Sifu

Woo Ching White Crane- History, Legend and Philosophy 殘 閃 穿 截 Intro: Boddhidarma (Although I thought this was more Legendary now looking on Wikipedia there are articles suggesting he came to China by boat landing first in Nan Yue (a separate Kingdom that is now Canton. Any way this is too far back for us to have anything to add and we can learn much from other people’s scholarship but it is interesting that our Tibetan Branch and part of our more Han branch although at first having a different look….upon practicing them more, do not appear to be all that different after all) Southern Shaolin People Question now whether the Southern Shaolin Temple existed. But obviously it did. The question of whether it was an actual place... well, it was certainly a place where people practiced Kung Fu. How tall was it? Where was it? Po Tin? Was there more than one? Did it look just like the movies? Who was Abbott at what time and when? In any case, I will tell you now the story of the Shaolin Temple and its characters of the mind, of our Woo Ching White Crane mind, of our collective Woo Ching White Crane oral history, with characters that sound familiar from movies and maybe other lineages, and some characters that are less familiar and less mentioned in Kung Fu but more so in organizational histories. People say, or used to say, that Teen Ha Moh Dik Kung Fu chuet Siu Lum. That the greatest Kung Fu comes out of Shaolin. Why so? Because basically all Kung Fu comes out of Shaolin and so all the systems of Kung Fu that anyone could name came out of Shaolin, and if they claimed no such lineage it was claimed by popular belief for them. Wu Tang? Shaolin. They didn’t say it, but it’s what people say about them. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? Judo? Jigaro Kano said it is possible it was native to Japan. But others would say, “Shaolin 36 Kum La Sau. 36 techniques 72 variations. We lost it. The Japanese preserved it.” Karate? Shaolin. Tai Chi? Zhang San Feng (Zhang being Cheung in Mainland) if he existed is depicted in movies as coming from Shaolin. Tibetan White Crane? Ahh… so here too is where there is already a clear difference. But we would say, yes Shaolin related. But not out of originating in Shaolin per se. See, we would not necessarily say all the best Kung Fu came out of Shaolin. But that all the best Kung Fu also went into Shaolin. That there were cultural, academic, Buddhist and Kung Fu exchange students between Shaolin temples and Tibetan Buddhist Temples. That Jesuits stayed in Shaolin and exchanged knowledge. And that before it was burned down, Southern Shaolin not only harbored the best and the brightest, but officials and criminals on the run. As long as the monks saw some glimmer of good in their hearts. So whatever Southern Shaolin is or was or will be, whether it is more like Camelot or Troy, Shangri-La or the Xavier school for gifted youth, to us and too many it existed. In fact, according to Wikipedia, during the Yuan Dynasty there were many Shaolin bases… all of which could be referred to as Shaolin temples. Starbucks globally is a chain. But if your town only has one, you say “Let’s meet at THE Starbucks.” But here we will begin with an Abbott that may never have been an Abbott at a school that may never have been a place. Sing Long, Abbott of THE Southern Shaolin Temple in the Qing Dynasty. Sing Long Sing Long was a powerful Kung Fu master and Abbott of Shaolin Temple. During this time Shaolin was at peace. It was in the childhood stage of a place. A secret Garden stage of a place. A paradise of Buddhist monks practicing Kung Fu. He had many students who would become Masters and founders of systems. But this being a Woo Ching White Crane book. Let me first mention his Student Woo Duk Dai. A person, historical or not, forgotten to most Kung Fu movies (though not all) and often viewed as the secret mysterious powerful Kung Fu Master behind the curtain but not fully involved. Students would graduate from Shaolin Temple (the part of lay students) and then they could choose to become monks or to go outside of the Temple and work on their specialties. Woo Duk Dai became somewhat of a hermit, but not a monk exactly, on White Crane Mountain in 10,000 monkey cave. His specialty was Mein lei Jum. So it is from him that we claim our Mein Lei Jum comes from. (Like I said, right or wrong, this is our story) And the fact that Woo Duk Dai has the family name of Woo just us my Sifu, and our modern founder also has the last name of Woo, is not insignificant. But it is also a coincidence. (ie no relation that we know of) Ng Moi Ng Moi was a woman. So she was not allowed into Shaolin temple proper but was taught Kung Fu in a round adbout skirting of the rules. A building as constructed for her and other students could be brought to her for group instruction or sparring or the like. She knew of Sing Long’s existence and would later suggest that Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu seek refuge with Woo Duk Dai. And of course, as I write this last part I realize that these stories must have come from some truth after all. Now why go to all this trouble for Ng Moi? Who was she? Well, the story goes like this. Her father was some sort of Duke or Governor that the Emperor had become suspicious of. The Emperor through a big party and invited all of the Dukes he suspected and poisoned the wine. Ng Moi’s father and a couple of others figured it out but pretended