Narrative of the 2004 Chung Hwa Cup,
Tai Chi Chuan World Championships
Taipei, Dec 4-5, 2004

Josh Waitzkin
3AM, December 8, 2004

Just back from Taiwan. Absolutely wild experience. Never had to dig so deep in my life. I’m in shock, quite numb to the world, but I’ll try to get down my thoughts.

The tournament began with a Typhoon. Nanmadol. Bearing down on Taiwan. We arrived in Taipei Tuesday night, had a couple beautiful days preparing, getting settled, eating delicious seafood meals in little stands on the street—we pick the fish, all fresh, they make it, lots of ginger, garlic, scallions. I love the bustle of that city, embraced chaos. Woke at dawn Wednesday morning and went to the park, watched thousands of elderly people doing vigorous calisthenics, tai chi, qi gong, walking around a track, vibrant, full of life. A celebration of their moment. Thursday night we hiked Elephant Mountain and stood on its peak looking down at the city. At the base was an old Taoist Temple. Soulful scene. It was blowing. That night before competition, midnight, I found out that the tournament officials had changed the rules of the fixed step competition. Previously it had been played on raised pedestals with right foot forward, right wrists crossed, left leg back, left hand by the left hip. The ref says go and play erupts. First to move a foot loses the point. Fixed step is in-fighting with great potential for injury because of all the clashing and subtle joint manipulation. We prepared for this precise foot placement for the two years since the last tournament. They sent us the dimensions of the pedestals 4 months ago. Then they tell us there are no pedestals and the rear hand begins on the opponent’s elbow which is a huge structural change. The equivalent in chess would be for Kasparov to spend 5 months preparing an opening repertoire for a world championship match and then before game 1 for that whole repertoire to somehow be refuted. I’ve been creating fixed step theory and have come up with some powerful ideas over the last years. Now we had one day to recreate an entire repertoire. On one level this was infuriating, on another level it was predictable and part of the game. The Taiwanese don’t want foreigners to win so they pull out the stops to prevent it. The top Taiwanese competitors train since childhood, 6-8 hours a day. If they win this tournament, they are National heroes. They get paid 30,000NT for winning the first time and 100,000NT for future wins. They also get full scholarship to university. A career can be made in a day.

At 1AM Thursday night Max (my dear friend, teacher’s son, a beautiful human being) and I were up exploring the nuances of this new structure. I lay in bed visualizing until 3. By Friday it was pouring torrentially. The storm was coming. I loved it. We had intended to rest Friday, fill up the tanks, but that wasn’t an option anymore. The whole team gathered under a huge gazebo type structure in the park by the Hsinchuang Stadium (where the tournament would be held). Wind was blowing, Max had to run 45 minutes layered up in the rain to cut some weight (still 3 pounds over 154.3 that morning) We put our minds to it. Dan and I worked together (Dan is my main training partner, dear friend, like a brother to me—simply awesome martial artist). Irving and Trevor. Jan Sr and Junior. Calum and Nils. Parichard and Mike. Then Max came and joined me and Dan. We spent two hours recreating a fixed step theory that could make our preparation blend with the new rules. I felt confident, but had been through this in the chess world before. A couple of the guys were a bit thrown. Dan still hadn’t committed in his mind to competing in both fixed and moving. His specialty is moving and he didn’t want to aggravate an injury in fixed. I thought his indecision was a bad sign…he shouldn’t have been doubting at that point. That night we found a way into the stadium and breathed in the competition site.

Saturday morning, showtime. We weigh in at 7:30, everybody hungry. See Tun Ze Tun and his school—the dominant school in the world. He is the guy who beat me 2 years ago and who I have been preparing for all this time. He is in Dan’s division, under 75 kilos (165.3 pounds). I wanted him bad, but then I see their guy in my division. They call him the Cockroach. I also heard Buffalo. The guy is a powerhouse. Weighs in at 79.96 kilos. I weigh in at 78.16 which means I have the tiebreak, but he is bigger than me. We go check out the moving step ring. They sent us rules and ring dimensions months ago--a 6 meter diameter circle. One point for throwing the guy out of the ring, two points for a clean throw where the opponent hits the floor and you are standing. One point for a throw where you go down on top of the opponent. 3 rounds, two minutes playing time each. If someone leads by 4 points in a round, it is over. Two out of three rounds wins and if round and points are even by the end of 3 rounds, the lighter guy wins. That rarely happens, but I decided to cut a little extra weight to give myself that edge against a monster who just barely cut down. We feel out the ring and there is a problem. Our instincts are a little off. It is about 15 inches smaller diameter than what they sent us. So we have to adjust. Typical, but there is no time to get angry about it. Just part of the game, which I knew a long time ago.

