Being based in Australia, the Wushu Herald is bound to be interested in how our region’s Wushu athletes, coaches and individual practitioners are represented in the International Wushu Federation (IWUF) which was established on October 3rd, 1990 and is the international federation governing Wushu in all its forms worldwide. Currently, the IWUF has 146 members, across five continental federations worldwide. The IWUF is recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and is also a member of both ARISF and Sport Accord.
The IWUF is devoted to development of Wushu throughout the world, to enrichment of people’s lives by making them healthier, both mentally and physically, and to promotion of friendship and understanding between all people through the spirit of sport.
The IWUF is governed by the Executive Board and several Committees which, in total, include 62 people from all over the world. The diagram above shows the distribution of representatives from five continental federations relative to their respective populations (as of September 2017). It can of course dramatically change after the upcoming IWUF Congress, but at the moment the number of Oceania representatives in all IWUF Committees is clearly unproportionate to its population share. With just 0.5% of the world population, Oceania’s representatives enjoy 6% of the total IWUF Committee members which is probably due to their most adorable, charismatic and persuasive foreman whose smooth talk can apparently convince the IWUF President that he is the best man to be the President of the Oceania organisation, and that the simple act of renaming the Kung Fu Wushu South Australia into Oceania Kung Fu Wushu Federation is a magic move to revitalise Oceania Wushu and boost its membership.
Note: While most of the data used in this analysis was taken from the IWUF website, some of it has been adjusted according to the advice from Mr Glen Keith (former President of the Oceania Wushu Federation and a Vice President of the IWUF who stepped down from these positions in 2015) who now claims to be the Senior Vice President of the brand-new Oceania Kung Fu Wushu Federation (not to be confused with the Oceania Wushu Federation currently listed on the IWUF website as an official continental member) – the word of the Senior Vice President HAS TO BE TRUE!