to play along and feign drunkenness while spilling their drinks and consuming less poison while getting the message out to save his family. At some point troops barged in and killed everyone but Ng Moi was sent as a child to hide away in Shaolin Temple. Now… if Ng Moi Pai did not exist, we might want to question this story, as the princess hiding away in the convent is so prevalent in the West. Ng Moi grew up and eventually found out about her father’s death by the emperor (now… the real question is was this the emperor or a governor… and is there a specific name because what happens next means there should be some record of it.) Being raised in by monks outside of Shaolin Temple proper, she would learn that all live is sacred and studied sutras on compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. However, when she was ready, she left the temple without permission and went to take revenge, using her light skills Kung Fu to go in and assassinate the emperor or Governor or whatever officials were responsible for her father’s death. The story goes that has trrops came to stop her from leaving her face did not even turn color as she dealt with them quite easily and then escaped. Returning to Shaolin Temple, she faced the wall in meditation knowing that she had both succeeded in avenging her father’s death, but failed at her Buddhist goals. She would go on to become a travelling Nun that taught women only, A women’s rights activist by any means necessary if you will. And, as the story goes, Wing Chun was one of her students. Fung Do Duk Fung Do Duk was supposedly specializing in Kicks, and although there was already a Moh Dong (Wu Tang) System, he is attributed to training on Wu Tang mountain and starting a Wu Tang system or adding to it. He is somewhat of a Villain in this story and not a main character at that. Wu Tang does not claim any particular lineage to him. Maybe it’s just that he was a Taoist. Ma Ling Yi So the story of Ma Ling Yi is quite the parable, and indeed, not that I think about it, is similar to the story of Lucifer. Which again, makes me wonder of somehow Western Arthurian and Biblical stories were not transposed onto Chinese.. or really Cantonese culture… perhaps around the Tai Ping Rebellion. But then all stories have similarities, true and untrue… so let us continue with the story of Ma Ling Yi. In the Southern Shaolin Temple, there was a great lamp that had to be changed everyday. The oil, that is, had to be changed every day, or week or month. Whatever. The point is this job went to someone who was very reliable and strong. You had to be able to lift the oil vat. It sounds like this really isn’t a one person job and of course you would have to do this job in a way that made sense for normal people to do. But in the story, the job pretty much took superhuman strength and the job belonged to Ma Ling Yi, who was a monk, raised in the Temple having known nothing but the Temple all his life. This is important because many people in the story were lay people. In other words, they studied at Shaolin Temple but were not monks. When Ma Ling Yi changed the oil, or refilled the oil in the lamp, he grabbed the vat with one arm, did a flying jump kick instead of using a ladder and grabbed the chain and then filled the lamp while hanging there by one arm. Yes, he could have asked for help or used ladders or tools, but he did this often without a problem. Until One day he spilled the oil and knocked over the lamp breaking it. Ma Ling Yi knew he was in trouble, but he was in more trouble than he realized. An emergency meeting was called. Bells were rung, monks assembled, Ma Ling Yi was called forth for his punishment. Yes he was ashamed and embarrassed but an emergency meeting? Sing Long spoke, “This lamp has lit our Southern Shaolin temple since the beginning. It represents the temple itself. And there is a prophecy, passed down Abbot to Abbot regarding this lamp.” I believe Sing Long then opened a piece of paper and read a poem which was the prophecy and may not have ever actually seen the words inside the prophetic poem until that time. “This lamp is the light of Shaolin Temple. Without this lamp there is no Shaolin Temple. Whoever breaks this lamp will bring about the end of Southern Shaolin. Shaolin Temple is Buddhist and all life is sacred. Monks cannot spill blood. However, in this one case, whoever breaks this lamp…. Execute him.” There was a cacophony of voices. Some called for Ma Ling Yi’s execution. (Probably monks that didn’t like him.) Some cried for mercy. After all how could the Temple go against Buddhism itself? If they started taking life then what was the point of studying Buddhism and being monks? In the end, Sing Long (as I write this now I can’t actually remember if this was in Sing Long’s time or Jee Seen’s time) In any case, the Abbot showed mercy. He had Ma Ling Yi beaten with sticks and cast out. The equivalent of excommunication. Ma Ling Yi was bitter about that, having known noting but Shaolin Temple for his whole life. He may have been a baby that was left at there door. In any case, the prophecy proved true. He would bring about the destruction of Shaolin Temple working with Fung Do Duk and Bak Mei. Now this story can have many “morals.” Should they have killed Ma Ling Yi? I believe the Abbott decided that the teaching were more important than a building. Also, there were many factors that brought about the burning of the Southern Shaolin