We go back to the hotel, eat a huge meal, and come back at 10 AM fueled for battle. The fixed and moving competitions are going on at the same time. Two moving rings, three fixed. Weight divisions every 5 kilos, men’s and women’s competitions. Over 4000 competitors, stadium mobbed with fans, chants. On the other side of the arena Tai Chi form competition taking place. Blood and meditation coexisting. My first match was moving step. The guy was very good, better than I expected. They have a way of putting the cardio load on the opponent with subtle pressure. Excellent pummeling techniques where they take inside position with their forward arm in the clinch. In July I injured my right shoulder in the Nationals in Orlando and then 3 weeks later I over-compensated in another tournament in Virginia and tweaked my left shoulder. Those have been my only two weaknesses. About three months before competition Dan started clamping down in the clinch and really hurting my shoulder, so I was forced to take double outside position a lot in training to avoid aggravating the injury. Turns out this was very important because the Taiwanese are lightning quick with their pummeling and I made the decision early not to fight it. Let them take the structure they want and then crimp them. Shut them down. I went up two points in round 1 and just held the lead. A long tournament, a marathon of sprints, and the key is to win early with minimal injury. Almost all of these martial arts tournaments are one day because usually player’s bodies break down after. You can push through virtually anything in one day, but then the injuries set in and you can’t walk or lift your arms in the morning. This tournament is two days, prelims of both fixed and moving in day one and then the final rounds Sunday. Elimination. You have to win out on Saturday without getting the body tweaked. Round two I did the same thing, took the lead and shut him down. Then I watched the Buffalo, the guy from the top school in my division. Wow! First he just blew the guy out of the ring. Like a hurricane. Then, lighting quick, he trapped both of the opponent’s arms under his left armpit, took the guys back and flipped him over a deep leg. He manhandled the guy, and looked unbeatable. At one point after a throw it looked like he would fall but he somehow did a full split, caught himself, with heel and toe, and just popped back up, getting the full 2 points. This was my man. I had to find a weakness but didn’t see it.

My next match was fixed step. Not much problem, except for the judges. Many points that I won the chief ref gave me but the score keeper didn’t record. My teammates and pop were screaming about it, but nothing was done. I just scored more points. Against most guys the corruption couldn’t really hurt me. But in the final rounds where we were evenly matched, there would be little margin for error.

Next I watched the Buffalo in his first fixed match. He destroyed the guy, was pretty dazzling, but I saw something. A weakness in his structure. Amazing strength and athleticism, deep stance when he wants it, great speed, but his stationary root seemed a little flawed. He became mortal to me. My next fixed match was going to be rough. Against the school from Tainan that is the main rival to Tun Ze Tun’s school. Fierce competitors, like soldiers, strong and fast as hell, well-trained. We touched hands and I knew I had him. Won the first two rounds by a big margin, no injuries. Match over. I watched the Buffalo compete again in fixed and he was overwhelming against a lesser opponent, but something looked unstable in his stationary root. In moving, he still seemed unstoppable. Fixed felt like mine.

Day one was over and I was not hurt at all. Dan won all his matches as well, and was fine. Max lost his first rounds in very tough pairings. Went against the Buffalo’s school in his first moving match, and got too aggressive. He tried risky throws and ended up with some nose dives. In his fixed match he regressed, maybe too pumped up for the subtle game. Jan Jr looked beautiful out there. He won his fixed step matches, and his first moving step match. But then he faced Tun Ze Tun. Put up a heroic fight but went down. Irving lost both early matches. Head wasn’t right, didn’t click in.. Trevor started very strong but then the judges got into his head in the fixed. In the first round against a local powerhouse he won point after point that were waved off by the chief judge for no apparent reason. On the video it is just bizarre. Eventually he got flustered, went for too much, and fell apart. Calum amazingly was still in the tournament—the guy is unorthodox, and I think it confuses his opponents. He competes above his level. Jan Sr lost a heartbreaking first fixed step match against Buffalo’s school and is still in the moving.

