wushuzilla » Athletes http://www.wushuzilla.com feed your wushu monster Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:46:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Athlete Interviews http://www.wushuzilla.com/2011/09/17/athlete-interviews/ http://www.wushuzilla.com/2011/09/17/athlete-interviews/#comments Sat, 17 Sep 2011 13:56:56 +0000 narom http://www.wushuzilla.com/?p=1893 I’ve been thinking about expanding some of the content I offer on youtube and wushuzilla.  Part of what seems to be lacking for a lot of wushu practitioners outside of China is a way to connect directly with athletes and coaches here in China.  Sure, we have Chinese athletes and coaches in the West (or wherever you are) but its not quite the same.  Having someone who is in the thick of the environment has a different feel and some of their opinions are not yet influenced by their time in other countries.

Wu Di

So, I’m going to make an effort to bring some of that stuff to all of you.  I had a quasi-interview with Wu Di back in June, which I just posted up a few weeks ago.  Not really a proper interview, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

Yue Xiao Yu

Then a week or two ago when Xiao Yu was in town I asked her to grant me an interview.  We got together for lunch the day before she headed back to her hometown and she answered my silly questions about wushu and life as an athlete.  I edited the video down to 9:57, and then found out that I had my youtube limit raised to 15 minutes.  Ah well, it takes an hour to upload the video from China to youtube so I don’t feel like waiting that long.

In the interview I should mention that Xiao Yu was rather tired from a lot of travel and taking care of various things in Xi’an and Dong Ming (her hometown in Shandong province).  Her mother wasn’t feeling well, she was taking care of final administrative tasks related to her retirement from competitive athletics, and had seen a lot of friends and colleagues during her trip.  It was very nice of her to take the time to meet up with me.  Many thanks to Xiao Yu.

Oh, and yes, the video quality and sound quality are rather poor.  I had forgotten my video camera so I was stuck with two HTC phone cameras with sub-par video capture capabilities.  It won’t happen again, I promise.

Future Interviews

In the future I plan to interview some other athletes and coaches.  Next up will probably be Yuan Min, a recently retired nanquan athlete from the Shaanxi Wushu Team who is now coaching youngsters here in Xi’an at the provincial sports center.

I also would like to interview Wu Ya Nan, Asian Games and Chinese National Champion (and soon-to-be World Champion?) who recently went to the U.S. to perform at the U.N. and other places.

After those two I will have to see where I am.  If I can do one interview a month I’ll be pretty happy, but we’ll see what my schedule (and their availability) turns up.

Hope you enjoy the offerings!  Thanks for watching.

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