Temple. The Northern Temple on Mount Song was untouched (at this time). And there were many burnings of temples. To execute someone would have made the whole thing hypocritical. And one could argue that had the Temple (if it existed) not burned down… all the diaspora of Kung Fu would not have been so far flung and great. Without the Temple Burning Hung Hei Goon would have no purpose, as his purpose was to rebuild. Also, by punishing Ma Ling Yi so severely, Shaolin Temple created an enemy. By not punishing him severely enough, they allowed a future enemy to grow. There is a push and pull here. And let us remember too that much of the legacy carried on by Shaolin Temple is in the Triads. In other words, Shaolin Temple in this moment can choose two paths. A path of violence or a path of complete forgiveness. The Abbott chooses the middle path. Which ends up becoming the one cause of the Temples destruction. But I suppose Shaolin Temple keeps it’s soul by doing this. What about having no punishment whatsoever? Maybe if that happened, Ma Ling Yi would have became the next Abbot and perhaps his leadership would have been bad. Instead, most consider the legacy of Shaolin to erst primarily with Hung Hei Goon, a lay person. And this could only happen if the legacy of Shaolin was to exist outside of the monk lifestyle and in the Gong Hu lifestyle and with families and villages. I say this even though our system is not Hung Gar but White Crane, and our lineage is through Woo Duk Dai. Jee Seen Jee Seen’s specialty was iron head, which is only mildly important. The main thing about Jee Seen is that he became Abbot of Shaolin Temple and was classmates with Bak Mei. Bak mei was always smarter. But supposedly Jee Seen was wiser and less politically minded. I guess the story makes more sense if he is the Abbott at the time of Ma Ling Yi’s expulsion. Not historically, but in terms of fictionalized stand in’s for right and wrong. Ie. Perhaps Bak Mei would have killed Ma Ling Yi. In any case, Jee Seen being the Abbot is where our story and the main narrative in Kung Fu movies agree. Jee Seen would be the Abbott and Sifu of Hung Hei Goon, Fong Sai Yuk, Luk Ah Choi, and Woo Wai keen. Bak Mei Bak Mei Studied in Shaolin Temple and later left, becoming a Taoist monk of sorts and developing Bak Mei Pai. Many Hong Kong lineage Practitioners, especially dispute this claiming that Bak Mei is a fictional person and thet Cheung Lai Chuen created Bak Mei. However, Jing met with Bak Mei practitioners from Taishan who said he is the 6th generation inheritor of Bak Mei Pai. This is possible if the art is passed on each time from an elderly Sifu to a younger disciple. And reminds us that all of these stories take place not that long ago. In any case, according to their story Bak Mei was a real person, and after Bak Mei killed Jee Seen, he fell into somewhat of a depression and no longer really cared about things. This version of the story would match up with ours in that, Bak Mei existed, and Bak Mei killed Jee Seen. Therefore Jee seen existed and these characters are based on real people. For Bak Mei’s altar, Bak Mei is depicted as a Taoist and the sayings on either side are something like, “ A great master and a Compassionate Han” Teet Han yau Ching for the second one. I forget the first saying. Back to our version of Bak Mei. (which, as you can see is also collected from other people’s versions as well.) Developing Bak Mei Pai, Bak Mei sort of created Shaolin’s “Black Star” or Hung Gar’s Black Star, in that Bak Mei is supposed to take the regular External Shaolin that Bak Mei would have learned in those 10 years as a lay student and develop the counter technique. In any case, that is the story. Bak Mei is more internal than Hung Gar but not as internal as say, Tai Chi. It has some reverse breathing and training techniques and is extremely powerful Kung Fu. Bak Mei specialized in Cotton Stomach, and iron body, which is important to the story. (Personally viewing some Bak mei vids on Yout Tube, I noticed that one of the self defense drills was a very tight close version of a combination from our luk lik kuen. After the first frog stance and crane spreading wings. The left handed wing to block an opponent’s right handed punch. Now, my interpretation of this technique in our form would be to jahm the neck next. But the Bak Mei self defense drill is shorter and attacks the same arm again with the “jahm” and the “been” back hand with an open hand into the opponents face followed by a toi jerng with the right hand. I guess its more for attacking a longer range taller, stronger opponent. But I didn’t like (after some analysis) how it attacks the same hand twice consecutively essentially doing three moves to the opponents one. Of course its done very fast and the first impression of the drill is, “Wow! Fast and powerful and effective.” My point in all this…. Is that it’s the same sequence of moves. Same combination. At first glance Bak Mei Pai looks extremely different than us and there are some of our techniques that remind one of Bak Mei Pai, but this sequence in our form is not one of them. It doesn’t “look” like Bak Mei. So when I realized upon watching a drill that this combination was in Luk Lik in a stereotypically UN-BakMei section… well I guess I thought it was worth noting. Back to Bak Mei the person. Bak Mei’s students tended to be Qing Government officials. And even before the burning of Shaolin Temple there was