Sunday morning, gametime. 8 AM we get there in time for the first challenge. The Taiwanese have set up a separate draw to determine the top foreigner in each division. This is in addition to the main tournament, and it has the function of exhausting and injuring foreigners who are still competing against the Taiwanese in the Championship. We protest this (they have us all slated to duke it out first thing Sunday morning) and it is agreed that this absurd tournament would be held after the main competition for those who are not eliminated. It is very irritating how predictable the corruption is. But no time to be irritated. My first moving step opponent couldn’t compete because of injury. Many injuries in the tournament, by the way. Broken arms, shoulders, hands, wrists, many injured backs, concussions. I have two matches left in each division to win. They will be brutal. First is moving semifinals, against the guy from Yellow Bull’s school in Tainan, who I just beat in fixed. Moving is his specialty and he comes at me hard, elbows tight in the pummeling, T-rex style, fast, persistent, putting the cardio load on me. He attacks fast early and I circle out but step on the line. My instincts were off, thought I was well in, but was wrong. On our mats at home I would have been well in—bad move. Down 1-0. We go back at it. He is very good, I get a number of reversals near the edge but he has a deep root and won’t go out. I start pressuring him hard, using this Anaconda technique we’ve developed. Inching him out, surging, tightening the noose whenever he tries to squirm out, clamping down when he exhales. He is near the line, overextends, leans in, and I catch him on a switch step suicide throw, perfect timing, come down hard on him. I’ve been working on these throws that take the wind out of the opponent, demoralize them a bit. 1-1. Then we have a 25 second flurry. Tons of reversals. His pummeling is excellent, he is double inside but that’s okay. He neutralizes an arm drag, but I use the moment to slip in a right under-hook and explode. He goes out and down and I go down hard on top of him. 2-1. He has to come at me hard now and he’s hurting. We both are. At this point I’m really coming to see that I need to concede the initial arm position to these guys because they are too good at winding opponents in a pummeling war and I have an excellent repertoire from double outside that they will be surprised by. He gets double inside, left foot forward. I’m right foot forward locked on his left arm. My left arm under and slightly outside his right, giving him the under-hook but he has to reach for it. I wait for the moment, crank hard, inner reap in judo, come down hard on him but my right shoulder gets jammed on the landing. Round over. He has the wind knocked out of him, is demoralized, but my shoulder doesn’t feel right. Buffalo’s school is studying this match closely. Tun Ze Tun, his father, all of them. Watching the video, I see them breaking it down on the sideline. Just like the chess days. But more pain.

I’m on my back between rounds. This probably had an interesting psychological effect. In preparation these last months, we did a lot of interval training, building sprint time in the ring and working on recovery. We would play 1 minute rounds with 1 minute breaks between, sometimes going 15 or 20 rounds like that, four of us playing, alternating play and recovery. My idea was to be able to have a wild sprint, drain myself completely, and know I could come back in the next round even if I felt like death baked over. Interestingly, months ago the organizers told us that there would be 30 seconds between rounds and we found out upon arrival that it was 1 minute. So I had been doing this 1 minute interval work with the team as a training mechanism to learn how to go all out effectively without overextending, and also to condense recovery time. Now we showed up and there were 1 minute breaks between rounds. Their switch played right into our hands. So I knew I could spend every last drop if I had to, and then I would be back and okay 60 seconds later if I lay on my back breathing deeply and looking like a dead man. So I looked bad between rounds, but was fine. Pop was worried.

Round 2. He came in hard, I held him off, gave him the under hooks, locked down, cranked, right, left, he went with it, but then I caught him on the third try, spun him out of the ring and on the floor. These guys are great technicians and I figured out how to shut them down. Don’t play their game. Give them that first position they are so used to fighting for, and then make the battle further down the road, in a position they haven’t gone so deeply into because they always thought it was so good for them. Crimp a structure they thought was dominant. My shoulder injury in July and Dan inflicting weeks of pain on me until I just stopped fighting the clinch sometime in October—that might have been decisive for me. Up 2-0 on a clean throw. 10 second rumble, put him out, 3-0. I’m in his head. But then I back to the edge of the ring and try a risky reversal which he stops, he forces me out. 3-1. I’m pretty worn, but buckle down. Find a hole and put him out. Next point I make him overextend, follow his throw, he goes down, round and match is mine. I watch the Buffalo annihilate another opponent. Just him and me in moving. I still don’t see a weakness in his game, but have a plan.

