Wushu popularity spreads far and wide

At the opening ceremony at the Fort Worth Convention Center on Nov 15, Katie Mendez's eyes were glued to the center stage where about 100 people, all dressed in white, were performing tai chi.

She was focusing on one particular performer — her son Miguel Mendez, a 10th grader from Allen, a small suburban city north of Dallas-Fort Worth.

"My son has been practicing taekwondo since he was 5 years old. Two months ago, he was recruited to perform tai chi for this occasion," said Mendez.

Miguel also practiced wing chun, a self-defense-based martial arts from southern China, for about a year and half.

"After he watched those athletes practice, he told me he fell in love with wushu. Now he wants to learn as much wushu as he can, with weapons, without weapons. I will have to look for such a teacher in our area," Mendez said.

Watching wushu in action was also exactly how Alan Huang, a member of the US team, was attracted to the sport.

Huang said he saw a wushu performance for the first time when he was only 4 years old at a Chinese school. "I thought it was very cool, so I decided to join," said Huang, who is from Long Island, New York, and now a student at Harvard University pursuing a major in government studies.

Huang said wushu has, to a great degree, shaped him into what he is today. His gains are beyond acquiring the perseverance and strength that are necessary for pursuing the sport and excelling in any other field.

"I don't think I was a great kid in elementary school. I had a little 'everything revolving around me' attitude", he said.

His first transformative experience with wushu came when in fifth grade he went to Beijing to train for a year. The training with Chinese wushu talent opened his eyes.

"Being able to train (in) wushu, keeping grinding, and knowing that there will always be some people better than me, and there will always be something I am striving toward, having that kind of goal in my mind set me out of 'Oh, I am having fun here. I am better than everyone else' attitude. It changed me," Huang said.

Wushu also helped him connect with his own heritage, Huang said.

"At the elementary school, I could not speak Chinese. The more I was invited to the wushu community, the more I felt at peace with my culture. I got motivated to get in touch with my Chinese roots. Now, I am able to hold a conversation in Chinese," he said.

Determined to keep wushu in his life to some extent, Huang said he was pleasantly surprised when he found out that there was a wushu club at Harvard for him to join. With a membership of diverse racial background, Huang said they train about four times a week to keep their basics up.

While wushu brought Huang to his own cultural roots, for Omar Mendez, a competitor in the categories of tai chi and taijijian (tai chi with a double-edged sword) and a member of the Mexican team, wushu has become a way of life.

Mendez, 33, said he started learning martial arts when he was 6 years old. He was progressing in the sport as he was growing up.

"I was talented, my passion for wushu and about learning more was over the top," Mendez said. "My coach sent me to train in China as part of the Mexican team."

At first, he trained in China for two months at a time. However, the more he learned, he realized the more he had yet to learn. He decided to take a deeper plunge.

Mendez spent two years in China to master the language, and then earned a master's degree at Capital University of Physical Education and Sports in Beijing. In total, he lived in Beijing for seven years.