some fighting between Shaolin Students and Bak Mei Students. The story goes, that Bak Mei Kung Fu, being more internal, took longer to develop. So for the first 5 years, Shaolin Students would win. Since it takes 10 years to graduate from Shaolin Temple properly, this must be other students of former graduates running around. After 5 years, the students are more evenly matched and then after 10 years the Bak Mei students would win. At first Bak Mei told his students to stop fighting (as did Shaolin) and causing trouble but over time this nagging conflict began to take its toll on him mentally. The conflicts also were not just over Kung Fu as Bak Mei’s students tended to be more pro establishment and Shaolin Studenst tended to be anti Qing. (In today’s 2021 terms, one could say Bak Mei Pai was the Blue lives matter of the time and Shaolin was the Black Lives Matter of the time.) Was their any racial component? That actually gets far more complicated as Bak Mei as it is today is part of the Hakka Family of martial arts which was a minority group, that would later be oppressed by the Qing. The Han is the majority group.., which for all intents and purposes is also being oppressed by the Qing at the point in time when Bak Mei is alive. The Qing being largely Manchurian… but mnost government officials had to have been Han, just not the top positions. The story goes that Bak Mei knew that as long as Shaolin was still around, his Kung Fu would never be able to get out from under its shadow, even if his Kung Fu was better. But as you can see… it’s actually more complicated than that. Bak Mei is often seen or portrayed as the Villain of the story. But by our account, he was really just doing his own thing. And the conflict arose maybe inevitably. But his great sin was killing Jee Seen, his own Kung Fu brother. But that comes later. As I mentioned earlier, there are techniques in our Kung Fu that look like Bak Mei and we are really Hung Bak Choi (Hung Kuen, Bak Hok, Bak Mei, Choi Lei Fut) So I had assumed these techniques were absorbed into the system later. We also have elements of Wing Chun and Northern Shaolin, Hakka Stick and many other systems as well as Western Boxing and fencing from the British. But it is hard to tell, what elements were absorbed in later and what was already there sometimes. Folk Stories 10,000 years of Evergreen (a book I have yet to read and which my Sifu claimed is similar to our history, but we diverge from this book in our oral history. Vincent brought it up and Sifu said that is a version of the story. But although similar… it is not our version. They have theirs, we have ours. It is more important I suppose as more and more fictional versions are made, and scholarly versions claim that all of it is fictional and that Southern Shaolin Temple didn’t exist) So again, whatever the the truth is, I think it is important that our version of the story is recorded, regardless of its origin. Even if it is just for us. Fong Sai Yuk Fong Sai Yuk’s mother was supposedly a student of either Ng Moi or Wing Chun. Her name is known to the Kung Fu system’s and Kung Fu movies... but I forget it right now. The mother may have saved Fong Sai Yuk’s father’s life. He was already married and thought what a shame he couldn’t marry this woman to pay her back. Whereupon his mother said he was an idiot and that he should just take her as a second wife. Which he did. Come to think of it, there are countless movies about Fong Sai Yuk where this mother son relationship plays an important role. Often left out of some of the movies is that Fong Sai Yuk had several brothers (who I can’t remember their name but its in some of the old movies) and they actually ALL went up to Shaolin Temple. They just don’t play prominent roles in the story. Fong Sai Yuk also apparently fought Liu Lo Fu, a sort of Stage MMA WWF style no holds bar performer coming down from the North, challenging the entire Canton taking all comers type of thing. Fong Sai Yuk’s didn’t want Fong Sai Yuk fighting (he was like 12) but he was a Kung Fu prodigy and was always getting in trouble beating up other kids his age. He also had iron body because is mother trained him in that, hitting him all over his body and soaking him in Teet Da Jow. (This also sounds similar to the legend of Achilles doesn’t it?) Anyway, She sewed knives into his shoes ( which Fong Sai Yuk didn’t know. In the stage fight, he killed Liu Lo Fu, but everyone could see it was because there were knives sewn into his shoes. In any case, he was now wanted for murder. So around age 14 to 16 he goes up to Shaolin Temple, not only to learn Kung Fu, but also to evade the authorities. Again, it’s him, his many brothers, and also along the way they are supposed to meet up with Hung Hei Goon. Hung Hei Goon Well, since Hung Gar is the main stream, Hung Hei Goon is the most well known of all these characters and so much is written about him. Many say he didn’t exist and that even if he did exist, that Hung Hei Goon is an assumed name. He is a King Arthur of sorts, being a rebel leader. (Consequently, another Hung hei Goon, that didn’t know Kung Fu, led the Tai Ping rebellion and believed himself to be God’s Chinese Son (see Jonathan Spence’s book) and Jesus’s younger brother, spiritually. He was Hakka and a real historical figure. His name is written completely differently but I believe the surname is the same. Chau Lei Fut is closely tied to the Tai Ping rebellion, and since it took over half of the country… including Canton…there definitely must be a mark on Kung Fu that is Tai Ping related. The Tai Ping certainly left its mark on history and so that story is much more documented. What is not as documented is the Kung Fu aspect of it all. At least not in our lineage. But since I am probably Hakka genetically and also have Christian background to my beliefs, having gone to a Jesuit school.. anyway I always found the Tai Ping interesting. The also divided property equally (sort of) and separated the sexes (except the leader.) Anyway, back to OUR Hung Hei Goon, who in our story, exists. 