Dan won his moving semis as well. He looked great, but his hand and arms are hurting. My next match will be fixed step semis. To be honest, in the 45 minutes between my moving semis and fixed semis, I had a very hard time. I couldn’t lift my right arm up past my waist, my shoulder hurt so bad. Brutal pain. I was all banged up, black eye, forehead one big rug burn, pain all through me. I put on my hood, sat in a corner, and hoped my body could hold out. Dan and I are the only guys left in the main draw and we laid out and everyone worked on us. Legs, shoulders, arms mostly. Dan was in spasm in the arms. I was wrecked in the shoulder, tapped out, but getting it back slowly. They call me up for fixed step semis and it takes a lot to walk over to the ring. My opponent is somebody I had been watching throughout. In his 40’s, barrel-chested, serene and powerful. The feeling of a samurai. Older than almost all the competitors. The only guy his age still in the competition. He is one of the most respected teachers in the world, the fans were loaded with his students, and he embodied the art of Tai Chi Chuan. Had been dispensing with younger, athletic opponents left and right. Amazing skill, but you never really know until you touch them. Round 1. Our wrists connected and before the first point began he was working on me. Taking space in that strange internal way some of these rare ones can. The ref said go, I attacked fast, met empty space, and flew into it. Down 1-0. This guy has the stuff. Next point I bounced off him. Powerful root. I can’t attack him. I try a lateral technique and win a point. Then he blasts me once and then pulls me into a back hole. I’m down 4-1. I tend to feel pretty invincible in fixed step. I knew this guy was fabulous, but I also knew I could find some holes in his game. The rounds in fixed are 30 second stop time, enough for 15-20 fast points. Not much time to figure things out. I sank deep on an attack and he went flying. My point, but a referee came over and said that the point didn’t count because my opponent’s initial structure was illegal. Strange logic, but whatever. Then I score another point that they wave off. I heard my team and pop going crazy.

I’ve been to this tournament twice before (worlds are held every two years). I came prepared for the corruption. Basically, this is how it works. There is grand ceremony around welcoming the foreigners but they don’t want us to win. The way they tend to do it is by making some horrific call early in the match to get the momentum going in a certain direction. The early points in fixed, for example, almost feel incidental so a big protest will not be likely. Then they get in your head and you fall apart. Once the Taiwanese player is in control of the match, the judging becomes exceedingly fair. In fact, they become overly kind to create the illusion of fairness. Some of our team wasn’t prepared for this even though I warned them at length. 4 years ago it destroyed me. 2 years ago not so much. Now I was ready. The key is to keep on winning points, beat them so decisively they cannot take it away, and then save the argument for when you really need it.

To be honest, I also felt a lot of love for my opponent in this match. I didn’t blame the Taiwanese for wanting him to win. The whole stadium was against me, but for our team of 15 or so. I’m down 3 points, and need to come back. He wins another one. I have to pull out the stops. I created a move two months ago that I thought might end up being decisive in this tournament. We call it the bear hug. I allow my opponent in fixed step to come straight in on my chest with a hard attack. My two arms circle fast behind him and on the push I sink deep while pulling him down with me. I can also crank left or right with it. When done right, it is trippy to have done to you because it feels like falling into a void. I let him in, bear hug, put him on the floor—2 points. In fixed, if you move either foot it is one point, of you are thrown on the ground, 2 points. If a lead ever exceeds 10 points in a round, round over. It is really an amazing game. At first glance, just a quick draw. Power and speed. Then it becomes apparent that certain techniques refute other techniques, but everything happens so fast it feels like a guessing game, martial rock/scissors/paper. But then the game slows down. You see the attack coming in slow motion and can do complicated maneuvers in the blink of an eye. Great players are doing many invisible things in this game. Feels like chess. You start to control the opponent’s intent, direct what he comes at you with. It is strange, but I usually feel like I am forcing my opponent to throw himself on the floor in this game. I know from the wrist contact what he will do, or I make him do it. But this guy had profound will. I couldn’t get in his head. He’s up 5-3 but hasn’t seen the bear hug. I use it again, and spin him right. Down 5-4. Now the judge comes over and tries to mess with my head. He tells me to adjust my left hand position on the starting position—just psychological manipulation. Bear hug again, it’s even. Amazing, just like an opening novelty in chess. Now he changes his left arm to trap my right, he’s waiting for the same technique and I try to push straight in—doesn’t work, I hit a black hole, down 6-5. I try bear again but he jams it, he figured something out, I’m down 7-5, not much time left in round. I fake a hard attack, but then slip around him and throw him away, down 1. Next I try another combination, two fakes and an attack which wins the point. We’re tied. We clash the next point and both fly off. Then he sinks deep on my attack and I go flying. I’m down 1 point with 1.1 seconds left in the round. I need to score fast. Pulse hard with a four strike combination and win it at the bell. Round 1 is a tie, barely.

