So, I’m back from China, and it’s been long enough now that I’ve sort of assimilated what happened a little bit.

The Second World Traditional Wushu Championships was good overall:

My forms went well – I was particularly happy with the two-handed sword. No medals this time, though.

The events were fantastic. In particular, the opening ceremony was nothing short of astounding. It was in a stadium probably twice the size of Aussie Stadium, which was half full of stage and half full of people. We got to do the walk through the center thing like at the Olympics, and I can completely understand why the Olympic athletes come out of it on a huge high. It was AWESOME. After the walk, we were treated to an hour and a half of high production values craziness, with huge HK and Chinese stars and heaps of awesome wushu.

The next big event was the trip to the Shaolin temple – this was amazing. There were 15,000 people doing demonstrations along the 2-3km road between the bus park and the temple. Every type of style, and every type of crazy stunt you can think of, and all for the athletes. And the temple itself was completely awesome – I so have to rewatch the original Shaolin Temple movie now…

There were heaps more awesome things, but I can’t remember half of them off the top of my head. Ask me about it next time you see me!