Last weekend, Vovinam Houston had their annual spring banquet.  This year’s event was a joint effort by Linh Son and Hoa Lu centers.

Now, before we get to the actual banquet details, let me first get this out of the way and clear up some misconceptions.  It is a bit long, but it bothers me so much that I must write it out.  Go here to read about it.  Now, on to pictures and videos by Master Thy and Assistant Instructor Huy respectively.

Linh Son’s Traditional Fan Dance

Introduction to Hoa Lu’s Hip Hop

Hoa Lu’s Hip Hop

Introduction to Linh Son’s Children’s Hip Hop

Update:  I would like to apologize for any misconceptions and not being clear with my rant that was posted a couple months back.  I would just like to say that the entire rant was not meant to be directed at Lo Duc Center in any way, but rather directly as a response to the one who has posted up smack talk against me (many times).  Yes, it would seem that I was directing it to Lo Duc center if you were to not take into consideration of the actions and the situation that occurred beforehand.  Again, I am sorry for making it seem like I was bashing out Lo Duc Center.  Feel free to comment with any concerns/thoughts/opinions etc below or email me, call me, contact me in person, facebook, what ever you feel more comfortable doing.

Again, I do not mind talking it about it (just as long as you provide me with some type of mango smoothie or drink).  =)

Vovinam: the first martial arts to control and manipulate…THE FORCE!

Luke’s got nothing on us! Time to wage war with the Star Wars junkies!

Vovinam’s higher level belt exam was held this past Sunday at Vovinam Hoa Lu Center. Last time I test was like 5 years ago! And after all these injuries and setbacks, one could really tell how out of shape I was. To make things worse, the night before I was practicing the sword fight with Long and he cut up my fingers pretty deep with that newly made aluminum bladed sword. Afterwards, I went out to VTT to practice sparring with my cousin. I wasn’t wearing my Vovinam jacket so the rope from the chest guard cut into my skin. I also fell down and slammed my elbow into some rocks. Once I got home, my mom freaked out cause I was bleeding everywhere.

Then that Sunday morning, I forgot to print out my essay which I took forever to write since I was trying to not include personal references which may spark a fire with those who read it. =(

First thing tested on was the Kata forms. I started out good, but by half way through, I was huffing and puffing like crazzzy. Master Doan subtly (not really) brought that up at the end of the exam.

Sword form was pretty good. Sword kept on bending though…

Leg techniques were horrible, but the pictures from it are hilarious.

a wet one for him to take a whif

pelvic thrust his face!

Sparred against Tom and got owned. Wrestled against Dung and got my arm popped out of its socket and sat on. Great… =)

Long did okay. Anh Hai owned at sparring. Bebi (am I spelling her name correctly?) was pretty good.

Her dual form was awesome.

Went on a cruise this past weekend with the Vovinam Linh Son family. Too busy with finals and other stuff to update. For now, here are some pictures. I’ll update the trip later on.

Notice where anh Tuan is looking at… =)

It’s been awhile since I wrote in here.  My friends made a facebook for me and so I’ve just been logging onto that and messing around.  Plus with school and all, I haven’t really had anytime (besides Warcraft time) to write in here.

Thanksgiving this year was pretty cool.  My niece came over from California.  She’s so tall for only being in pre-k.  Pretty cute little girl!  Supposedly she has a boyfriend named Ramon.  Haha =)  So yea, for Thanksgiving, my relatives and I met at my aunt’s house.  Food was pretty good.  Turkey tasted like ham… I think it was ham!  Played Brain Age with my nephews.  Duy is good!  He’s only in 3rd grade, but after watching me lose a lot, he just took the DS from me and started whooping everyone.  =)

My church’s annual Thanksgiving Festival was a disaster this year.  Rain caused profits to not even match half of what we made last year probably.  Saturday night was completely empty.  We lion danced for the church again.  It was requested last minute and so performance was nothing comparable to what our normal ones would be like.  I helped out at the Vovinam Booth most of the times.  Making cotton candy was pretty fun!  I wanna get a machine myself now…

Black Friday I went to Best Buy when it opened to grab myself some 100pack dvds and a flash drive.  Then met up with my cousin to go to Office Depot, Toys-R-Us, and Willowbrook Mall.  Got nothing there.  Came home around 9Am then took my sister’s car out to dealership to get an oil change.  After that, along the way home, decided to drop by Lowe’s to buy one of those cool MagLite flashlights!  That’s probably the best item I got this Black Friday!  Haha =)  Serious!  It’s Awesome!

Anyway, Finals are coming up really soon.  I’m already done with my Bio Lab and Art History.  After finals tomorrow for Physics Lab, I’ll only have Bio Lecture, Physics Lecture, and Philosophy to finish.

Can’t wait until this weekend though!  Why?  CRUISE BABY!

Fort Lauderdale, Florida | Miami, Florida | Key West, Florida | Cococay, Bahamas | Nassau, Bahamas

WOOT WOOT!

So Dung finally made a mix of the performances done for Vovinam Houston’s 25th Anniversary Banquet held back in the summer.  I gotta say, it makes me proud to be a Vovinamer!

Today was a pretty awesome day! Woke up in the morning to go to 9 o’clock mass. Because of Day Lights Savings, I was able to wake up in time! Mass was crazily packed! I decided to let people have my spot inside the church and go stand outside instead. =) I feel holy…for that second! haha!

After Vovinam class at Vien Thong Tu, the Linh Son demo group showed up and we headed off to Bear Creek Park. This performance was for a festival held by a local Vietnamese Baptist Church. Thay Chinh had asked us to give a little demonstration.

We stretched out a bit then began the performances. There was a pretty good number of people who were there watching. I’d say there was probably more than 100 people. There were some pretty hot girls there too. =) We opened up with the usual rolling techniques and then Thap Tu Quyen. After that, I performed Luong Nhi Kiem Phap! My arm is so weak now…I had sliced the ground a bit and picked up some sand with the tip of the sword and just by that my I felt my arm about to pop out.  God I wish my arm had never been injured.  It really really sucks not being able to even lift my arm straight up.  After that, I tried to stretch out my arm a bit before going up again to do Bo Staff with Long.  We decided to do a little “skit” at the beginning.  We bowed, and I got ready to fight, but he walked off to the audience to talk to some pretty girls.  So then I called back at him, telling him to bring it on wussy.  So he came back to start the fight.  The girls however decided to run up with him too.  LOL that was not supposed to happen.  So I was like, “Back up, I’m gonna give this boy a butt whooping!”

The form was pretty good. Even with the little mess up, it turned out way better than I expected.  After all the performances were done, some of the girls came over to talk to us.  One of them took a picture of me unexpectedly.  Another was like, “You have a cute smile!”  Haha thanks yo!  =)

We grabbed some food afterwards and shortly after went back to Vien Thong Tu to help build a greenhouse!

Fun day mostly due to the compliment on my usually retarded looking smile.  =)

Busy with school stuff so I don’t really have time yet to give a full update.

For now, SNEAK PEAK courtesy of Phuong!