Next round is left foot forward. His structure doesn’t feel quite as solid this way and I’ve figured out that I have to attack him with misdirection. I win the first point and then the judges try their magic. They tell me that my stance is too wide, it is outside of the horizontal lines laid out on the mat. I have to narrow my structure, which is absurd. Months of training and they try to change my stance last second. Somehow I knew they would do this before the tournament, so I had met with the president of the Taiwanese Tai Chi Federation to double check the rules. The corruption doesn’t go to the top—it is only certain judges. Everyone was stunned by my next move. I ran over to the president and ask him to come to the ring. He came and I reminded him through a translator of our discussion and he over-ruled the judges. Two years ago I would have been too much in awe of the situation—and would have tried to play with a compromised structure. Now after 10 minutes we start again. They might have hoped to hurt my momentum, but the head is fine, I came prepared. I’m up 1-0. We trade points, he pulls even. Now I’m sinking on my attacks, playing with feints, tight combinations and misdirection. I’m using his skill against him. I noticed that if I fake inside, without even moving, he feels it and responds. He is incredibly sensitive to intention, so I start unbalancing him with invisible attacks that I pulse into but don’t actually manifest physically. I’m getting in his head. He feels it and gets aggressive, attacks hard and blasts me away. But now I’ve got him attacking, and I know I have a deeper root. I start receiving his blow and bouncing him off. Win a bunch of points. Then I make the mistake of coming in hard and he throws me on the floor—2 points. If I lower the sophistication of my game a hair, he destroys me. He slips into a zone and attacks hard. We’re even with 3 seconds to go in the round. I pulse at him with a four prong combination, most of which doesn’t actually happen, and win. I take the next point at the bell with a huge surge and win the round.

Round 3, right leg forward again, this is where he likes it, but me too. We’re trading points. My team is chanting “Tiger, Tiger Buma Ye.” (Bruce used to call me that in the young chess days, and it stuck). The rest of the crowd is chanting in mandarin. They love him, and I don’t blame them. Then I notice a hole. He found the solution to my bear hug, trapping my right forward elbow so I can’t get outside of him—but he’s opened up his armpit to inside pummeling techniques. I start taking the under-hook and tossing him left and right. Every point I’m playing with invisible feints which he somehow feels, and then I’m exploiting his reactions. Trippy idea. Finally I catch a throw where I get the right under-hook and crank him all the way over and around me. He hits hard, and I know it’s over. In that moment I felt a wave of sorrow—like I killed the last unicorn. The match ended and we hugged. I told him he was an inspiration. Fixed and moving step finals ahead, both against the Buffalo.

In fixed, I saw a weakness in his structure and thought I could beat him. In moving, I knew he was a beast. He overwhelmed his opponents with bull rushes and amazing technical throws. His pummeling was excellent. Dan and I had broken his moving step game down and saw that he integrated very precise trips and sweeps into most of his throws. I had to neutralize his footwork and power and look for holes. That was the plan. I hoped to get him in fixed step first, because I thought I could get into his head. There was a one hour break and then all the final matches. Fixed would be first which was good. Dan had somebody we didn’t know in fixed and then Tun Ze Tun in moving. He was hurting bad. I was ready for war, listening to “Lose Yourself” on the headphones and in a state. Fixed step World Championship Finals. Gametime.

