WOW! I AM A WORLD CHAMPION!?!

World Games with Parents

Official medals are tomorrow, but according to the scoreboards I took GOLD in Straight Sword at the World Wushu Championships!

Today was a crazy day! I was the 5th straight sword competitor to compete and when I finished I was 1st on the scoreboard. I was actually MORE nervous AFTER after I competed because every time a score came out I was afraid it would bump me to 2nd. Alas.. after all the competitors went, my name was still first! I was in disbelief because things just happened so quickly.

A little back story- Everyone I train with in US wushu understands that Worlds is such a big tournament with competitors from around the world and most asian countries train professionally so its very difficult for US wushu athletes who work/go to school/and have busy lives and wushu schools that dont have top of the line professional wushu equipment/carpet. Therefore, once I made my dream of making the team, my next goal was to place top 6 at worlds. I thought this was a pretty legit goal to finalize my wushu career and let me retire happily. Afterall, the requirements to attend the 2008 Beijing Wushu Olympic Tournament required that you place top 6 in an event to qualify.. that would prove that I was at an Olympic caliber of wushu. However, thanks to people who didn’t understand wushu MANY people would say things like.. “dont come back without the gold” or “good luck on your tournament.. we will be awaiting news of you taking gold” and stuff like that. Well.. at first I would try to explain, but after a while I got tired and then said.. “okay, thanks! I am going to get gold!”

Well you know what? On the plane and on the john I had a lot of time to think.. why go for 6th when I can go for first? Why limit my mentality to top 6th.. that sounds wack anyways.. “hey guys I am shooting for third”.. how does that sound anyways? So literally by 2 days before my actual competition (look at the poem in my previous entry) I convinced myself that I was GOING TO GET GOLD. I was convinced… and somehow I did it! I will have to say that a lot of people and factors definitely helped me. My parents were here on the first day and they gave me a ride to the competition, my friends and coaches gave me really good advice and support before I competed.. and so on.. every little bit helped in my opinion.

Another interesting story about changing my mind set – When my parents found out that I made the US Wushu Team and would be going to Worlds in Canada.. they decided to make a vacation on the same time just so we could fly out to Toronto together.. then they would visit Niagra Falls and New York. At first my mom said she would just drop me off at the hotel and wish me luck because she gets too nervous watching me compete. I also thought that I would be MORE nervous knowing my parents were in the stands so I said that would be a good idea. THEN I thought to myself – Hey! Am I preparing for failure or for success? How are my parents going to see me WIN GOLD if they arent there to watch it? So when I started convincing myself I would win first, I told them “you know what? you have to come watch my first event… since you guys are already there and its the first event in the morning, just stay and watch.. no worries =)” and of course they did and then they got to see me do my best straight sword competition performance ever.

In bad news I sprained my ankle warming up for spear. Some judges said that we would start at 7pm exactly and we would have all the way until 7 to warm up. I JUST started warming up at 6:30 and they kicked everyone off the carpet at 6:40 so I had NO time to warm up. I ran back on the carpet quickly to run through a few jumps, but in my haste and cuz the carpet was a lil slippery I fell and sprained my ankle on my aerial takeoff.

Check my ankle out:

Sprained ankle

Just some updates for those on the other side of town. Colvin took 2nd in Spear losing only to Wu Di from China. Congrats to my wushu brother Wu Di who became world champion in spear today. Peter Dang got 9.58 in staff. He’s been my roommate at worlds and I’m glad I got to kick it with him more on this trip. We are both naruto junkies. lol. Sarah Chang got top 10 (8th i think) in Chang Quan.

Big thanks to my parents, Shahaub and Collin Lee (who I summoned naruto style) for cheering for me like crazy mofos. I am so glad I got to share this moment with you guys!

Straight Sword World Champion and Spear World Champion

Sorry for the nudity =P but I just wanted to post this pic again because this was around April of this year before I even made the US Team and before Wu Di made the China Team. I just think it’s crazy that about 7 months later we both realized our dreams and became Straight Sword World Champion and Spear World Champion. Anyways, congrats to everyone. I’m just really excited about placing first at worlds and want to inspire others by letting them know in the power of believing… and when others doubt, dont talk back, just SHOW them.