Andrea Falk - Chinese Wushu Magazine - August, 1983
I have a fairly large personal collection of old and rare Chinese martial arts magazines, many of which are from the early 80’s. While I was browsing through some the other day, I found an article from the August issue of “Zhong Hua Wushu” magazine, which had a full page article on my elder martial-sister, Andrea Falk. Many of you may know Andrea due to her absolutely groundbreaking and wonderful books on Chinese martial arts published through TGL Books. She was in fact a pioneer, being the first western graduate of the Beijing Sports University in the 1980’s. She spent three years in China majoring in Chinese martial arts at the university at a time that China was only just opening up to the west. I did a podcast interview with Andrea years ago which you can listen to here. Below is a translation of the article from that 1983 magazine. I have added info in brackets where needed.
A Canadian Girl and Wushu (Chinese Martial Arts)
By: Wu Ming
When I first saw her, I didn’t say a word. In my mind, I thought, “She’s every bit a foreign girl.” A narrow face, a high-bridged nose, blue eyes, and loose brownish-blond hair cascading over her shoulders. But as soon as she opened her mouth, I was astonished: her Mandarin was fluent—and excellent! Not only does she speak beautiful Chinese, but she also has a solid foundation in martial arts.
Her name is Huo Andi (Andrea Falk’s Chinese name), a Canadian student at Beijing Sports University, where she majors in Wushu (Chinese martial arts).
In 1972, back in Canada, 18-year-old Huo Andi learned southern style from a Hong Kong teacher. Later, she switched to a style called Aikido, which has no fixed routines and emphasizes hand techniques, leg techniques, wrestling, and grappling. After a while, however, she found it uninteresting. She then went back to learning Chinese boxing. At the time, her Chinese wasn’t good, so she only remembered the style’s name as something like “Luohan” (in fact it was Mi Zong Luo Han Quan) In practice, there was a lot of spinning and sudden turns, presumably to confuse an opponent.
Huo Andi first studied Chinese at a school (transliterated here as “Bixi University”), then switched to sports. After graduation, she resolved to continue with martial arts. In 1980, she came to China.
She still finds one incident at Beijing Sports University very memorable. A martial arts instructor was teaching her Sanda (Chinese style kickboxing). Initially, she didn’t take it too seriously. But soon, her legs were constantly getting hit, and she was thrown to the ground time after time. She became unhappy, thinking, “Why are you always attacking my legs and tossing me around?” So she told the instructor, “That’s against the rules!” The instructor replied, “It’s not against the rules. I’m actually exposing your weakness.” Huo Andi thought, “Well, he’s definitely more skilled than I am.”
And so, she began to learn real Chinese martial arts.
What exactly is “real” Chinese martial arts? She hadn’t known much about that before. She couldn’t really say why she loved it, either. Playing ball games is fun, whereas martial arts training isn’t particularly playful. But it made her body and mind feel at ease—a sense of true well-being. Gradually, as she learned some of the theory behind martial arts and kept practicing, she realized that martial arts have a deep connection with ancient Chinese philosophy. For example, Xingyi Quan focuses on the cycle of the Five Elements’ creation and destruction. Additionally, she feels there is one outstanding advantage to practicing martial arts: you can switch to different styles as you get older, enabling a lifetime of ongoing exercise—something other sports cannot offer.
During one training session, Huo Andi accidentally tore the ligaments in her right shoulder, which was extremely painful. From that time on, she switched to Taiji Quan (Tai Chi). Before, whenever she saw people slowly going through Tai Chi movements, she thought it was dull—“What is that?” But after practicing for a while, she found Tai Chi infinitely profound and grew to love it more and more. Of the various Tai Chi schools, her favorite is the Chen style. She now practices it every morning.
In September 1982, Huo Andi participated in an international martial arts invitational in Nanjing. During the competition, she performed both spear and Tai Chi. Her Tai Chi performance was rated “excellent.” She found this amusing because the rules of the event dictated that every participating country (or delegation) should receive one “excellent” rating, and she was the only participant from Canada. If they didn’t give it to her, then who else? Even so, through her performance, she realized that her Tai Chi skills were stronger than her spear work.
In fact, she had only been practicing the spear for a month before the competition.
Time has flown by, and now over two years have passed. Huo Andi is about to graduate and return home. She plans to teach Chinese martial arts in Canada, helping train a younger generation. She also intends to promote Tai Chi there. However, she feels that her own level is still lacking, and as long as she pursues martial arts, she’ll need to rely on China. She says, “Wushu, after all, was invented by the Chinese. Only they can truly grasp its profound underpinnings and subtle variations. Foreigners can learn it, but it’s hard for them to develop or innovate it further.”
I believe she’s right. As Chinese people, we shouldn’t lapse into an Eastern-style nihilism. We do have wonderful treasures to show the world.
To learn more about her time here in China, read Andrea Falk’s memoir “Beijing Bittwersweet - Foreign Exchange Student in Wushu at the Beijing Physical Culture Institute during the 1980s”
Available here: https://amzn.to/42wkeIP