I bounced off him on the first point and then put him on the ground for 2. He was hugely aggressive, coming straight in hard and fast. I won 2 points that the ref waved off, one of which is completely absurd on the tape because his feet are straight in the air while I am still planted on the ground, then I land on top of him and they say our feet moved at the same time. I heard people grumbling about the officiating, but at this point I didn’t care. Was a bit of a madman, deep in the zone. I knew that the only way to win was to win big. My root was deeper than his and my last match was much more sophisticated than this one. The bear hug was deadly against his power. He kept on hitting the floor and seemed confused. He tried sinking deep, but then I just caught him on the rise. Round one was a blowout.

In round two the refs were absolutely hilarious. Watching the tape, it is just amazing how many points they took away from me, but in the moment I didn’t care, I felt unstoppable, heard Dan and my team chanting Tiger, Buma Ye, I was in his head and kept on coming. My pop said this was his favorite match, that it was beautiful. To me it felt technical, I won it before stepping in the ring. The moving step final would be the biggest gut check of my life.

Dan’s fixed step final was a heartbreaker. He was hurting bad, his right thumb and forefinger jammed, his left wrist throbbing, both his arms destroyed. He was in it towards the end, was better than the guy, but I saw him in pain and holding back a little. He had Tun Ze Tun next, and that little bit of doubt about whether the fixed would break him before the moving was in his being. I saw him hesitant before firing with the left hand. His pain was all through me. He lost, took silver, and was physically wrecked afterwards.

So I took first and Dan took second in our divisions of fixed step. Then they removed the extra rings for the finals of moving step in all the divisions. Dan would go just before me. He and Tun Ze Tun squared off like two animals in round 1. It was 2 minutes of absolute heart. No points scored, wild ring dramatics, both of them flying around, surprised by the other’s power in the clinch. Dan was crimping Tun Ze Tun’s structure the way he played against my shoulder and Tun Ze Tun looked very unhappy. It was a war. Many near throws and acrobatic escapes.

In round two, I think Dan spent too much energy fighting Tun Ze Tun’s pummeling techniques. Tun is lightning quick (he’s the guy who beat me in the semis two years ago). After a minute of madness, Tun exploded and Dan went out. Heartbreaking point! They also called one penalty point against Dan so he effectively lost by two. Dan would win the tie break on weight, so if he won round 3 by two points, he was world champion. But it wouldn’t happen. He left his heart out there, battled to the bitter end, the two of them were dead on their feet by the bell, and Tun would inch it out. An epic battle between two beautiful artists. Seeing Dan lose out there was absolutely devastating—afterwards I hugged him and he collapsed in my arms, limp, nothing left. Max picked him up and carried him to a chair to be in my corner.

Buffalo. Moving step finals, World Championship, I can’t believe it. He entered the ring screaming, wild, pumped up. The stadium was shaking with chants for him. I had felt his mortality in the fixed which was good, but the moving step is his bread and butter. I had no solutions to his game, only ideas about his weapons. The bell rang. He came in hard, pummeling fast, elbows tight, I fought it off but then decided to give him the under-hooks. I locked down on his left arm—imagine his left foot forward, left arm deep under my armpit and wrapped around my back or up my shoulder. That is an under-hook. Pummeling is the fight for that position. Now imagine my right foot forward against that, and my right arm locked around his left upper arm. Then I crank to the left when the timing is right. From that position, he has better leverage for edging me out and for certain throws, but I have some excellent weapons as well. We go down hard together. I’ve instigated the throw, but my left elbow touches just before he crashes down. His point. 1-0. My shirt is ripped up. They make me change it, I take it off and put a new one on. Gotta make up some ground now. I lost the point but felt potential. This was important. Play resumes, we connect, I disconnect, then come at him hard and fast, try to jump around and take his back but he is too quick and wraps me up. Under-hooks again, okay. We separate, I dance around him, try to enter fast and spin him but nothing there. We feel each other out. Then he cranks hard, I go with it, stay on my feet, but when I land he is on me, I root it out, but he keeps on coming and edges me out of the ring. I’m down 2-0. About a minute to go in round 1. I try a couple things but can’t find a hole. He is confident, strong as hell, I need to use that, there’s nothing else. I go into the clinch and lean on him, let him feel my weight and also my exhaustion. He starts to edge me out of the ring, and I let him take me there, he is cautious, tiny steps, no overextension. My back is to the edge, I plant my left foot an inch from the line, and explode, drive hard against his right arm, screaming, putting everything I’ve got into this throw. He can’t hold on and I take him out of the ring and then go down hard on top of him. It’s 2-1, 11 seconds left in the round. I need a point and am tapped out. Dan is screaming, my whole team is chanting, Tiger, Tiger Buma Ye, faster and faster, I need to go buck wild now, need one point, gotta let it all hang out. The ref says go and I hit him like a truck, he gives a little, then holds his ground, trying to hold on for the bell, I crank and we start spinning, now my back is to the edge, I’m screaming, blowing it out, pull hard and reverse, but he has the under-hooks, is okay, and then all I can say is that I reached deeper than I knew I had and won the most dramatic point of my life With one second left I drove him out of the ring, launching through him and over him, landing him on his back, my shoulder into him and my head over him straight into the ground. The bell rang, the crowd went totally wild, even the Taiwanese. 2-2. I have 60 seconds and am a dead man. I lay panting on my back for almost all of that time. He looks physically strong but upset. Max rubbed my shoulders, I slowed down my breathing, thought I’d be okay by the bell. Hoped. Wasn’t so sure.

