Update from Colorado.

Okay, let’s see what have I been up to these last few days 1 mile above sea level – besides fighting the cold and taking care of my sinus…

Well, I have been to Wayne’s school twice, met his students and had a super time introducing some finer points of Fuzhou Crane Boxing. Wayne is a student of mine and these last years, have been passing on some of the White Crane that he got from me.

What can I say, plant a seed and you see a tree and now it’s down to ensuring that the tree grow big and strong. With the dedicated following that Wayne has got in his school – no biggie. I am really pleased to see the art propagating here in Colorado.

Then there was also one evening that I spent some time at the “Colorado School Of Wing Chun” to play with some old friends.

Sifu Phil, Ron and Chad; the latter 2 also White Crane students of mine plus a group of new faces showed up and we were just totally having fun on the training floor.

Observing a minute silence at the end of training for our dearly and very untimely departure of Sifu Bart Mann kind of bring home the message; Wing Chun, White Crane…..we are all good friends of Wulin – we are family!

And this morning, Wayne, Chad and I again spent time at the Wing Chun school to go through some more White Crane fighting concepts and forms.

The weather was brilliant and after the session, we decided to hop over to the famous “Mile High Flea Market” for some turkey legs, burritos and cold beers.

Sunshine, cold beers, turkey legs, burritos and good company – what more do you want ?

Pic – Wayne in black and Chad in white tees.

Creepies Crawlies.

And before I forget, here are the marsh/gator pictures I spoke about in my earlier entry.

It was a gorgeous day when we did this in Tampa, the kind of weather that I am so familiar with.

Everything went perfect except that I decided not to put on the head set to muffle the noise from the airboat …. arrrgh… what a big mistake.

But it still cool to be able to get so close to wild gators.

Highly recommended when you’re in Florida and don’t forget the head set.

Excuse me, what is that again? Can you speak up……..

Mile high.

After waiting 4 hrs in Tampa Airport; flight got delayed 2 hrs because of lousy weather, I finally boarded the plane to Denver. So by the time I touched down, it was already past 10pm and Wayne (Hinton) was there waiting.

It’s been about 8 years since I was last in Denver and the first reminder of things to come is the “cruel” cold weather – it’s freezing cold. I think I can forget about my sleeveless tees and bermudas – time to get wrapped up if I wanna to go out.

The hour long ride in Wayne’s truck saw the 2 of us talking about and updating , non-stop – so much have happened these last few years.

Well, I got 3 weeks planned for Colorado and I hope to visit as many old friends as possible and meet new ones.

One thing for certain, there will be much playing – kung fu style.

Got here a photo-slide of downtown Denver and 16th Street mall; the place that I used to hang out quite a bit when I was here last. I ask Wayne about the missing street performers and was told that they will be back when it gets warmer.

The doggie you see is Festis – Wayne’s dog that I am planning to sneak home in my luggage bags, if I can get Customs to look the other way hahahaha..

And the busy looking dude with his ear glued to the mobile is Wayne.

More later…..

On the move again – feeling like a Hakka….

After about 10 days of intense discussions, touch hands and behaving like a tourist whenever time permits, it’s time for me to pack my bags and head on out to Denver.

Got a bunch of pics with me that are waiting for me to transfer and then uploaded for you folks ….. some pretty neat photos of gators when Russ and I went out on a air-boat ride in the marsh… I told Russ I must feel what it’s like to go out on one of those machine with that propeller. Too much “CSI Miami” hahahaha…..

3 weeks planned for Colorado- just about right. Got many old friends to visit; Uncle Bill, Uncle Wayne, Wayne Hinton……..

I have been looking up the weather up there online and I must say that it don’t look agreeable to me; 30s, 40s and high is like 60s ….. brrrrhhh good thing I got a thick jacket with me.

Hard to “whip” when muscles and joints are cold.

Got another clip here to share – from Russ’ collection again.

Taizu from Taiwan, I believe.

Now for some more sunshine before I fly to that big ice-box……

Back to Kung Fu.