90% of Canton practiced Hung Gar and although we are White Crane my Sifu had a Hung Kuen base. In fact the basics are his adaptation and were created primarily to convert someone who had already been practicing Hung Gar into Woo Ching White Crane. We don’t really have any Hung Gar forms, but there are similairties.. but there are also similarities to almost every system with ours. (Which also makes sense) Jing knows a Hung Gar form, called “Lo Hung Kuen” or Old Hung Kuen from his village, that is supposedly Hung Gar that is directly from Hung Hei Goon (a lot of Hong Kong Hung Gar claims Wong Fei Hung lineage) but this one is sort of different, left in the villages from before. It’s a pretty cool form maybe I should learn it. But it would always be somewhat different from the other Woo Ching White Crane forms which build upon each other step by step working on different things and appear to be a complete curriculum of forms. So even though its cool, it wouldn’t be Cannon in my opinion. It’s rather hard. Not as in difficult. But hard as in external. And again, that is the stereotypical Hung Gar. So this hero joins in the group and is always to me seen as older, or at least more mature. He is not as fast or intelligent as Fong Sai Yuk. But he is always the stable leader. But this becomes more of a factor later. Woo Wai Keen Woo Wai Keen was supposed to be smaller than the others, perhaps because he was younger. In any case the way he supposedly joined the group going up to Shaolin was a group of theater people (who tended at that time to be students of from the Fung Do Duk lineage aka Moh Dong or Wu Tang Clan) were beating Woo Wai Keen up. It had something to do with Woo Wai Keen and his father working for the theater and maybe the actors guild or union was sort of some sort of gang that all did Moh Dong. Anyway, Hung Hei Goon, Fong Sai Yuk and the whole crew stepped in on behalf of Woo Wai Keen. Woo Wai Keen’s father was maybe elderly and sick and so Woo Wai Keen got absorbed into this group going up to Shaolin. Woo Wai keen is actually a major character in this story despite him not being particularly well known for proficiency in martial arts. Okay so they are all going to Shaolin Temple ( and now having watched various Youtube videos on the subject of other people’s stories, I am unclear which Shaolin Temple they were at. But my assumption had always been that they were going to study at the Southern Shaolin Temple.) So they get there.. and they learn Kung Fu. In fact they already knbow Kung Fu really but they start training there. You know come to think of it, although the movies always depict training, most of these stories about these characters are not really about training. The interesting part of the story comes when someone escapes and that is Woo Wai Keen. How long had they been in Shaolin Temple at that point? Don’t know. Supposedly the curriculum for a lay person was 10 years. And that always sounded like a lot, but if you tie your highschool years all the way to your graduate school years… that’s ten years. And it’s not like they were only doing Kung Fu. They were also studying reading and writing and texts on Buddhism and all sorts of other stuff. So basically, this is college and highschool and ten years is not crazy. But were the heroes all their for ten years? Well, Woo Wai Keen got a letter at some point that his father was killed by that same group of Wu Tang Moh Dong theater people. And supposedly, Woo Wai Keen was still of a slight build and was working on a “Flower Fist” something that didn’t require a lot of strength but concentrated more on agility and would match his frame more. (This is interesting because it shows that not everyone was concentrating on learning the same moves, even though they are all in the same physical school.) But after he got the letter, he crawled out of a hole in the wall and escaped Shaolin Temple without permission to go avenge his father. This is part of the main stream folklore as well. Roll Call Now, what did people practice in Southern Shaolin Temple? Did they wake up and run like they do at Shaolin Temple Now? Was there morning meditation? Perhaps in Horse stance or jahm jong? In any case, at some point there was some sort of roll call and Woo Wai Keen was missing. He has crawled through a hole in the wall perhaps from disrepair but it is emphasized that he crawled out on all fours and in Chinese culture this is often seen as some sort of low class thing to do to crawl on the ground like a dog. But of course there is Dog style Kung Fu and ground fighting in Chinese Kung Fu too. Perhaps it is to differentiate between jumping over walls and sneaking into a Palace like Ng Moi. In fact, when depicted in movies, this scene of Woo Wai Keen climbing through a hole is done with dramatically sad music and I have watched