Kung Fu: Swiss Kuoshu Grand Ceremony

Last Friday (March 3rd 2006) and Saturday (March 4th 2006), Bronschhofen was the host of the Chinese Championships. Grand Master, Masters and other great names in Kung Fu honoured us by their presence. The Swiss Association, SWISS KUOSHU, under the direction of President Martin Sewer, invited several organizations.

The 4th European Hung Gar Kung Fu Championships, the 2nd European Kuoshu Cup and the big Kung Fu Gala Show on Saturday evening were really something worth to see. With more than 500 registrations, these tournaments were the biggest events ever happened in Switzerland. In spite of the strong snowfall, it honoured us during the entire week end, a couple of hundreds people came to participate to the events.

The 4th European Hung Gar Kung Fu Championships

On Friday, we began the ceremony with the traditional Chinese lion dance. The dance brings, according to the tradition, luck to the ceremony and unite all participants. After the short speech of Martin Sewer, Grand Master of the Association, Dr. Chiu Chi Ling, and after the introduction of the referees that were coming from many countries, the tournament had officially begun. This day was especially reserved only for participants who practice the original Shaolin Hung Gar Kung Fu style. This style is one of the most practiced in the world and one of the most famous in Chinese Kung Fu and this particular practice comes from as far as the legendary temples of Southern-Shaolin. It has been very interesting for all competitors to see the differences and similarities between all schools coming from everywhere on earth. Several students exchanged their addresses and other ones stroked up a friendship with other students.

Seminar with the Chinese Grand Master

On Friday evening after the tournament, began the seminar with Grand Master Dr. Chiu Chi Ling. More than 50 people have impatiently waited this seminar during all day long. The Grand Master showed to them in an impressive way the smooth side of the Hung Gar, which seems so simple, but in fact it is hard too. This seemed astonishingly easy to execute. Nevertheless, it could see that the 63-year old Grand Master wasn’t so easy to move. We have to train during decades to master this kind of technique.

Grand Master let us see his every movement with his hands and always showed us several times the techniques. After 3 hours of seminar, all participants had been impressed and were even more enriched with this experience. Entirely from the Shaolin tradition, these experiences bring us another step forward and make us grow. The seminar’s participants took some souvenirs pictures and thanked warmly the extraordinary Grand Master, whom didn’t seem to be tired at all.

The 2nd European Kuoshu Cup

On Saturday, the day had begun the same as Friday, in traditional Kung Fu styles all ceremonies begin the same. Differently from Friday, there were a lot more guests of honour and international referees to introduce. Among the guests of honour, there were Max Rohr, mayor of Bronschhofen, Grand Master of the World Hung Gar Kung Fu Dr. Chiu Chi Ling (Hong Kong), and also the President of the Kuoshu World Federation Chien-Liang (USA). After the opening speech and the opening ceremony, the tournament finally began. The competitors were settled in 5 categories: in the morning there were the hand free forms, two man sets and weapon forms. The forms are a string of movements executed with or without weapon. Even the Kung Fu pros were impressed according to the high level techniques showed by the competitors in this tournament. This isn’t surprising, because there were only the best world teams in that came from different member countries such as Italy, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic and several other countries coming from overseas. In the afternoon, the tournament continued with the light-contact and full-contact combat. In light-contact, there are only clean and fair techniques. Full-contact shows us techniques that are almost as real as a true fight. In this king of combat, all knocks are truly taken. Fortunately, as the Organizer wished, everything went well, with no serious injuries that are to be mentioned. Although we had required urgency, we had 2 vehicles (ambulances) and a first-aid worker were ready and present on site. In general, we can say that the extraordinary performance of the World Kuoshu Federation’s referees was simply promising. Their behaviour, their evaluation such as their collaboration was more than exemplary. We would wish that in many sports there would have been more well-trained referees like the ones we had for this event.

The Kung Fu Gala Show

On Saturday evening, the spectators were watching all demonstrations with a lot of interest. Some spectators were coming from very far to come to see the demonstrations. Even with the unceasing and strong snowfall, people came from everywhere to see the combats and enjoy the Gala Show. One spectator was driving with his car from Bern to come to the Ebenethalle and he spent 5 hours non-stop driving! During the evening, the final full-contact combats were played. Between the fights, there were demonstrations from internationally known Kung Fu Masters. Different styles have been showed. Among other styles, we saw Tien Shan Pai, Bak Fu Do, Hung Gar, just to name these ones. Some spectators asked how many varieties there are in Chinese martial arts. One of the most exciting moments during this evening was the demonstration of Grand Master Dr. Chiu Chi Ling 10th dan and chief of the Hung Gar Kung Fu style. Grand Master showed us one of the most difficult and of the longer forms to execute existing in this southern-stylish Shaolin Kung Fu. According to the tradition, by a wrong practice of this form, one could severely harm himself. Another great part of the Gala Show was the demonstration of Guido Kessler. This expert in martial arts, nationally and internationally well-known actor demonstrated his mastery with his Nunchaku and sword techniques he executed with an unbelievable perfection. Guido Kessler prematurely interrupted his stay in Thailand in order to come to do his demonstration.

All in all, it was a successful week end for Chinese martial arts. All great names in the Kung Fu scene were present and it was a harmonious and a very beautiful tournament with a brilliant Gala Show. It is to hope, that the SWISS KUOHU Federation, under President of Martin Sewer, will continue its course and that friendship through tournament can continue to be promoted and that people could live it.

Learn more:
http://www.infowil.ch/_iu_write/artikel/2006/KW_10/Zuzwil_Bronschhofen/Artikel_5920/default.asp