3rd Annual New York Liberty Kung Fu Cup ~ April 27th 2025
From left to right: Jo Gao Cameron Christie, Shifu Cheyenne LaChapelle, Simo Mary Beth LaChapelle, Shifu Gary J. LaChapelle Jr., Shifu Gregg Zilb, Laoshi Kevin Simpson, Shifu Eliot Prisby
I apologize for the delay in posting about this tournament! It’s been a crazy month, with workshops and seminars nearly every weekend and some weekdays as well!
Sunday April 27th we travelled down to New York to compete in the 3rd Annual New York Liberty Kung Fu Cup, hosted by my Shitaigong (martial grandfather) Sifu Raul Ortiz. The people there were very nice and the Kung Fu was top tier.
Our little New England contingent (including friends from Nine Tigers Kung Fu in Maine and NBWK on Cape Cod) was small but fierce.
Pics as always are available on our Facebook and SmugMug pages.
Tournaments are really interesting. They’re a very rich cultural and social experience. While you’ll see the obvious stuff such as forms, weapons, and fighting, you also get a look at some deeper Kung Fu insights…the differences between styles, the differences between instructors, the way that “old heads” interact with each other…
I like people and I’m always interested in what seeing makes them tick. I think this is one reason I like my job teaching martial arts, it’s like a puzzle that the student and I get to figure out together to make the Kung Fu “work” for them, and every person is different.
Competition gives you a rare and insightful glance through the keyhole of peoples’ personalities. If you watch carefully how competitors and instructors conduct themselves throughout the day, you’ll learn a lot about other people, about Kung Fu, about yourself. I felt like in this particular tournament, I learned a lot about myself and also many of my peers. Tournaments are stressful and emotions can run high - I was certainly not immune this particular day - but I came away from it feeling respect for my instructors, appreciation for Kung Fu as an art, and gratitude for the Kung Fu community for keeping these arts alive and supporting each other.
It was a great way to kick off the 2025 tournament season. Our next competition is July 20th in Maine, and I hope to see a lot of my students there representing our school through their Kung Fu and their decorum.
Shifu Eliot