2016 TIGER CLAW ELITE CHAMPIONSHIPS: PART 1 – A BARREL OF MONKEYSby Gene Ching

Whoever coined the phrase "More fun than a barrel of monkeys" never faced real monkeys in the wild. Monkey aren't always fun. They can be vicious, not just because they have huge fangs, but because they are intelligent. They can do more than

attack you physically. They can get to you psychologically. I say this for two reasons: #1. None of my personal encounters with wild monkeys have ever gone well, and #2. 2016 is the Year of the Monkey, which had a profound effect on this year's Championships. The 2016 Tiger Claw Elite Championships was fraught with challenges and obstacles, more so than any previous year. We've been producing the Tiger Claw Elite Championships since 2006, and since 2009 we've also been producing the Tiger Claw KungFuMagazine.com Championship under the Tiger Claw umbrella. You'd think we'd have it down by now. But there's just no accounting for Monkey mischief, no matter how well prepared you might be.Kung Fu Tai Chi’s Publisher, Gigi Oh, blamed the bulk of our misfortunes on 2016 being a Fire Monkey year. Now, I’m not a believer in Feng Shui, and this is a constant source of contention between Gigi and me. Gigi has a lot of faith, especially in Chinese culture. I was trained as a scientist in grad school, plus I'm a skeptic by nature. It has served me well with all the martial charlatans that come my way. There's nothing like the rigor of science. Only science can advance medicine and technology, providing us with luxuries like the computer that I'm writing this on now and the internet which you are reading this on too. But science also robs us of our faith. It's like the forbidden fruit of Genesis. Once bitten, "your eyes shall be opened" and you are cast out of that Eden of naiveté. And after you see the Emperor's new clothes with your own naked eyes, you can never un-see that.But sometimes, I must concede. To quote Ian Fleming from his Bond book Goldfinger, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times, it's enemy action.” My addendum to this is that anything over four times is the Fire Monkey mucking up your year...and your tournament. This year certainly wasn’t "barrel of monkeys" fun. Submitted for your approval, my annual behind-the-scenes look at the 2016 Tiger Claw Elite Championships. I apologize that it’s a little tardy this year. I said I would have this up when the September+October 2016 issue came out on the newsstands where the official report on this event is published; that issue will still be on the newsstands when this is published, but only for another week or so. At least this will allow me to make an announcement at the end, so read through for that. But I do have an excuse for the delay. Blame it on the monkey. A Tiger Cannot Beat a Troupe of Monkeys

The Year of the Fire Monkey is one of turmoil, especially in politics, as we've all seen. The United States was founded in the Year of the Monkey, so perhaps we're getting more than our fair share. Many mistakenly believe that good fortune awaits you in your birth year, but Feng Shui doesn't always work that way. Sometimes, it's quite the opposite. So I'll start this tale by