Round two. He entered the ring screaming, wildly pumped up. I remember walking to the center, hoping I could reach it without falling down. We go into the clinch, I give him the left under-hook and clamp down on the arm, holding him off, waiting for something. He cranks hard for a throw and sweeps out my right foot, but I feel it coming, step up with my left and neutralize it while crimping his arms. Since Dan and I studied him in the first day, I knew I had to watch that footwork, very dangerous. Then I found a hole, caught him pulsing between legs and drove him hard into the ground, landing on top of his left side. Up 1-0. Next he comes at me hard, cranks into a throw, but I kick around it and follow him onto the ground. Up 2-0. Then I pull off an absolutely gorgeous throw, catching the same hole in his footwork, perfect timing, inner reap, we both go up and I land on him hard, amazing it didn’t wind him. I’m up 3-0!! Now I made my only real mistake of the tournament. I was one point away from winning the world championship—because I had the weight tie break (he weighed 79.98 kilos and I weighed 78.16) and round 1 was tied. If I won this round by 4, then I’d have it locked up. Not really accurate in fact and terrible to think about because it made me over-aggressive. I had him totally defeated, he came at me and I popped him to the side, his left foot landing inches from the edge. Then I should have backed off or gone in slow, but I smelled blood and charged, overextended, and he put me down. Two points. 3-2, he’s back in it. My mistake. Not much time left. I’m spent, so is he. Now things really started to go out of control. He comes hard at me, I almost put him down but he barely saves himself, We fly all over the place, him attacking, me neutralizing, counterattacking, him saving. I hear someone from my team scream 15 seconds. I pace myself, I can last it. I put a huge effort into a throw which he barely stops, he charges, I ward it off, and now I’m spent and it feels like the 15 seconds is over. I see on the video, Max is waving at the timekeeper, the woman is standing holding the bell. What happened here was totally wild. There were many witnesses, all with the same story which just blows my mind. The clock hit 2:00 and the woman went to hit the bell but an official motioned for her not to ring it. Clock went to 2:04, 05, 06, we were scrambling in the ring, in total mayhem, I’m up 3-2 and they are holding the bell. Everyone is screaming. I’m dead on my feet, and the Buffalo puts his heart, soul, blood, and guts into one more throw. I can’t hold it off and start to go, he piles down on top of me, wins the point, and they ring the bell. 3-3. Luckily I didn’t know that this happened with the bell. Just unbelievable—of course nothing against my opponent who was out there dying with me.

