Oregon club wushu newcomers usually fit into two categories: They either come in with a martial arts background or they join with no relevant experience whatsoever.

Freshman Tommy Yang doesn’t quite fit the mold of either. He has experience—in dance.

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.

On paper, the Collegiate Wushu Tournament looked like a bust for the three University of Oregon students who traveled to the University of Maryland on Saturday to participate.

They kept getting lost. There were fallen sashes and forgotten moves during forms. None of them placed.

However, for freshman Elirissa Hui and sophomores Wing Ng and Kevin Lai, the trip was anything but a failure. Despite their rankings, they all found reasons to consider it a success.

The wushu club is living out a lot of sports’ worst nightmares. Its members have a dedicated team ready to train, but no coach.

And that’s just the way they like it.