And before anyone starts thinking it’s all play here in Florida, I just want to (ahem) state that Russ and I have been real busy going through all the plans and projects that we got lined up – these will be updated accordingly through this blog.

Plus any free time we find, we are examining & re-examining the arts in our experience; White Crane, Karate, Taizu, Wuzhu,Saolim etc etc.

Including going through videos; those found on-line and others in Russ’ collection.

Like this one, taken from a documentary about Taiwan masters, another line of White Crane Boxing that I have not personally come across…..

More Sunshine.

Hehehe, got a friendly message from back home; a week in Florida and only 2 pics???

Okay, I am fixing this; pics taken on Easter Sunday, you’ll see more buildings and trees than people……

Miss home ?

Missing Singapore ? No sweat, simply find it on youtube :-

The Sunshine State.

Folks must be thinking that I am spending time soaking in the sun and floating over the everglades …. well nooooo……..

Not that I don’t want to, you understand, but it’s just that besides sleeping off the 12 hours that I’ve gained flying from Singapore to Florida – there’s just so much to discuss with Russ and his guys about future of Fuzhou Cranes in the US.

That and the fact that every time I am in the States, my nose would bleed for a couple of days; must be the dry air or something. This kind of slow me down a little….

Then we were just having so much fun playing; White Crane whipping, Sanchins, Chin Na, Wuzu – hey who got time to sights see?

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, we found ourselves with a little free time to dispose and Russ took me out to the beach after a short tour of a flea market and some Vietnamese chow down.

And this week, I am looking to more sessions of touch hands, White Crane discussions and working together to bring CKF to a bigger audience.

Top pic – me at the beach.

Bottom pic – A gorgeous little house in Zephyrhills Tampa near where Russ live.

From the US…with some jet-lagged ramblings…

After like, how many hours was it? I finally arrived at the land of McDonalds, K-marts and folks driving on the “wrong sides” of the road.

Chicago International Ariport, my point of entry into the US, had me interviewed, thoroughly, by folks from “Homeland Security”.. Well, coming from Singapore where you’ll find special forces personnels prowling popular streets like Orchard Road, with submachine guns in full view, I got no issues with though screening measures.“Better safe than sorry” is the operative idea here, I guess.Then it was a slight delay before I boarded the connecting flight to Tampa, to touch down after midnight.

Russ, my good friend, was there waiting and it was past 1 in the morning when we got to his house.

Still, instead of going to sleep – Russ got to work the next day, we spent another 2 hours talking about martial arts and going through his impressive gigantic collection of books and videos.

Well, well, well, guess I finally found my match in term of martial arts related materials.

Got up early this morning and walked aound this lovely neighbourhood and out came my faithful go-everywhere digital camera.

Now, all I got to do is figure how to work some of Russ’ softwares and I’ll start posting pics and videos.

Time to answer some emails and read some Singapore/Malaysia papers on-line.

Arrr…the wonder of the internet……..

From Singapore with ……. Kung fu…

Well folks, in a few hours time I will be flying to the US from Singapore Changi International Airport.

 

These last few days in Singapore have been hectic; the video session with my Fuzhou Crane sihing, ensuring that I got everything right for the trip etc etc…

 

The tea session after the video shoot with my sihing was poignant in many ways; talking about our late teachers, the one surviving teacher in his 90s, the general state of traditional CKF in Singapore and the lack of incentive or support of any kind…..

 

Said this umpteen times; many old timers are dismayed and have opted to stop teaching altogether and many styles/families are vanishing right before my eyes.

 

It’s an uphill task but against these circumstances, I see what we are trying to do as right and essential; produce opportunities for old sifus and families to reactivate their zeal to teach and pass on their knowledge.

 

I see this US trip as a step towards that end.

 

Leaving you with a short clip of my sihing doing the end portion of “Babulien”, this is shot with a hand held digital videocam. There is another high resolution camera running concurrently – that I got to wait for analogue to digital conversion.