So, officially the first two rounds were tied. I’m so far beyond the most exhausted I’ve ever been it is impossible to explain. I’m on my back, breathing, slowing it down, Max and Dan on my arms, Jan on my shoulders, the bell rings. Round 3, it all comes down to this. I’ve got the tie break if we are even. At this point it is pure guts. The round began and I was trying to hold him off at first. Then I gave him double under-hooks and launched into a throw I’ve been working on for years. I roll over his trapped right arm, and come down hard, shoulder to ribs. Perfectly executed…but the judges don’t give it to me. It was amazing. They said we touched the floor at the same time. His ribs wouldn’t agree, but so be it. No score. I don’t have much left. We feel each other out for ten seconds, then he attacks hard, forces a lean, and spins me on the mat, lovely throw. I’m down 2-0. Trouble. Gotta dig deep. Find something. We play, he holds me off. Stalling. I search for over a minute, spent, on the video it looks like I gave up, my body goes limp, then I see a hole and explode into the same throw they just took away from me, but at the end I push off hard (incidentally against an ankle turned 90 degrees) arch my back and land flat on him so they can’t argue. My point. 2-1. Need one more from somewhere.

At this point it felt like one of those video games where the endurance of the fighter is gone and you have to hold the other guy off, survive the barrage, until the tank has something to burn. That’s what I had to do, hold him off, until I had a little bit in me, and then put every ounce of it into a throw that had to be perfectly timed because if it didn’t work I might just collapse. I needed one more of them. Then I found it. Got into the clinch, pulsed, and then drove my whole being into an arm drag. He went down, I landed on him, shoulder to ribs. The tying point. There were 19 seconds left. All I have to do is hold him off and I win. Now everything turned to chaos. The judges suddenly decided not to count my throw because they claimed it was a shoulder throw which is illegal. The fact of the matter is that it is physically impossible to get off a shoulder throw at the angle that I threw him. It was with my bicep. We had 4 cameras shooting the match and started showing video from different angles. The stadium went berserk. The judges convened, the president of the Taiwanese federation, my teacher Master Chen, my whole team was on the mat, my opponent’s team. There were 15 minutes of mayhem. Interestingly, my opponent’s coach and whole team who I spent quite a bit of time with afterwards all told me that they thought it was absurd—that the technique was obviously legal. It was brutal. I had put my last drop into that throw and the idea of them taking it away was inconceivable, like taking my child. All the corruption up to that point was fine-- I didn’t even know about round 2 yet—but that they could do this in the last seconds of the world championship was beyond belief.

After a long dispute, the judges said this challenge would have to be resolved after the match. But for now, I was down by one, the throw would not be counted, and there were 19 seconds left. I had to continue or I would lose by forfeit. Well, in those 19 seconds I gave it my all. I attacked him like an animal, I made the situation totally chaotic and cranked into a throw that would have put him down in training, but he gave up his body to stay on his feet. His elbow just exploded, bent all the way back the wrong way, terrible sprain, but he stayed on his feet, held me off, such heart! Afterwards we hugged. Of course I didn’t intend to hurt him and had no idea about the injury until much later.

Then I just sat down and watched chaos take over. What happened in round 2 with the timer came out and witnesses came over who had heard the judge tell the woman not to ring the bell. There was a huge meeting with video being presented to the President, the judges, to the coaches, to everybody. My opponent’s coach, Tun Ze Tun’s father who is an honorable man agreed with the president that this was wrong. They suggested a shared championship. At this point I was a total madman, was out of my mind with intensity, and demanded a clear winner. I knew I could take him and was steaming. The opposing coach agreed to a 2 minute sudden death playoff to decide the world championship. We would have international judges. They went to find the Buffalo, for twenty minutes I paced the arena, revved up, hot, ready to roll, but it turned out that his elbow was too severely injured. So the ruling was a shared title in moving step—an honorable conclusion. We stood on the first place podium together, hugging, sharing the deepest respect. Tun Ze Tun’s father, Buffalo’s coach, invited Dan and me to come live in his home and train with them this summer. We spent hours talking together afterwards—beautiful people, wonderful martial artists. It is wild and deeply moving to go to battle with someone, to put heart and soul into tearing them limb from limb, but to do so with nothing but mutual love and respect.

So I have no idea how to digest this experience. There is resolution in my mind about the fixed step, I won it outright, but I feel purgatorial about the moving step—it’s tied in my mind with 19 seconds to go, and who knows what is going to happen? Maybe that is a healthy place to sit. I guess I’m in a bit of shock. Never in my life have I had to dig so deeply into myself. Not even close. My father described his difficulty seeing his vulnerable son in the gladiator out there, and I kind of agree. I saw parts of myself I didn’t know about. Now I have to figure out what all this means.

Josh Waitzkin
New York City
December 8, 2004