it with older people who say, “Yeah that’s right he crawled through a hole like a dog” so it’s a common story among the people. Anyway, emergency meeting is called again and Jee Seen sends Fong Sai Yuk, Hung Hei Goon, Luk Ah Choi, and basically the whole crew of people to go and fetch Woo Wai Keen back for the crime of escaping Shaolin without permission, which will mean that he will be kicked out of Shaolin Temple. This sounds dumb but basically this list of heroes is sent to recapture (wink wink) and punish (wink wink) Woo Wai Keen when in fact by this point Jee Seen is aware that Woo Wai Keen is seeking to avenge his father’s death. Revenge or killing is not allowed in Buddhism and no monk. Especially the Abbot of Shaolin Temple, is allowed to partake in or condone revenge or violence involving death. (You can fight in self-defense and cripple someone) But Fong Sai yuk and Hung hei Guen and Luk Ah Choi are lay students. They are not monks. They took no voe against eating meat or spilling blood. So basically, Jee Seen is sending out special forces to assist Woo Wai Keen in avenging his father, and it is understood that Fong Sai Yuk, being crafty and clever, will know this. After they help Woo Wai Keen avenge his father, they bring him back to Shaolin Temple, where he is scolded, beaten with sticks as punishment and then formally kicked out. One could see him as a foil for Ma Ling Yi in this sense. The Burning of Shaolin Temple. So the next story chronologically that I know is of the Shaolin Temple being burned down. But I get the feeling that at this point Fong Sai Yuk, Hung Hei Goon, Luk Ah Choi and others had already graduated from Shaolin Temple and were involved in Fahn Ching Fuk Ming anti Qing activities. So I guess they had been visiting Shaolin Temple at the time of its burning. None of the stories really blame Hung Hei Goon or the other Jook Ga Dai Jee for getting involved in this stuff which technically, is the reason why the Temple is being burned, for harboring what in todays day in the United States would be labelled a Terrorist Group. Or at the very least an antigovernment organization. In any case, according to the stories Hung Hei Goon assassinated the governor of Guangzhou/ Canton. Was this before or after the temple burned though? Not clear. But the reason why I know that these students graduated from Shaolin Temple and so must have then gone out into the world, is because Woo Wai Keen did not. He didn’t get the burn marks and branding and the Dragon and Tiger or Double Dragons, depending on the generation. But with everything that happened he was accepted as a graduate even though he didn’t graduate because, well the Temple was gone at that point. Perhaps I should talk a little but about what the requirements for graduating Shaolin Temple were before continuing with how the Temple Burned. Curriculum and Graduation So, just like the movies, there are 36 Chambers of Shaolin. Except it was always 36. Not 35 and then one being the teaching of lay people. 36 is a very Chinese number. 36 strategies of war. 36 plus 72 is 108. 108 heroes of the water Margin. With 36 from heaven and 72 from earth in terms of spirit. So 36 as a number is important. (Side note, BJJ has 36 techniques and 72 variations.. so does the Monkey King) But what were the 36 chambers? Rooms and different training methods? My Sifu thinks they were more like forms. And that even the 18 Lohan warriors sets were also just forms. That’s lame and boring for a movie though. And yes, there was crazy training too besides forms too. Scaling walls, doing weird stuff at night in the dark and training eyesight. Special Forces type stuff but within the Buddhist rules. Like no raising dogs and then killing them like I have heard they do in some American and British special forces. Although I guess Ninjas are technically Buddhist as well. And like I said, Hung Hei Goon did assassinate a government official. But I feel like that is after the Temple Burned and was not ordered by the Temple or even condoned. Anyway, to graduate there were all sorts of tests and tests always start with stance. I saw the floor covered in oil in a movie, and Sifu had said, “See they always start with stance as the most important thing” but whether that was an actual thing or just a representation on film of certain training I don’t know. There was the wooden warriors section, which always seems crazy in the movies. But this is how that was explained to me. You would have to walk through a dark to dim hallway and various wooden beams would be coming at you and you would have to block or evade. It was dark so that you couldn’t see in what way the wooden wooden beam would be coming at you. In a straight punching like motion? In a downward Cup kuen like motion? In a horizontal been ngau hook like motion? And upward pow kuen like motion? All these techniques are easy to make wooden beam do, but if you can see clearly what each move is that defeats the purpose. Apparently, this was super hard and often a student taking the test would be injured or knocked out and have to be carried out of the hallway by a senior student or teacher who would accompany him. Seems crazy and somewhat of a waste of structure and almost like science fiction. But the US military had created dummy contraptions to practice bayonetting. They don’t do this anymore I don’t think. But my point is, it’s not completely insane if this test did exist. The Burning Caldron So the