Development Through Competition

By Walther Chen
Walther is an Orange Belt at Wu Dao

I had a great time at the tournament held at Boston Kung-fu and Tai Chi. I was extremely proud to see many Wu Dao students perform well and with confidence.

As for my own experiences, I competed in Push Hands, which I enjoyed quite a bit. The tournament organizers arranged the judging so that a premium was placed on executing tai chi techniques as opposed to brute force. I think that we all had a lot of fun being pushed over, and I definitely learned more about the weaknesses in my own structure. I find that if one arm becomes busy with defending or attacking, the other arm becomes inactive. Somehow, I need to find a way to connect my body more so that everything works at once, instead of as separate parts.

I also performed the form, short Xiao Hong Quan. It was pretty difficult, I felt like my body couldn't settle down. I distinctly remember the feeling of my calves being extremely tense, lifting me onto my toes, and my hips not feeling a full connection to the ground, so I couldn't express power very well. But, it did go much better than at the last tournament, where I lost balance over three times.

I credit my improvement to:

1. Showing up to training consistently and receiving good feedback from Shifu Tim
2. Some additional strength training which really helped my upper-body connection, especially my back strength.
3. Having the privilege of watching Shifu De Cheng move at the October workshop.

Although the tournament was only a small step in my Kung-Fu and Tai Chi progress, I am still glad that I was able to participate. I believe it was a valuable tool for stress-testing my body and mind in an unfamiliar environment, and I've gotten a little stronger because of it.