relating a personal Monkey Astrology story to explain my monkey animosity. In 1997, I was traveling across India studying yogaand making pilgrimages to the Buddhist sites with my wife. My wife is into astrology, so while we were in the sacred city of Rishikesh, a renowned center of spiritual studies, she found an astrologer to do her horoscope. It was an amazing experience. After a night’s work, not only did that astrologer deliver a sheaf of hand-drawn diagrams and explanations specific to her birth, he made out a prescription for jewelry, set with specific semi-precious stones in a particular order that was allegedly attuned just to her astrological needs. We found a local jeweler to custom make an extraordinarily beautiful piece based on this prescription. Whether you believe or not, I highly recommend this should you ever find yourself in Rishikesh. That jewelry remains a treasured souvenir. In case you’re curious, Indian Astrology uses a zodiac similar to Western Astrology. It’s not the Asian animals of Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon and so on. It’s the Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, what most Westerners know as the zodiac.I bring this up not as any sort of validation of astrology, but as a testament to monkey intelligence, more specifically, how a monkey can get in your head. As the astrologer explained his forecast to my wife, I sat waiting in the tiny courtyard of his abode. It was a warm Indian summer day, and I was drowsy from traveling. Suddenly, there was a loud clang. A rock landed on a corrugated steel roof, close to where I was resting. I looked up to see a large black monkey in a tree outside the courtyard staring me down like an MMA fighter at a weigh-in. Warily, I tried to ignore it and doze off again, when CLANG! Another rock on the roof. The monkey didn’t break eye contact. It kept staring at me as if to say, "What you gonna do?" This went on for a long time. It was really irritating. Finally, the astrologer came out and said, "Black-faced monkey?" I nodded wearily. "This monkey has been bothering me for weeks. Always the same. Rocks on the roof. He doesn’t want food. He just wants to bother me." That monkey kept biding his time, until I’d drop my guard, then toss another rock on the roof. He could have thrown a rock directly at me if he wanted, but it wasn't about that. It was about monkeying with me personally, monkeying with my mind. I gave the monkey a nasty look and could have sworn he was grinning back in a smarmy way, gleeful about tormenting me, just for the fun of it. Monkeys are like that. Not only do they mess with you, they do so with malice aforethought. And they think it's funny.Now I said earlier that I’m a skeptic. I’m not superstitious, except for one thing. I believe that when Mercury goes into retrograde, chaos ensues. If you know astrology or astronomy, you know retrograde motion. If you don’t, retrograde motion is when planetary orbits appear to move backwards. This is based on the medieval assumption that the sun, the moon and all the planets revolved around the earth. Now we know that only the moon revolves around the earth and everything revolves around the sun; but back in ancient times, retrograde motion was an explanation to cover up the fact that the observations didn’t match with the theory. It’s an excuse, a massive rationalization to hide a fundamental error in the paradigm. Such rationalizations occur throughout history and I’m sure there are many still in play today. Heck, my scientific side says that blaming my misfortunes on monkeys is a massive rationalization. I’ve always thought Mercury in retrograde was a funny historical footnote until my wife started pointing out how many things go awry during that period. Maybe it’s just that I focus on them more during Mercury in retrograde, so I notice them more often. Perhaps it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy now. Whatev. I just know to be cautious during these times (Mercury goes into retrograde for a few weeks three to four times a year). In 2016, Mercury was in retrograde from April 28 to May 22. The Tiger Claw Elite Championships and KUNG FU TAI CHI DAY were May 21–22. So my "scientifical" side was denying Gigi's foreboding Feng Shui forecasts, but there was a nagging superstitious voice in the back of my mind saying, "Beware Mercury. Beware monkeys."As the Tiger Claw Elite Championships approached, I wasn't in good shape. I was dealing with some bad tendonitis in my right arm, akin to tennis elbow. More specifically, it was "sword elbow" but that sounds horribly pretentious. I've been a swordsman for four decades. It's what drew me into Kung Fu. I’ve practiced swordplay regularly since middle school and had been training Shaolin Meihua Dao assiduously under Shi Yantuo until he moved his school to San Diego. Then I transferred to train in Seven Star Praying Mantis under Master He Tao. It was the first time in my life that I stopped regularly training with swords, and wouldn't you know it, I blew my elbow. That's the problem with Kung Fu sometimes. If you've been doing it all your life, sometimes you just can't stop or you'll hurt yourself. I was getting regular chiropractic treatments on my elbow and had to wear an elbow band, and you never want to go to a martial event with such an obvious injury. It's a sign of weakness, and you never want to appear weak in the martial world. It made me very self-conscious.The first sign of monkey business was the Tiger Claw Judges' Union meeting. For the past four years, we've been holding two meetings just prior to the Championships in order to go over rules and get all the judges on the same page. Judging is

key to the integrity of any contest, but most Chinese martial arts tournaments don't even hold preparatory judges' meetings, or if they do, they are really short and just prior to the competition. The TCJU meetings last a few hours and are catered, plus we give all attendees some gifts and back issues as further incentives. Almost every single martial arts tournament in America is judged by volunteer judges, and as the old saying goes, "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." Through the TCJU, we strive to elevate the level of judging by rewarding the judges with more perks. They even get Claw Cash rewards for every competitor they judge, which is a lot better than peanuts.

