Last minute performance

I really do not appreciate being given twelve hours notice to change my usual Sunday morning plans. Yet that is what happened to me. At 8:30pm yesterday I got a call from Sifu saying that instead of doing my usual and wandering down to Loftus to do the admin for the tai chi class, I was to go to UWA, apparently for a demonstration. I wasn't able to get much more information out of Sifu apart from the fact that I was expected to wear black pants and white top, and that it was for some Chinese TV show.

Uh oh...Smerk's on film! Fortunately, I wasn't alone - there were twelve of us all up.

Because I wasn't too sure as to where I was headed, Mum ended up driving me down to the Uni first thing in the morning, taking a scenic route through King's Park. Unfortunately, I didn't have much of an opportunity to take photos of either King's Park or UWA. Once at UWA, after standing round for about half an hour, we finally were informed that we then needed to go to a completely different campus about ten minutes drive down the road. Aaargh!

Once at the correct location, we were shown through the building to where there was an oval. And cameras, both film and still. It turns out that a group of people from a province in China have decided to do a documentary (to be shown in China) on Chinese culture in Western society in the lead-up to Chinese New Year (7th of February this year). So not only was there us doing tai chi, there was a beginner's Mandarin class, an Urhu player, calligraphy class and a tea ceremony.

So we did the usual run-through of the 28 form. After, four of us were told to get out our weapons. I got to have the fun of running through sabre and sword form with three guys. And the camera-men were rather in-your-face about filming. Literally. I actually came close to hitting one of them in the head with my sword towards then end of the demo. Sadly, you can't see it in the film below, as Sifu ended up stepping between Mum with her camera and myself.


Sabre video - try to ignore the camera wobble in the middle!




Sword video - where I nearly decapitate the camera-man at the end (and which you can't see, unfortunately).

Excitement!

Well, I know a few people may have already seen this on the forum...but it's now official. My ticket has been paid for, and I can pick it up this week. As of April 6, 2008, I will be flying across the world to Maryland, USA. And staying there for about four weeks. And yes, I am going there specifically to meet Acci. Now get your minds out of the gutter!




Gah, doesn't seem like much time to get ready in. In other ways, it seems like an awfully long time away.

However, one tiny annoyance is that I've got a day in between flights at Los Angeles...so I'm going to have to find out what exactly my options are in relation to that.

Eeek...