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Kung Fu workshop

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This morning I gave a Kung Fu lesson at a local Dutch college. The students were around 17/18 years old. I am glad that this school pays extra attention to sports and Martial Arts, especially allowing me to introduce Chinese Kung Fu to this group of students. Karate, Teakwondo, Judo are all familiar sports. But how about Chinese Kung Fu? Which is the father of various Martial Arts.

I asked them to describe Kung Fu in 1 word. The Dutch students in majority said 1 word : ‘Complicated’. Now I was thinking, why does it seems so complicated to these youngsters?  It might because of the rather new and unknown movements of Kung Fu. It comes from the far East, and I can say there is zero attention in the Dutch media about Chinese Kung Fu. What people get to see are the fancy kicks and people flying around in such Kung Fu movies. Which is of course not a realistic image of the Arts of Chinese Kung Fu. We start the class with the Kung Fu greeting and the experience starts. Actually, with proper explanation and guidance, the students learn very fast. The PE teacher recorded the class for evaluation. The students have to learn the theory as well and pass the test. In my opinion all schools should have Kung Fu classes once in a while, simply because of the many benefits of practicing it. (stretching, basic stances, proper body structure, tai chi, self defence) Chinese Kung Fu is a valuable Art.

When I finished teaching I wandered around in the school. It gaves me some old memories from the college time. Now looking back it was a wonderful time isn’t it?

This is what happened when the Kung Fu class starts!

I’m just kidding, the school bell rang.

Celebrate Chinese New Year with us Sunday 22nd in Utrecht

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Hello everyone,

This is the 2nd time we celebrate the Chinese New Year in Utrecht city at Rasa world cultural centre. I have been contributing to the programming and the participation of Wudao in this event. For the PR promotion of this event I made  a Teaser video in 3 days. I think this is the first cooperation between Wudao & aCreations. I believe in the near future we will produce more and more creative arts together. During the filming process a lot of people stood by and were curious what we are doing at the ‘Oudegracht’ in Utrecht city. Some were filming us and taking pictures with us.

I was totally focused on the filming part, because I didn’t had enough time to prepare and had a just a few days to deliver the video. Everybody volunteered in this project, so it was hard to count on the attendance that day. But we make the best out of it and it had a great effect. Although the cold weather we still had fun together. I was worrying whether I could finish filming before the sun goes down. The day started with a bad news, a message that the lead actor couldn’t come, he was sick. So we changed a bit of the storyline and I stepped in to play a bigger part in the film. It is stressful because you want to focus on one thing rather than 2 different things, or 3, production, filming and acting. At the end we’re all satisfied and got positive reactions. I can go with it since it was a last minute project.

Moreover

Read Article: http://kosmopolisutrecht.blog.com/2012/01/19/wu-dao-is-klaar-voor-jaar-van-de-draak/

Come and join us @ utrecht Rasa, I am in the programming of this Chinese New Year event and will be performing Kung Fu and giving a workshop that day. Kung Fu panda will be there giving out lucky money! Don’t miss it 😀
This year we focus on the younger generation of Dutch Chinese society. Artists, musicians, filmmakers will show their work at Rasa Utrecht!

Salsa Team Utrecht

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S.T.U.

I like this . . obviously it stands for Salsa Team Utrecht =)

So is this the beginning of a new Salsa group?

Last Saturday, we had a Salsa workshop given by a lovely dancing couple. It was different than the normal Wushu training. Surprisingly, it was quite popular and people start coming from everywhere and then the court was full of dancing bodies. We started with the basic footsteps and continued with the right turn. It was fun to do. Actually I was interested in Salsa and I always wanted to try it out, but never took time to find a partner/teacher. The girl next door does Salsa, but ya that’s it.