I am tasked to lead the judges meetings, and they are usually very insightful. But this year, one of the meetings got totally derailed by an attendee who took the short introduction period as an opportunity to promote himself. As he stuffed his face with our provided lunch, he launched into an absurd rant about how he was involved with the Taiwanese Navy, how he held multiple doctorates and how he was one of the world's greatest scientists. My charlatan skepticism radar immediately sounded the alarm. Same with the other attendees. I'd never met this person before (we always get newbies – that's part of the point of these meetings) and I didn't want to be impolite, but after a few minutes I had to shut him down. It was getting too weird, too off topic, and wasting too much time. As it turned out, he wasn't even a judge. He was a driver for one of the attendees. What the heck? Blame the monkey.As the event drew nearer, tensions grew at the office like they always do, but many of the obstacles were beyond our control. The hotel we had originally reserved for our guests was oversold, despite our contract, so we had to scramble to find additional lodging at the last minute. Most of our staff had to be moved to another hotel that was miles away, near to the airport. There was also an issue with the confirmation numbers, which mysteriously changed halfway during the booking process, sending many of our attendees into a tizzy. What's more, we were working with a new silk-screening process for metallics. We were all very excited to debut our new line of Red Asian Henleys for the official judges' shirts, and these were to be emblazoned with these new gold metallic images. The gold came out really nice, but backwards. There was some monkey business in production and we didn't get the product until it was too late to fix. We were still able to get the front logos in gold, but the custom back labels that designated the Judges and Staff couldn't be saved. Fortunately, Tiger Claw does tons of jobs for tournaments so we have stock "Judges" and "Staff" logos, but they were far inferior to what we had envisioned.

What’s more, while the custom medals came out well this year (over a pound each!) again, there was monkey meddling. For some unknown reason, the manufacturers only stained the bronze medals, not the gold or silver medals. The staining brought out the details of the design more vibrantly, so the bronze medals ended up looking the best. All the medals came out well, but they would have been far better if all of them had been stained. So before we even got on site, there were a lot of left-handed monkey wrenches thrown into the works, but none as devastating as what was to come.

2016 TIGER CLAW ELITE CHAMPIONSHIPS: PART 2 – MONKEY STEALS THE PEACH

The most famous Chinese monkey is the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, from the 16th century epic Journey to the West; but

