What if any U.S. affiliations does your school carry?
Three majors as I’ve seen is:
USWU
USWKF
USCKF
Personally I’d like to see a single governing body in the US… It would make the tourney scene much better, and let people anty up so to speak with some of there quarrels.
Any comments? I think we’ll be throwing a tournie here in April.. none “denominational” We’d like to get some people from all sides, this is why I ask.
USWKF
Sin The’s seal of approval. 
Our school…
is with the USCKF
I want nothing less than The world soke council!..Wanker park!..
Rogue could register his "BJJ concept "there and become Soke founder himself and gain instant planetary recongnition!..
SS you still going to Brazil?
Hey NP!
Yup, actually at first I was not sure… now I’m required to go.
How about you and your Shifu?
He’s definitely going, :)me .. don’t think so…
I’m in USWU. You guys going to have modern wushu devisions?
I don’t think there’ll be a single governing body here in the US anytime soon. USAWKF has the IWUF recognition and that probably won’t be changing any time soon. USCKF has the backing of Taiwan and has been established for awhile. And USWU has a bunch of people that probably will never set foot inside a USAWKF tournement again, lol.
That’s too bad NP. If your Shifu needs any help with anything have him contact me, I’ll help with what I can.
NP - Will the tournament be in Denver?
Brad - Yes, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to have everything under one organization. There’s just so many different interests to be served, add to that how everyones interpretation of “what’s important” is so different we end up with the current situation.
I don’t have anything against a non-USCKF event, however, if we have to choose (conflicting dates) between a USCKF and another event I’ll go with the USCKF event.
I’m with USWU. Brad’s correct. I’ll never set foot in a USAKW event.
I would have said the same thing up until recently… I don’t agree with them and there politics, but thats not the side of it I’m on anyway. I was with USWU, but didn’t join this year because of $ reasons, and I like them, but there there nationals didn’t compare this year in comparison. I plan on doing the USCKF tournie next year… as my teacher will be competing for them again this year in Brazil.
We plan on throwing the tournie here in Denver, sometime in April. We’ll prob. start hammering out the details later this month.
I was with USWU, but didn’t join this year because of $ reasons, and I like them, but there there nationals didn’t compare this year in comparison.
What didn’t you like about this years nationals? Taiji divisions were much better this year, but a lot of the modern wushu athletes and a couple key taiji guys were missing this year do to USAWKF rescheduling team trials for the week before.
A bit of background…
You have to go way back when…
The FIRST national organization was the USCMAC (US Chinese Martial Arts Council).
That group had no funding and eventually merged with NACMAF (North American Chinese Martial Arts Federation) to form the USAWKF.
The USAWKF ended up with Anthony Goh at the head and due to his management style and inability to plan financially, the organization ended up with many people dropping out and a debt of over $250,000.
All the time there was also the USCKF (Kuoshu) that got started in the US just before the USAWKF. It is backed by the ROC groups. However, the USCKF, being tied to Taiwan, may have a small division for Modern Wushu but does NOT and will not interact with the IWuF (International Wushu Federation) - meaning that the USCKF will never be the body that has anything to do with the Olympics.
The USAWKF had a very nasty split in 1999 due to Anthony Goh’s management style and major issues that had never been resolved finally coming to a head.
The end result was that for a time, there was Goh’s USAWKF and the Board of Director’s version. To wrest control from Goh would have required major bucks for court costs and the organization only has one positive asset (The IWuF recognition) and major liabilities in the form of history and massive debt.
So now, you have teh USAWKF from Goh.
The USWU was formed to try to address the issues that had not been addressed in the USAWKF under Goh…no progress in the years since 1993/1994.
None of the organizations have much funding (except for the USCKF which gets stipends of some form from Taiwan).
The folks that did the organization, development of the rulebook, standards, etc… for the USAWKF - including computerization and web enablement of competitions for the first time - all pretty much went with the USWU. ( I know because I helped write the original rules and wrote the first program to automate the USAWKF registrations and divison handling for their competitions)
There are a lot of problems.
The USCKF has the largest amount of funding. However, it pretty much is controlled by Taiwan. This lack of local (i.e. US) control of a uS organization has led to major problems all along. So, this is the major weakness of the USCKF. Also, the USCKF is not really open to a national - representative - democratic form of management. It’s bylaws and charter would have to change significantly.
The USAWKF is pretty much ruled autocratically by Anthony Goh. It has shown that it can’t really make any progress. This tends to be because people with ideas also want a voice in an organization. If you ask them to work, they want something out of it …like a say in how things run. USAWKF’s bylaws do NOT allow for this at all. Goh’s management style won’t allow for this either. His history has been that anyone that speaks an opinion differing from his gets ostracized. This was happening way before 1999 and was one of the issues that I was bringing up way back then..and it was ignored then for the sake of getting things done. (Aside - if you ignore a problem, it does NOT go away…butinstead usually gets worse…and gets entrenched - guess what has happened)
The USWU is new. It has some problems in figuring out exactly what it wants to be and how it wants to get there. However, the folks involved ARE open to input. They ARE the ones who wrote the rules and have been trying to get things to grow and progress. What they need is for people to join and for everyone to quit expecting someone else to do the work…for folks to step up and volunteer to do things.
There are those of us who have been working on this since around 1984…almost 20 years. It is sliding backward now…and mostly due to hidden agendas and selfish people to look beyond themselves.
The selfishness may get them small rewards NOW…but it is short lived…and keeps thing messed up.
Looking at the bigger picture actually will benefit them in the long run and be permanent benefits…but so few people can take a long term view.
All of the groups CAN be made to work. However, some of them are more predisposed to making the changes and evolution that would be necessary.
This is not about Classical vs. Modern…
In fact, there are Classical Wushu folks, Contemporary Wushu, Internal, and Sanshou. There are a number of people that are involved in more than one of those 4 major areas. There is also a whole lot of common interests and issues. What is needed is an organization that can handle those common areas while having semi-autonomous divisions for the 4 areas that then handle their special needs.
Anyone interested in stepping up to work…?
Very good explaination of our trials and tribulations.