famous imagery of finally graduating from Shaolin is picking up a burning caldron or pot that would burn the words Siu Lum Ji 少林寺 onto your chest. And a Dragon on one inside forearm and a tiger on the other, or sometimes two dragons, depending on the generation or class that you graduated in. Usually this is very dramatic in the movies but my Sifu said it was probably more like this. After crawling through that final test in the dark hallway, you have a small opening, but blocking that opening is the burning cauldron. I.e., this might be the first time you are finding out about it. Supposedly you would be so strong at this point that the cauldron, which weights 1000 pounds or something ridiculous (not sure who was weighing it) is not that heavy to you, but it’s the fact that it burns you that is the problem. You have to quickly grab it pressed against your body and shift it to the side so that you can crawl through the hole. You don’t lift it dramatically. And after that you will be in bed recovering for quite some time. Now as I write this I realize that Woo Wai Keen crawled through a hole, and so does a proper graduate of Shaolin Temple. It’s just a different hole. In various English Lit classes they have short stories that talk about such a hole in a cave or something as representing being reborn. Now I have never thought it that way when being told the story of Shaolin graduations, especially since other versions of the story on film depict the lifting of the Cauldron out ibn the open, carrying it even and walking a few steps. But as I wrote it out I realized of course there is an element of rebirth and passing through the womb, the womb being Shaolin temple. And in that sense Woo Wai Keen also crawled out of a hole in Shaolin Temple but it was premature and almost like a C section. And in fact his in the story he is also somewhat week in the beginning, but afterwards, when they are all roaming around fighting Qing troops he is just as good as anyone of the other heroes. Is it coincidence? In any case, Shaolin Temple burns and the troops invade and many monks are killed. Helping to invade is Fung Do Duk and Ma Ling Yi and supposedly, some Tibetan Lamas as well. Maybe we don’t focus on that part because part of our lineage is also Tibetan. In any case, Hung Hei Goon is supposed to be not the best fighter, but he is in charge of bringing the younger generation to safety. They escape through a secret tunnel and find that it is walled off with bricks…. Only Ma Ling Yi would have known about this secret passage. And so more monks die than would have. Hung hei Guen and Fong Sai Yuk, in epic Kung Fu story form chip away at the brick wall with their Kung Fu fists, and break through the wall to escape. The Road is blocked by Bak Mei. Now, this story is really quite the story in and of itself. And if it took place after Hung Hei Goon and that class graduated, there may be an added element in here a true myth, not in terms of being false, but in terms of being a defining story to capture the personality of our heroes and what they represent within ourselves. Hung Hei Goon is escaping with Fong Sai Yuk, Jee Seen, and many others and on the path, to Block their way is none other than Bak Mei. He didn’t necessarily participate in the burning of Shaolin Temple, but his students are all Qing officials, so he knew about it and didn’t warn Shaolin and also chose to block their road of escape to have this final show down in classic villain monologue-ing style “Jee Seen, Sifu always knew that I was smarter, and that I picked things up faster. I really don’t know why he chose you to be Abbott, So let’s see whose Kung Fu is better-“ or something like that. To recap, had Bak Mei been Abbott, he probably would have killed Ma Ling Yi as the prophecy said to, and he probably would have done deals with the Qing Government to prevent the Temple from being burned right? Jee Seen had a good heart though and so here is the crux of Southern Shaolin and what it means to be Southern Shaolin. What is more important? The Temple or the meaning? What is more important, the rules or the spitir of the rules and right and wrong? And then later.. what is more important the moves or the spirit of the moves? What is more important, the organization or the meaning of the organization? This show down is our ancestors having the argument that we have among one another all the time it seems. Doesn’t have to be about Kung Fu or Triads or political parties anything like that. It’s just about straight up humanity. So when I first started to tell this story to Noah, I realized what a perfect myth it was, and had it not been for the fact that people actually practice these moves, I would have placed this story among the biblical parables, Nordic, tales of Thor and Loki, or the African Folk stories of Anansi. But as it so happens, this story takes place not so long ago and people practice the systems represented by people in the story. The First to fight Bak Mei is Jee Seen. Jee Seen, being Abbott of Shaolin Temple, should be good right? Except that he has had to spend a lot of time running the temple, Looking at the books, dealing with repairs, that sort of thing. So he hasn’t had much time to practice. Bak Mei took time to develop a system that counters Shaolin Kung Fu, or at least the Shaolin of Jee seen’s level, move for move. Now Bak Mei Pai may say something different about what their opening means. But look at a Bak Mei