the Fire Monkey doesn't evoke Sun Wukong to me. He was actually born of a stone, which suggests the earth element, not fire. The next Year of the Monkey will be an Earth Monkey – that'll be in 2028. One of the Monkey King's greatest obstacles was fire. He couldn't cross the Flaming Mountains with his companions, so he had to trick Princess Iron Fan so as to procure her magic fan. It was the only way to extinguish the flames and guarantee safe passage.For me, the Fire Monkey evokes the other Monkey King, Hanuman from the 11th century Indian epic Ramayana. After the villainous demon Ravana managed to capture Hanuman, he had his tail set on fire. Hanuman escaped and fled through Ravana's demon city of Lanka, setting it all on fire with his tail. That's how this year's Tiger Claw Elite Championship and KUNG FU DAY CHI DAY felt to me, like Hanuman, leaping through the event, setting everything on fire. But it was mostly due to one incident, one huge monkey wrench that completely put me off my game this year.The load-in on Friday went extraordinarily well, the smoothest it has ever gone. On the Kung Fu side, we had some extra help from two longstanding members of my Dragon Crew and dear Kung Fu brothers, Hoel Ranier and Nesto Vineagra, who generously came early, plus Chris Lewin, who is now a salesperson for Tiger Claw (so he has no choice in the matter anymore). In addition, several of Jerry Silva's students pitched in. Jerry brought four students out all the way from his National Martial Arts Academy in Aurora, Colorado: Keenan Graham, Preston Land, Faris Maalika and Candace "Kat" Saults. A few of them came by as we were setting up, just to be social I imagine, but they generously offered to help. People always say they want to help, but when it gets down to it, they often flake. We offered them the task of putting up a few signs, and they immediately rolled up their sleeves and jumped right in, putting up all of them. They were absolutely great and I salute them. It's this kind of support that keeps the martial arts community thriving.Just like every year, the Koreans helped out with the early part of our load-in, mostly because the KungFuMagazine.com side has to be loaded in first. Once the large portions of our section are done, they vanish over to their side to load in their Cash Taekwondo, cranking up their K-pop music like always, still with the Gangnam Style (srsly? That’s so twenty-twelve). And like in years past, no one on our side remembered to bring our own boom box, so we just have to suffer through it. But I shouldn’t be so critical. The Korean support is priceless, especially with the dreaded Wushu carpet. This year, the Wushu carpet load-in went so smoothly that we all stood there stunned after we laid it out, astounded at how effortless it was. I should’ve known it was just that monkey, bidding his time until I dropped my guard.We finished our part of the load-in early, which gave me plenty of time to get back to the office for the Open House and Welcoming Banquet. It’s usually a struggle for me to get to the Welcoming Banquet because it’s always on Friday so the commute is horrendous. I’ve never even made it to the Open House before. I had the honor of chauffeuring my dear old friend, Master Grace Wu-Monnat, her student Michael who I’ve known for several years, and Tai Chi Master Pan Shuming. One more thing – I had recently bought a new car, a black CR-V, and was very proud of it. It still had that new car smell.So I gathered up my riders and whisked them up to the Open House with time to spare. Everyone was having a blast, posing for photos, schmoozing, and reuniting with old friends. That’s what it’s all about. Then we went to the Welcoming Banquet just down the street for a huge Chinese buffet. Everything was going really well, until that Mercury-in-retrograde Monkey reared its head, and dropped a huge rock on my roof.As the banquet crowd thinned out and I was just about to do the same, Kathy Yang, the lovely and skillful daughter of Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming, came up to me and said, “I think someone broke into your car.” She had parked right next to me, so she knew which car was mine. Sure enough, someone had smashed my back window and grabbed my gear. Damn monkey.

I used to work in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. This was back in the late eighties, early nineties, long before it was the gentrified place it is today. Back then, I’d get a break-in every three or four months (after a while, we were convinced it was the glass repair shops nearby doing it). So for years I’ve had this reflex to leave my car empty or cover up my stuff so as not to tempt thieves. I like wagons and haven't owned a car with a trunk in years. So I intentionally get cars with a black interior because if you toss a black towel over something in that, it’s like a magician’s trick and vanishes in low light. But I was sloppy. My car was packed with gear for the tournament and I didn’t take the time to toss my towel over it all. What’s more, I didn’t set the alarm because it makes this annoying bleating honk. After all, the neighborhood around our office isn’t crime-ridden by any means. It was still broad daylight. But still, I dropped my guard for a moment and that ol’ Monkey dropped a flaming rock, right on my brand new car.The ironic part was that the banquet hall had some 60+ Kung Fu masters and grandmasters attending. If anyone had seen anything, the outcome would have been very different. There was a security guard for the complex, but he really didn’t know what to do, and I had to advise him to file a report (not that I really know anything but I’ve watched some police procedural shows on TV). I pointed out a security camera but (unlike those police procedural shows) it was pointed the wrong direction. And the police don’t even respond to car break-ins anymore. They make you file your own report…over the internet, no less.Several things were taken, two personal bags and the First Aid medical kit (with an expensive AED) that was generously on loan to me from an organization I volunteer at – Rock Medicine. Rock Med has supported our Championships for years as a personal favor to me as I hold a seat on their Advisory Board and I’m always grateful for that. Losing that med kit hurt more than losing my personal effects because Rock Med is a charitable group and there’s just something inherently evil about stealing from charitable groups. I trust that there's a special place in hell for those thieves. That's a vengeance-loaded hope. Martial arts are vengeful; just look at our movies. It’s not a Karma thing. Many believe Karma is like a bank – you get karmic credit and karmic debt. But really Karma is about cause and effect. The cause – I dropped my guard; the effect – the monkey snatched my stuff.

