Trip to China for the 10th WKFC: An Overwhelming Experience
- Sally Mahoney
- Nov 3
- 2 min read
In the US Challenge Championship in 2023 I qualified for the US Kung Fu Team giving me the opportunity to compete in the 10th World Kung Fu Championship at Emei Mountain, China in October, 2025.
This article gives the impressions of Sally Mahoney. I was accompanied by students Shelby, Aleks, Brendan, Liam, Lawren and Coaches Zhang and Pei. The trip was split into two phases, a tourist phase and the competition.
I left home on October 9th and returned home on October 21st. I was overwhelmed by the experience. Visiting China was extraordinary, traveling with other students and 2 Coaches we saw major tourist attractions in Beijing such as the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace, and various shopping areas. I experienced the bus system, the subway system and the rental bikes. The impression I had was of the vast scope of everything. Every location was very large with many people and many steps to walk. Overall, through the trip I walked 175,000 steps. I ate some fantastic food. The food was of great quality and was all real food not the fast food I would customarily eat at home. I did not see things in much detail but got a good overview of the locations. I would like to be in China again and see some of the things I saw in greater detail, but would want to get there by a Star Trek transporter rather than an airplane, which seems unlikely. I saw beautiful flowers and artifacts. I also saw monkeys and pandas. While Beijing is a large city, it was quieter than DC. There was not as much street noises from things like sirens and trucks. The weather was excellent.
For the competition portion, because it is not known in advance who you will be competing against and what their skill level is, it is hard to predict results. My goal was to do my events as well as I know them and see what happens. In the barehand, I did not meet this goal. I was too unfocused. In the sword, I did not do totally as well as I can do it but what I did felt better than the barehand and it was a reasonable performance. Not as good as what I can do under ideal conditions in my living room.
Overall, I felt overwhelmed and tired for the whole trip. I enjoyed seeing other competitors from the US team that I know from the US Challenge. I traveled with a good group. I thank Coach Zhang and Coach Pei for everything they did on the trip. I enjoyed sharing pictures with people at home. If I were to take a trip like this again, I would need to figure out how to gain equilibrium and not be totally fried during the event so I could enjoy it more at the time and not just enjoy looking back.