The Kungfu men group against the ladies, it was fun and the music is relaxing. The movements of your body should be flawless and you should really try to listen to follow the rhythm. In the beginning it is really about finding the right footsteps and timing. After some tries, you are able to do the basic dancing steps of Salsa =)

Although it is not sticky hands or Tai Chi pushing hands, it is similar to Kungfu because you need to feel your partner or opponent in some cases. Your posture and footsteps are very important just like doing Kungfu forms, it is both a body expression.

Here are some pictures taken by our mighty Kinghey i guess? Whatever, it should be one of the K.H.’s

While we were dancing it reminds me to this video with Stephen Chow and Athena Chu

And last but not least, you definitely shouldn’t miss this performance, really love this thing –)>  watch . .

Wow, hot or not.,  it’s just beautiful =)

I would recommend everybody to try out Salsa dancing if you have the chance. And now I have to finish some preparation work for tomorrow so I’m out!

China Festival Show [Backstage]

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(Excuse me for blogging back in time, please see it as a flashback right =P )

Well, first of all thanks Kit our networking manager for giving me the opportunity to cooperate with Kosmopolis and so to give you guys a great show. As you know I was in Hong Kong this late summer. I just left my friends apartment at Cathay City in Hong Kong, crossing the Tsing Ma Bridge when he called me up for this event and we talked for half an hour a long distance call. When I was back in Holland, I contacted Kosmopolis who is organising this China Festival. It is a very interesting event because it was the celebration of Chinese overseas who established in Utrecht a 100 years ago and also the Chinese Moonfest, so very meaningful. But the missing part was to involve the younger generation in this event apart from all the traditional activities such as Chinese Opera, Acrobatics, traditional dance and instrumental playings. There were also looking for some modern art etc. So, I was programmed in this big event along with my short film ‘A Single Step’. Then I started to contact our Kungfu Performing team and did the choreography and rehearsal. I was happy to ask around in my network and tip my friends to participate in this event .  . Because you can’t be successful alone, you need each other!

Carmen our hard working volunteer, look how happy she is!

To me, it was very challenging to have a good Kungfu show in front of so many people on stage of Stadschouwburg Theatre. Remembering when I was a kid watching shows in the same theater.           July 1998

I was so excited about it and able to do something for the Chinese community, promoting the culture to different societies is really great! It is meaningful and you can learn so many things and the experience it’s just goood.. It brightens up my life more and more! And I hope you guys are enjoying it too!

Oké, enough talkies, time for some pics right? 😉

Here are some VIP BACKSTAGE PICTURES

wow, this plug is huge!                                                         and the floor was kind of hard . .  ouch

The big day =)

This is the place where we transformed ssssst, and I was wearing my artists bracelet which able me to get access to the backstage and of course the food supply =)

Well, this is my auntie. She has taken care of me for a while when I was kid. I am happy to see her here, sharing the stage with her and our thoughts about the performance. She’s part of the Chinese traditional dance group.

Nervous?  Of course more or less we are, especially the last few minutes before the show, but once on stage you are so focused to your performance that you forget about it. The most exciting moment to me was when we were upstairs at the top row of the balcony looking down on the stage, fully crowded. That was really amazing. It felt like butterflies in your stomach. Standing next to me was Koon, I remember that moment; Koon, we are performing there on stage . . man, that’s amazing, wow!

5 minutes left, we were getting ready backstage. It was quite funny at that special moment, because we all had our own posture. Koon was lying on the ground looking to the cool blue ceiling and David was meditating, the other was lying flat on the floor, everyone has its own way to release, which was quite special. We were waiting for the technical sign, I saw the previous performing group walk by, then I heard one of the Chinese opera performers whispering my name, and I walked to the woman in the beautiful emperor’s costume. At first sight I couldn’t recognize her, but it is another auntie of mine! So I to talked to her spontaneously and she answered immediately: Ssssst.. the microphone on my neck is turned on! So everybody could hear us talking haha

My auntie doing the Make Up

The sphere was great! Really love being on stage entertaining the audience, for the fans and warm applause! Love you guys!

I want to thank everybody for coming. It was a wonderful day and love all  the great responses!