Of my personal bags, one contained all my gear for the tournament: my notes, my cache of emergency repair equipment, various forms and my heavily annotated rulebook, honorary medals for my Dragon Crew in custom presentation boxes, and other assorted necessities for the weekend's events. My other bag was my personal affects: one of my best Jerry Garcia ties (but I have so many Jerry ties and I hardly ever wear ties), one of my best Shaolin Malas (I have so many of these too), one of my best Grateful Dead T-shirts that I had worn during load-in (again, I have many, but this one was from the previous years’ Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago, and I had actually bought it for myself despite having several duffel bags of T-shirts already), my underwear, my meds, and my dress shoes. Fortunately, they didn’t grab my suits as they were in black garment bags and vanished like that magician’s trick.Everyone was very supportive, helping me to clean up the broken glass and get it all sorted. Grace, Michael and Pan found other rides back to the hotel and I headed home to replenish my stolen goods (my meds are a daily necessity) and file the police report online. It's always tough to sleep on the night before a tournament, but with this added stress, my brain circus kept me up all night with monkeys running amok. It was a relief when Saturday came so I could stop faking being asleep and just make my way back to San Jose.A Monkey Remains a Monkey, Though Dressed in Silk

This year

marked a major change to the Tiger Claw KungFuMagazine.com Championship. We expanded to a two-day event, coupling Sunday with KUNG FU TAI CHI DAY. Everything was moved indoors under the massive canopy that is the San Jose McEnery Convention Center's South Hall. Personally, I had a lot of trepidation about this. I really enjoyed having KUNG FU TAI CHI DAY in the park. That was always a lovely way to finish the weekend. However, this year, it rained on Saturday. The storm let up on Sunday, but it was still very blustery, and we've had issues with the park being too windy in the past. We were grateful that it turned out so, because had we committed to the park this year, it would have been miserable.I'm always one of the very first to arrive on site, and this year I was extra early. I have to get the Dragon Crew in first because they control the gates. Beyond the aforementioned Chris, Hoel and Nesto, the 2016 Dragon Crew was Rich Anderson, Paul Blair, Raven Burton, Lucas Cendejas, Melissa Do, Andrew Emmert, Dave Hardy, Jeff Hung, Kuga Pence, Ti Pence, Edgar Puga, Mark Rodriguez, Manh-Tong Tran, and Lori White. Also under the Dragon Crew umbrella was the video crew of Bad Ass Bunny – Director Greg Lynch (who also gets on site super early to set up) and his cameramen Mark Maggi and Gary Shockley (who is also the Copy Editor for Kung Fu Tai Chi).I was pretty out of it without my notes and such, not to mention still smarting from the injustice of being robbed. Word had spread about the robbery and everyone was very sympathetic. I was feeling more self-conscious about my shoes than my tendonitis elbow band. I only had one pair of dress shoes, so I had to make do with my regular street shoes. Only my Kung Fu sister, Rhea Go, seemed to notice. Or at least she was the only one who commented on it.On the whole, the 2016 Tiger Claw Elite Championships ran relatively smoothly as far as the actual competition went. I'm always astonished at how efficiently the Koreans run the Tiger Claw Elite Taekwondo Championship. Actually they may well have their own issues; I'm too focused on our side, the Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship. Splitting our championship into two days made it feel luxurious. There wasn't that intense pressure to finish on time. Saturday only really bogged down at the beginning with our new event, the 1st Wushu Nandu Championship.Organizers Emilio Alpanseque, Brandon Sugiyama and Matt Wong put in a lot of time and effort to make that event run smoothly, and it did for the most part. However, Modern Wushu has real rules. All the other divisions in Chinese tournaments are judged subjectively. Sure, there are rules and a system of deductions, but judges aren’t held to that as stringently as they are with Modern Wushu. Wushu judges must calculate the errors. It’s not just holding up a scorecard. It’s a lot of tabulation and that takes time. There is a computer system for Wushu scoring we didn’t have because it is exorbitantly expensive; and in the end, only eight competitors took to the carpet. We spent a lot of time and energy to present this new event in hopes of encouraging the development of Modern Wushu in the United States. Was it worth the entrance fees? Definitely not. But it was an important gesture.In the same manner, we held a one-off special showcase division – the Monkey King Championships – in honor of 2016. Again, the number of entries wasn’t overwhelming – three adults and eight "Monkey Kids" – but it was a lot of fun. I might even say "barrels of fun" but that would contradict the general tone of my tale here.

