|
|
|
This article appeared in the October 2004 edition of
Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine and is reproduced here with kind permission of Gigi
Oh on behalf of said magazine.
The little girl who went to the White House
 By
Gigi Oh and Gene Ching
Thirty years ago, the People’s Republic of China sent a group of top wushu
masters to America for one of the very first international friendship
delegations since the 1950’s. It was a pivotal moment for martial arts and world
peace. Alongside those masters were three children, all members of the fledgling
group that would become known as the Beijing Wushu Team. The children gave a
special performance in the White House Rose Garden for President Nixon, Henry
Kissinger and other dignitaries. Among the children were two boys: Cui Yahui and
Li Lianjie (who we now know as Jet Li). There was only one little girl. Her name
was Lu Yan.
Beijing Wushu Kids
 For
Lu Yan, wushu has been a lifelong adventure that began with a lucky twist of
fate. Coach Li Junfeng was scouting for talent for a new children’s martial arts
group in Beijing. He was looking for 4th grade students at Lu’s school when a
teacher recommended the precocious 2nd grader instead. Lu was chosen as an
alternate among ten candidates hand-picked by Li from her school, but she was
the only one to survive the rigorous cuts and actually make it on the team.
Lu began training in March of 1972. She remembers walking the long distance to
the wushu school with her neighbour, another future first-generation Beijing
Wushu Team member, Zhang Hongmei. There, two dozen kids would train for a few
hours each day after regular school, including young Jet Li. Lu’s family and
Jet’s family were very close in those days and they often shopped together. As a
youth, Lu never imagined the future Beijing Wushu Team, much less Jet Li’s
international stardom.
In July of 1973, following one of the first major competitions since China’s
Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s, their classes became more formalized although
still amateur. When the historic 1974 White House tour came about, Lu, Cui and
Jet were privileged to be selected as the only children members. Being the lone
girl and so young, Lu remembers Jet and Cui as naughty little boys who often
teased her on their extraordinary adventure. She visited Jet recently and as
they reminisced about those days, she chided him for being an unsupportive elder
brother.
It wasn’t until after they returned that the Beijing Wushu Team truly went
professional. Beijing Wushu Team students, still limited only to children at
that time, stopped attending regular classes and spent the entire day at the
wushu school. They were tutored by special teachers in general education but the
focus was primarily upon wushu. In 1975, they participated in the 3rd National
Wushu Games, the first one held since the Cultural Revolution. But the shadow of
the Red Guard still darkened the competition. According to Lu, half of the
scores were based upon allegiance to Mao and proper political standing.
Nevertheless, wushu was clearly on the rise.
The Rise of the Beijing Wushu Team
 By
the late seventies, the Beijing Wushu Team dominated on the competition circuit.
Alongside many of her team mates, Lu became a national champion. Jet Li captured
the national All-around champion title five times, a record still unmatched
today. Lu performed a two-person sparring routine with Patti Li that won for
three years, plus she was the national champion of three-section staff.
Lu’s training regimen was demanding. In the morning she practised her martial
arts and gymnastics. Since she was the youngest, she focused heavily on her
jumping skills. Her muscles weren’t as soft and pliable as some of the others.
Hers were hard, so it took her a longer time to warm up. But that gave her an
advantage when it came to the horse stance. Back then, the coaches never told
them how long to sit in horse. Everyone just competed against each other,
dropping out when they couldn’t stand anymore. Lu usually lasted the longest. In
the afternoon, she pursued her regular classes like Chinese and math, but the
martial arts were always the most important.
By 1979, Jet Li left the team and went to Shaolin Temple to make movies. Many of
the original Beijing Wushu Team members dropped out in the following years, but
Lu kept competing until the National Athletics Championships in 1987. According
to her, that was the last time any of the oldest members of the Beijing Wushu
Team entered the ring. Lu went from being a competitor to pursuing her degree at
Beijing’s Physical Education College, where she graduated in 1991. She got a job
coaching at the Beijing Wushu School that was a feeder program for the Beijing
Wushu Team. Many of her good students are still placed on that team.
Lu went on to coach the Philippine national team. In 1995, she returned to
America with that team to capture two gold medals at the World Wushu
Championships in Baltimore. The following year, her team won five golds at the
1st Asian wushu Championships, held in the Philippines.
Ask not what Wushu can do for you, Ask what you can do for
Wushu
 Today,
Lu is headmaster of her own private school in Beijing. In 1997, she set her mind
upon a lifelong career as a wushu teacher. Wushu changed the course of her life
in a away she can never fully repay, but through her live-in school, she works
hard to settle the debt. Her students are trained in martial arts along with a
general education. Lu stresses general education heavily since she feels that
during her formative years of Beijing Wushu Team, she wasn’t provided with as
much general education as she desired.
Being a private school, Lu isn’t limited to the very best like the Beijing Wushu
Team. She teaches all sorts of students. But this doesn’t mean her door is open
to anyone. She demands determination and dedication. “You have to ask yourself
first,” warns Lu in Mandarin, “you have to know whether you really like wushu.
Wushu training is monotonous so you have to know. I tell all my students,
‘nothing comes free.’ Training is hard. You have to know whether you like it;
otherwise you better just not do it. I’m the coach. I have to spend a lot of
time and effort and hope all my students achieve the best from themselves. So if
you don’t have the mindset and insistence to go through the training, it’s not
only your loss, it’s my loss. I lose energy, time and hope. You must have a
strong mindset. You must like it.”
 And
there’s a lot to like. The field of Chinese martial arts is so diverse that
anyone can find their niche. “If you’re slower, you can do tai chi,” explains
Lu. “If you’re fast, you can do southern fist. So there’s something for everyone
and everyone can achieve the best they can. As long as you have an average IQ,
if you set your mind and pick up your art, you can excel.”
The White House Wushu Tour changed the world, albeit subtly. It redefined
diplomatic channels between the East and West and forever changed the role of
Chinese martial arts in our modern world. In the eyes of Beijing’s first
starlet, the martial kid sister of Jet Li, wushu has even more to give. “Wushu
is not just physical,” Lu reminds us, “it’s the depth of Chinese culture. You’re
not just learning to be fit. If you can persevere, you not only get physical
power training, you get all this culture and other things. It’s so rich there’s
a lot you can learn for a long, long time. When you learn wushu, you learn the
culture and you learn to be a better person. Everyone can have their specialty.
Everyone can feel proud of this. And every single person can be better.”
Want to learn more about Lu Yan's Wushu Career? Visit the
Wushu Career pages
Want to learn more about training with Lu Yan? Visit the
Train with Lu Yan pages
|
|
