seconds) Read More...

china trip day one and two

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The internet connection here has been down for the last full day, but not much besides training anyways. It was kind of odd to first walk in the main wushu hall, it felt like I was walking onto a movie set. I’ve watched countless wushu clips of the Beijing team in that same location. Practice was good, we do one morning class (9am - 11:30) everyday, then we alternate an evening (7:30pm - 9 ) and afternoon ( 2:30pm - 5:30 ) every other day. Read More...