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It’s quiet at Bad Ass Bunny headquarters, too quiet. As a matter of fact nothing has been shaking since we did our last shoot back in October. At this point in time, I really felt that we would have completed the last big demonstration for the movie. As they say, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.

After the October shoot, I felt really good about our prospects for filming because I had scheduled two more big filming days with the Tu’s. I was going to go to their Ranch to film some brick and stone breaking during the first part of November. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I was going to travel to Fremont to do some chain breaks. The reason we were going to do it in Fremont was there were a lot more experienced Qi practitioners to help with the demonstrations. The stunts would be dangerous and the Tu’s, rightly so, wanted to minimize the danger by having experienced people nearby.

I was excited. This was going to knock off six of our ten stunts. I had already done two. I was working on the particulars for the ice break as I noted earlier. This only left the big stunt to do in January. The film was locked.

The first note I had that something was amiss was when I talked to Mr. Ching. He noted his boss was not going to be around when the Tu’s were going to do the filming. How would that impact the filming? I’m sure we could shoot the stuff without her.

When I talked to the Tu’s later that week, they said they didn’t feel comfortable doing the demonstrations with Mr. Ching’s boss absent. The main reason was that were going to do the demonstration in her company’s parking lot.

Plus, Grandmaster Tu wasn’t feeling as if he were physically ready to do the demonstrations. He wanted more time to train before doing those particular stunts, which included having chains wrapped around his neck while he played the flute. No matter how much I wanted to shoot these performances, I didn’t want to see Grandmaster Tu hurt. This made the decision not to shoot an easy one.

Since we were on the subject of not shooting, Grandmaster Tu decided he wanted his retreat center to be further along the road to completion before we do any shooting there. He has some big murals planned for the fences around the property. He’d like to do the shooting in front of them. This meant canceling the early November shoot day, as well.

Let’s just say I’m in the middle of a bit of a disappointment spiral as I wait for the stars to realign themselves in my favor. Which they should, because as of February 3rd, it’s the year of the Golden Hare. I figure if there is any year in which to complete this documentary, it should be the Year of the Hare.

It’s not all doom and gloom. I did drag the cameras out for the Asian American Expo at the Fairplex in Pomona, CA. I didn’t think any of it was right for the documentary but I could use the opportunity to show Grandmaster Tu, I could put together a little picture about his school.
Grandmaster Tu and his students performed six times over the course of two days. The class demonstrated the Yi Jin Jing and our steel brush exercisces. I could have performed but they didn’t have uniforms in my size. Plus, I wanted to shoot pictures.

Grandmaster Tu displayed several of his paintings. He painted atop egg shells and bent bars with his fist. He also did a little Iron Crotch demonstration by having one of his Texas students kick him in the groin three or four times.

I only have one thing on the schedule in the upcoming months. Grandmaster Tu will be doing a seminar in Yosemite in April. I plan to bring the cameras but I don’t how much of that will get into the film. I might do what I did for the Pomona Show and just make it into a short teaser for Grandmaster Tu to use on his website.

The seminar will be two days in the unheated Curry Village Tents. Those tents get mighty cold even in the summer time. Who knows what the temperature will be like in April. I do know that they run a special on those tent cabins in the Winter. The rate per day is a dollar for every degree it is above freezing. I wonder if that’s the rate scale we are using?

As far as the big stunt is concerned and when it will occur, that is anybody’s guess. The big problem Grandmaster Tu faces is getting people qualified to help him. It’s probably going to take at least eight people. And those people have to lift a minimum of 500 pounds to be considered. At the moment, I think the only person that meets those qualifications is Grandmaster Tu. This leaves us seven people short. But we shall see and time will tell. I hope it tells us good news.

Until then, I’ll be here cameras, at the ready.