Boy from South Carolina floored by Chinese wrestling
April 17, 2013, Wednesday
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HAILING from a small city in South Carolina, United States, Lavell Marshall is an unlikely lover of shuai jiao, an ancient Chinese wrestling style dating back to 2000 BC.
But 24-year-old Marshall, who competed at the World Shuai Jiao Championships in China last month, has been obsessed with Chinese martial arts since he was three. The global event is the "Olympics for shuai jiao," meaning to throw on the ground by wrestling with the legs.
"I can remember my dad always put on Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies," he tells Shanghai Daily in a recent Skype interview from his home in Columbia, South Caroline. "I remember watching a movie called 'Shaolin vs Ninja.' Ever since then, I said, 'I want to be a monk'."
He took martial arts classes, beginning a lifelong fascination with all things China - language, calligraphy, Buddhism, and, five years ago, shuai jiao. "It was like it was from a past lifetime, it was already there," he says.
Marshall was competing at a martial arts tournament when his now shuai jiao teacher walked up to him and asked if he wanted to learn the art that involves kicking, striking and locking, with a particular focus on throwing.
It was love at first - perhaps, he says, it was meant to be. "As far as I know, the best shuai jiao master is in the States, and he's my grandmaster."
The reasons he likes the art have changed over time. "When I first started, I liked the power it gave me, the feeling of confidence that it gave me in my spirit as a martial artist. But now I've learned that shuai jiao is a sophisticated man's art. I like the fact that you have to out-smart the other person in order to win."
Players lose if any part of their body, except their feet, touches the ground, so players try to get their opponent to fall. "It's like putting together a puzzle, it's almost like who can put it together the fastest," Marshall says.
There's not a lot to do in his hometown, with a population of around 130,000, so he throws himself into the sport, training six hours a day. He also works out at gym, combining martial arts with traditional exercise to create a fitness routine. He tours with a dance troupe called Tribe SK.
It takes a lot of work and physical strength to train, but one thing that keeps him going is his warrior braid, or dragon tail, growing for a year now.
"It's more for mental strength, like when people go to war and they put paint on their face," he says.
Finally making it to China last month for the three-day event in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, was a dream come true, but he didn't do as well as he had wanted. There is no international ranking system for shuai jiao, so people of different levels were pitted against each other. Marshall lost for only the second time ever, to a competitor from Russia, ultimately coming seventh in his weight division.
"It made me realize, 'Yo, you got some training to do'."
He plans to have a second crack at his Russian opponent in an international tournament in Europe in June.
Longer term, though, Marshall has bigger aspirations - he hopes to take shuai jiao to the broader population. It's relatively unknown in his small town, but it is also pretty small in the United States in general. So Marshall wants to get into movies, and give the sport more airtime by becoming a full-contact fighter for the Ultimate Fighting Championship in America.
"It's going to take someone to do it, because no ne's doing it right now," he says. "I want to not only show myself to the world but also show the world shuai jiao."
(Julia Hollingsworth)
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