40 Hours for the Forty Acres September 2021

Who We Are

Texas Wushu is a recreational sports team at the University of Texas at Austin. Wushu is a contemporary version of traditional Chinese martial arts. Founded in the late 1800s as an attempt to preserve Chinese martial arts culture and give them a structured, public foundation for people to practice, wushu has been a staple of Chinese cultural exports and is practiced by more than a million people across the globe. In cinema, wushu has been popularized by many such as Bruce Lee, Donnie Yen, Jackie Chan, and other critically-acclaimed actors.

What We’re Fundraising For

The funds will be allocated towards two main goals. The first is subsidizing members' trips to the Collegiate Wushu competition. This year the competition is in New York, so expenses are high. The second place the funds will be allocated towards is improving the equipment currently at hand. Primarily, weapons and uniforms necessary for demonstrations and competitions are the second cost barrier for many students, but with enough funds, we hope to introduce wushu silks and teach different forms of weapon combat that aren't commonly found in Austin.

Your Impact

Donors' gifts to Texas Wushu will allow many of our team members to delve even deeper into the art of wushu. Many of our members are not only interested in Chinese martial arts, but hope to promote healthiness and a combat-adjacent sport that carry an ancient culture behind it. Wushu is not just a performance art, but a crystallization of Chinese tradition and contemporary movements that seek to benefit the practitioner through physical training and increased agility. People would not just support but actively engage in knowing that they are contributing to one of the fastes growing martial arts disciplines in the world. Aside from making various bids into the Olympics, there are a colossal amount of wushu practitioners that receive wide support such as movie stars, martial arts teachers, and community performers. Additonally, two of the members of Texas Wushu teach wushu in the Austin community to people of all ages, ranging from 5-year-olds to older adults. In terms of benefitting the university, Texas Wushu perofrms at many functions across Austin during East Asian holidays such as the Mid-Autumn festival, Lunar New Year, and the Dragonboat Festival. Beyond the physical benefits, Texas Wushu has become a staple of Asian celebrations at the University of Texas at Austin, from TASA to E+E events and more. In the past couple of years, members of Texas Wusu have even gone as far as to do stuntwork for RTF projects that require combat ability mixed with acrobatics for the camera.