Wushu

I has been exposed to Wushu through movies and dramas since I was a kid. My grandma loves to watch kung fu movies by Jacky Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Lee etc and so I used to watch them with her since she was my babysitter (haha). It's amazing for me to see people performing wushu on the screen, flying here and there (with sound and visual effects of course), kicking those bad guys' ass. That was where I started to fall in love with Wushu.

I have to say that I am a vey blessed child. During my high school time, I was thrilled to find that there is a Wushu club in Jit Sin High School as one of the uniform bodies. However, it was very difficult to get into the club as over hundred of students were competing to get the merely forty places there because people believed that activities of Wushu club were less frequent and intense (and they were super wrong). In order to choose the members of Wushu club during that time, our names which were submitted earlier were picked randomly by person (not by computer). Thank God that my name was unique enough (it consists of two words rather than three words) to catch the person in-charged's eyes and I was choosen.

There are a wide variety of Wushu out there, each with there own styles. Our Wushu club is based on traditional Sao Lim Wushu, unlike the one that we see in Olympic games (they are totally and distinctively different). We had maximum six hours of training every week (this one already included the extra two hours we spent during schooling days, so should be normally four hours every Saturday) which was not long enough for us to have quality learning. Besides training, we also have exams and annual inter-school competition. About the exam, we don't have things like belt to differentiate people of different grades, unlike Tae Kwan Do. There are ten grades in total (I got until five in five-year-time), and after you get eight or nine you can apply to become assistant coach. Then you can even apply to be coach after confronting Sammy Ho (haha), our beloved coach. For the competition, there are ten fields, (nine during my early time) for us to choose from, but most highly ambitious students (like me, hahaha) will take all of the options to increase the chance of our school to get the overall champion.

After graduated from high school, I got into Selangor Matriculation College and met this guy, Richie who was a former athlete in Wushu and we formed a one-year Wushu club there. We didn't learn much as we mainly taught others Wushu. So, time flies and here I am in university. I am really glad that I get into Wushu club in UPM as I met a lot of awesomely humorous people(I began to suspect whether learning Wushu would have side-effects on human normal thinking) who would easily cheer up my day with some jokes and silly thoughts. I feel like I am back to my precious high school time where the Wushu members were just as funny as they are. The other thing that made me feeling extremely grateful and excited is that I got the opportunity to participate in the oncoming inter-university Wushu competition in USM, Kelantan with 15 other people from my university who are older than me (hahahahahaha, just kidding, but it's true). I get the chance to wear the gorgeous silky clothes which are considered as compulsory for competitive Wushu.

My colour is pale gold, looks nice, right???

Time is running out. This is the third time our university sending students to go Kelantan for the competition. According to my seniors, our university got the overall second runner up during the first time participation and first runner up during the second participation. Hmm... With 16 representatives this time, we hope for the best. As one of the preparation for the competition, our coaches, Chai and Jack held a pre-competition rehearsal where we were fully dressed with make-up on. It was so comfortable wearing this clothes as there was no restriction of movement at all! Most of us were doing fine in this rehearsal, only some touch ups and we are good to go next week.

Don't get tricked by our smiling faces, we are super serious during performances, haha.  

Tai Chi. The difference between clothes for Tai Chi and normal one is that no belt is required.

Tai Chi sword. The rules are strict for clothing in Wushu competition. We have to follow every single detail such as the number of buttons etc.

Don't fool around with me. *glare*

Another Tai Chi. Tai Chi is very difficult to me. How am I going to perform for at least five minutes with slow motion somemore.

Our dedicated young coaches, Chai and Jack.

I still can't believe that I am going to represent my university to go across the border for competition (honestly never dreamt this before)! No matter what is the outcome, as long as we have given our best, that will be enough. The most important thing is the spirit of teammate-ship and friendship built that makes us strong. Cheers!

P/S: So sorry that I left out some individual teammates photos. Tips: Look for cameras whenever you feel awesome. (and don't care about nervousness as awesomeness always wins!)