Dana Macalanda was always into martial arts. She grew up watching Jackie Chan movies and was enrolled into taekwondo at age 10. She practiced her craft intermittently until the end of high school. She continued with martial arts all throughout college and joined the wushu club, which didn’t seem like a far-off next step for her. Except it was.
Wushu is entirely performance-based. In other words, no hitting.
That’s why, when Macalanda’s roommate wanted her to check out the club in 2009, she was anything but thrilled.
“She was like, ‘Let’s go, let’s go,’” Macalanda said. “And I told her, ‘No, no…What do you mean it’s not a practical martial art.”
After attending a practice and being won over by the club members, Macalanda was hooked on the sport. While her past martial arts experience gave her a leg up over the other new members on the basics, habits that were formed while in taekwondo caused some unique problems.
“That stiffness and rigidity that carries over from taekwondo, that doesn’t fly in wushu,” Macalanda said. “That was really hard to break. My first year and second year were especially hard because I’d be like, ‘Oh, cool, I got this move,’ and my captain would be like, ‘No. Your stance is too high,’ or, ‘No. You look like a robot right now.’”
Stiffness and rigidity weren’t the only issues for her. With movements and patterns in taekwondo being very linear, some elements in wushu caused some unexpectedly comical setbacks.
“My sophomore year, my captain was trying to get us to run in a C-shape to set us up for a jump,” Macalanda said. “He said, ‘Just take one-two-three steps and then jump.’ Then I would run in a line every time.”
The process did not go smoothly.
“It was very fun and frustrating to watch,” said Kenney Hersch, who is currently a co-captain.
Over time, Macalanda broke her old ways and formed new ones, becoming one of the team captains and inspiring newer members to persevere through the tough early stages of learning.
“When I was practicing these high-low kicks … she taught me how to rotate the pelvis from one position to the other,” said Victor Santamaria, a new member. “Once I got that motion, she came back over and said, ‘Now you need to work on this.’ This was in the middle of training. I think that says a lot about someone who cares about other people and about someone who loves what she does.”
Macalanda’s primary focus is instructing, but her dedication is what keeps her going. Her love for the sport will keep her in the martial arts world.
“It looks like it’s not result-driven for her anymore,” Hersch said. “Since she’s so obsessive over it, so passionate about it, the results just come naturally.”
As for what’s next for Macalanda after she leaves the UO she wants to continue with more wushu, try boxing or muay thai and keep broadening her horizons.
“There’s always more stuff to learn,” she said. “That’s why I do martial arts.”
Follow Anne Yilmaz on Twitter @anneyilmaz
[Originally published here by the Daily Emerald on May 26, 2014]