The 3rd World Traditional Wushu Championships will be held from October 28 to November 2, 2008 in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, China.This area is famous for its legendary Wudang Mountain, the place where it has been said that the Taoist Monk Zhang Sanfeng first created Taijiquan through observing a fight between a snake and a crane.

The Wudang Mountain has also been depicted in countless works of fiction, in Wu Xia and Kung Fu films such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Tai Chi Master where the Taoist Monk Zhang Sanfeng is played by none other then martial arts superstar Jet Li, and also in novels written by a famous Chinese novelist Jin Yong, who romanticised stories of Zhang Sanfeng keeping the legends of the Taoist Monk alive through works of literature.

The competition itself is open to all regardless whether their country is registered with the IWUF or not. Each competitor is allowed to participate in two individual routine events as well as group and duel sets. Prizes will be awarded to all competitors.This event is presented more as a festival, celebrating the richness of Chinese Martial Arts and culture rather then being strictly competitive. There will be many demonstrations throughout the city to celebrate this event.

It was just around 25 years ago that a new movie called SHAOLIN TEMPLE, starring an unknown young martial arts champion from China, dazzled kung fu movie fans around the world with an electrifying display of competition-level wushu. This standardized approach to traditional fighting styles incorporates acrobatic elements like jumps and flips. For audiences outside of China, the film was an introduction to the impressive “national sport”. For many in the audience, it was also the first movie from the People’s Republic of China that they had ever seen.

Fans of Chinese martial arts films in the late 1970s and early 1980s were living through a Golden Age, with the kung fu epics of Lau Kar-leung and the Five Venoms in continuous production at the Shaw Brothers studio, and Jackie Chan’s sensational early films with director Yuen Wo-ping setting the standard for kung fu comedy. I worked as a movie projectionist at the Star and China theaters in Boston between 1979 and 1986. We showed double features on each screen, and programs changed every week. The ticket price was in the $3-5 range for the whole double feature. These were classic Chinatown grindhouse operations, with an audience that was maybe 90% Asian and 10% “other.” Films from Hong Kong and Taiwan, made quickly and cheaply with an eye to satisfying the demand, dominated the circuit. It was a market that would suddenly contract and almost disappear with the coming of videotape technology and the opportunity for film pirating on a vast scale.

SHAOLIN TEMPLE was the first martial arts movie shot on the grounds of the real Temple.