Truth revealed...

Yes I know what you guys are thinking. You must'd be thinking, "What lar Chun Eng...", "Trying to be so secretive", yada yada yada... You may even be cursing me right now for trying to be mysterious.... so now it's all been revealed. I'll be going to China next weekend. Yes it's C-H-I-N-A and I'll be there for a week.

Many of you who had read my few previous post would have realised that I'll be travelling to somewhere since I had my passport made. Ash tried guessing that it has something to do with my lion dance. Nope, it's not. My lion dancing skills and stunts are not up to any competition standards. But he was close. Very very close. It's something to do with my Kung Fu.

I'll be actually competing in the 2nd World Traditional Wushu Championship to be held from Oct 14 - 19 at Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. The image on the left is the logo of the International Wushu Federation. Here are the details. And here are the schedules. So you guys must'd be saying... "Fuyoh... Chun Eng... competing in world championship".... yeah yeah yeah... I know what you guys are thinking. I know my friends quite well. Otherwise, we won't be friends in the first place, right???!!!.

The fact is... how I even got selected in the first place is nothing to be proud of. So I thought it was best left untold until I feel it's necessary to tell. It's not the case of only the best will go to China. There was no selection for the place in the team to the championship, and no, I am not representing Malaysia as a national athlete. Rather, I'm just a contestant from Malaysia. Big difference. Traditional Wushu isn't recognised by the Malaysian Sports Council (MSN) by the way. So we're there at our own expense.

Modern Wushu has alot of 'ridiculous' acrobatic moves and stance while the traditional Wushu is what you see in the old Chinese martial art movies. The word 'Kung Fu' are sometimes used to refer to traditional Wushu while Wushu refers to the modern.

Anyway, the Wushu Federation of Malaysia (WFM) is made up of a few Wushu/Kung Fu associations that becomes affiliates to the federation. And from what I know, each are allowed to send a number of participants. My sifu chose 6 people to go but only 3 are going. The other 3 didn't want to go.

How did I ever become 1 of the 6? Well... I'm not sure myself. My guess is that the winners of our own internal competition are selected, judging from the people that was initially selected. Here's the funny part. Every year my association would organise an internal competition among the branches/schools that are under this association. My school is in a dying state and there were no seniors representing it. So I decided to compete, just to make up the numbers. But somehow, I made a sweep in the senior events. Considering that I have not been actively competing for the past 4 years and was way off my old form and the absense of some really excellent ones that were to compete in the 1st World Junior Championship held in KL back in August, it was really a surprise that I won.

And since I've won, I was thus selected eventhough my sifu did mention to me that I did 'shit' during that competition. And that I have to train like shit in the hope of regaining my old form, which I'm still struggling by the way.

So I've started training since then but could only train with my sifu once a week. Other days, I just did some workout to strengthen my muscles on my own and do jogging whenever possible. But due to work commitments, the rain and haze, I couldn't do much jogging at the park near my house. You could say that my preparation wasn't going too well. So, I could only pray that I'd do well. Not to win, but to do well. Winning will be a bonus.

So there you have it. The truth and nothing but the truth. When I'm there, I'll try to post updates and lots and lots of photos whenever possible. Otherwise, will just have to wait until get back. Till then, guys, please wish me luck and pray for my success.