Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Chen Zhenglei's elite tournament was this year dedicated to 120th anniversary
of the birth of Chen Zhaopei,
the teacher of todays' grandmasters.
Our team from master Fu's school from Yangshuo comprised of ten members,
out of that a few coaches and 3 Westerners.
At memorial ceremony we saw a number of great taiji masters, among others
Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei,
Zhu Tiancai, *** Xian and
some Zaopei's
direct descendants.
It was very nice to see Chen Zhenglei's best disciples in black uniforms.
Together with tha master they performed short 18 form,
and the same next day at the opening ceremony.
At the competition there were about 500 performers,
out of that only a few Westerners
so that we Westerners were competing together with the Chinese.
Our performances were evaluated according to strict Chinese rules
the judges didn't show any favoritism,
on the contrary, we had to really do our best
because Chinese are
very flexible and they can easily go down in the stances like
Crouching tiger, Snake creeps down
while we Westerners are not able to do that so here we would all lose good points.
Barehand forms were performed 5 minutes, with weapons 2 to 4 minutes.
Among performers there were many elder people
even above 60 years
who were very able to.
Competition was really tight.
In general, there was a lot of a very good taiji.
The system of rewarding is such that certain percantage get
medals.
Gold medal thus not mean that you are the only one and the first but that
you are classified
at the top level of the group.
Solange in her flawless stance,
and Moei while performing Erlu,
our coach Fred.
We from our school got quite good results; mainly we got medals for third place,
our four coaches and
we two with two bronze and two silver medals.
At the competition we made many new friendships, acquaintances,
we spent a lot of time together, kept company and
as Master Fu says here it is not only a matter
of medals, of recognition but it is a king of family
gathering - of all taiji players.