The WildAid Tiger Claw Championship was the most successful. Inspired by the Year of the Tiger, this showcase division has grown to be the centerpiece of the 2016 Tiger Claw Elite Championships and generated $2000 towards WildAid’s efforts to end illegal wildlife trade within our lifetimes. This has always been one of my personal pet projects. I’ve worked on it since 1998, the previous Year of the Tiger, when I covered Jackie Chan’s dedication to the cause in the November+December 1996 issue of World of Martial Arts .Both the Monkey King Championships and the WildAid Tiger Claw Championships were held on Sunday alongside the internal competition of Tiger Claw Elite KungFuMagazine.com Championship. Now combined with KUNG FU TAI CHI DAY, being inside South Hall wasn’t nearly as nice as being outside in the park; but it was a blustery day so we were glad to have shelter. The Mass Demonstration of Simplified 24 Taiji wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. We only did it once, whereas last year we had so much fun we did it twice. While we did have some attendees across both days, I’d venture to say that the mean age went up several decades on Sunday. Tai Chi draws a more mature crowd and that minty Tiger Balm aroma filled South Hall. In contrast, as that tiny dot of yang in the field of yin, Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng held his invitation-only 99 Power Qigong demonstration. Watch some guy lift extremely heavy weights with his privates? Well, that’s not something you see every day, and it just never gets old.

Kill a Chicken to Frighten a MonkeyWhen I returned to the office, I found some consolation in a beautiful pendant left on my desk. It is Chinese custom for guests to bring some sort of token gifts, and I’ve grateful for all of that I have received (I’m especially fond of fine green tea, and the aforementioned Master Pan Shuming picked up on that and generously gave me some when we crossed paths again a few months later). So it wasn’t unusual to find some offering on my desk, but seldom something so precious. It is from Wudang Mountain, a traditional representation of Zhang San Feng, attributed as the creator of Tai Chi. I made a pilgrimage to Wudang in 1999 and had collected many souvenirs, but none as striking as this one. The pendant was in an elegant black presentation box with silver foil lettering. It is made of solid silver with a decent chain, much finer than anything that was available when I went. So many touristy Chinese tchotchkes found at holy places are made from pot metal or even chromed plastic. I was delighted and asked Gigi who left it for me. She said it was Grandmaster He Qi. I was like ‘wait…what?’ Grandmaster He Qi attended our year's Tiger Claw Elite Championship and KUNG FU DAY CHI DAY last year. Srsly? This pendant has been buried on my desk for an entire year? Well, given the general state of disorder of my desk, I suppose that’s plausible. I love the pendant. It has become one of my favorites and I wore it often over the summer. It was a small consolation, but given the car window, I’ll take it.A few days later I was sitting in a Star Wars-themed Bar & Grill eating a grilled cheese sandwich and waiting for my rear glass window to be replaced. When I bought the car, that window was one of my few trepidations. The 2016 CR-Vs have a unique back window, and with the defrosting coils, I knew it would be expensive if I ever had to replace it. It was just shy of a grand and unfortunately my insurance didn’t cover it at all. As I nibbled at my pickle, all I could think was, "Goddamned monkey.”Next year is the 25th Anniversary of Kung Fu Tai Chi Festival. We’re staging a three-day event on May 19–21, 2017. It will also be the Year of the Fire Rooster, or as I’m going to call it, Year of the Flaming Cock. I have no idea what that might bring, but the Monkey business won’t be a factor and Mercury won’t be in retrograde then. A quarter century and still on the newsstands, so we’re going to celebrate in a big way. I hope you’ll join us.