The second day of the 2nd World Traditional Wushu Championships started with the first international competitors taking to the three mats of the Zhengzhou No. 47 High School Gymnasium shortly after 8:30am (Chinese competitors except for the Beijing team were all competing separately at the Zhengzhou Gymnasium). Chen style Taiji, Taiji Apparatuses, and male weapons groups took up most of the schedule today for the international competitors.
As competitions came to a close in the morning, one last competitor, a young Myanmar child showstopped with an incredibly skilful monkey staff routine which had just about every person in the arena cheering. The judges didn’t agree with the audience entirely though, which was seen again several times, pointing out that this was a Traditional Wushu competition, and that often quick, clean, precise, and technical motions got higher marks than gymnastic manoeuvres with no martial application.
As shown by some teams who came to the competition were already sporting Olympic logos on their uniforms (in preparation for competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics Wushu demonstration) some it seemed didn’t understand this point until perhaps it was too late! Traditional wushu competitions seem to be occurring with much-increasing regularity in China, as more and more people wish to separate the real martial arts performances from the acrobatic “martial arts dancing” which defines modern sport wushu (as popularized by movies and countless internet videos).
There were no competing during the evening, as it was off to see another incredible visual spectacle, this time at the Henan Sports Centre, a large sports stadium. Again in a large police-escorted convoy, all of the attendees made their way to the stadium. Upon arrival, athletes and coaches lined up behind their countries flags, before being marched into the stadium in an Olympics-style procession past the audience. While waiting to enter the stadium, the athletes had their first glimpse at the impressive-looking stage set for the evening, easly 100 metres wide and half as deep, with large staircases and 8 large pillars which looked reminiscent of the concrete ‘birdsnest’ stadium under construction in Beijing.
After making their way up into the stands, the attendees (along with 10,000+ other people who came to watch the show) were treated to another evening of music, martial arts-inspired performances, stunning visual displays, and the ubiquitous Chinese display of excessive amounts of fireworks. The one other thing the evening included was performances from some of China’s top pop music groups, which is something most foreigners could have done without, since Chinese pop sounds like Western pop from 10 years ago (which we’ve all tired of by now, right?).
The fact that it was in unintelligible Chinese didn’t help for most! All in all, it was a fantastic show, one that appeared to be worth the 20 million RMB price tag of the evening.
After this evening and the last, one thing was clear—the Chinese are great at putting on huge shows.