opening versus a Hung Gar opening. It is practically the reverse move. In fact it is said that Bak Mei Practices reverse breathing. On any You tube video with a white guy explaining I won’t see this. But I saw a student of the Bak Mei system do a form and he did look like he was trying that. (from the village of Mee Nam. I say student because on the one hand he was pretty good, on the other hand, he still had a ways to go and was figuring things out.) Another Side note, there is a story in Boston that Tommy Tse (Steven Tse Sky Dragon’s brother) actually broke his rown ribs attempting this reverse Bak Mei breathing. As I write this I have a muscle injury on my left leg from overdoing Karate’s Sei San Kata by trying to put it to Koffee’s the harder they fall song, using Sei San as a template for hands, butcher knives, drum sticks and the duct taped Kei lun I made, oh and a baseball bat form too. Good idea right? For the modern world? But I think I over did it without paying attention. The point is… sometimes when trying to figure out new ways of doing things, you hurt yourself.) Back to Bak Mei and Jee Seen fighting. Bak Mei: If any of you can beat me then I’ll let you pass Jee Seen and Bak Mei exchange blows but Bak Mei is always just inches away and is laughing at Jee Seen who is getting frustrated. Bak Mei is at a different level. He showed that he can counter Jee Seen’s hard with soft. He wants to do more than show he is better. He wants to show that his way of doing things is better. Whereas Jee Seen, may not even care about martial arts in this way. Jee Seen may have done martial arts for health and self defense. Not to be the best in the world. Just good enough. And then to take care of his responsibilities as Abbott. So in this sense, Jee Seen is a better Abbott where as Bak Mei is a better martial artist. Bak Mei want to show that even hard to hard he is stronger too, and they clash in classic Kung Fu hard against hard and both Masters are pushed back. But Fong Sai Yuk and Hung Hei Goon see that their Master’s hand is shaking and that he has internal injuries. I think the story also only really works if Jee Seen and them are somehow stalling for time and there are Shaolin Allies reinforcements on the way? But then Bak Mei could also be stalling for time knowing that the Qing troops could be on their way as well. In any case, they start fighting Bak Mei one at a time. I feel like Fong Sai Yuk would be the first to go since he is so Cocky. Fong Sai Yuk is fast and is obviously a prodigy. He is the best by far among his generation. He dodges and parries and counters, his speed seemingly making him even to Bak Mei. But Bak mei is just testing him and strikes him. Fong Sai Yuk falls, but immediately bounces back with a flurry of strikes making Bak mei smile. The clash and Fong Sai Yuk is pushed back. In skill Fong Sai Yuk is closer to Bak mei but in Gung Lik he is no match. Bak Mei: Pretty good. I’m surprised that you have iron body at such a young age. You are a credit to your mother who must have put in the hard work. There is no other way that you can have iron body so young. (something like that) Now Fong Sai Yuk was winded and so Hung Hei Goon Stepped forth. His techniques were slower, but powerful and he was able to match Bak Mei for a bit until he too was pushed back. Bak Mei: Hmm.. your not as stupid as you look. I was surprised that your Kung Fu is at such a level. You don’t look too smart but you were able to succeed through hard work and perserverance. The Kung Fu didn’t come easily to you but you kept at it which means you will be a good teacher and a Master of your time. (Yut doi jung si) Which of course is true. Now… was Wing Chun with them at this point? I don’t know. But I feel like a modern telling of the story would have her in there, you know, for representation and all that. And he would probably praise aspects of her art etc. But I think the way I was told the story she was not present. The point is, this parable of sorts kind of goes down the line describing the aspects of the different southern martial arts. Jee Seen steps in again to fight Bak Mei and Jee Seen attacks Bak Mei’s center, his stomach, or his solar plexus with his iron head. But Bak Mei sucks in his cotton belly Mein Fa To. Jeen seen is being suffocated and so everyone jumps in. Hung hei goon takes one arm and Fung Sai Yuk another. They try everything. Eye strikes, groin strikes. But Bak Mei can close his eyes and still protect them and suck his balls up into his groin (See Kill Bill… that fight sequence comes from older movies and those movies come from these stories) and being over whelmed, Bak Mei stops toying with them and pushes everyone back…. He laughs and lets them pass true to his word. Later, on the road escaping and on the run, Jee Seen dies of internal injuries. With his dying breath he asks Hung Hei Goon to rebuild Shaolin Temple (Chong Geen Siu Lum Ji.) and so in a sense, Hung Hei Goon is the new Abbott of the diaspora of Shaolin Students. So Shaolin’s legacy is upon Hung Hei Goon’s hardworking shoulders. Fong Sai Yuk, is not chosen even though he is smarter. Rather it is the dependable one who is chosen. Luk Ah Choi (some stories have him as a Mancurian, who is still fighting against the Qing Government. So he is not anti Qing so much as pro “the people” and the People happen to be majority Han) also follows Hung Hei Goon and sticks with him. Supposedly Wing Chun is Hung hei Goon’s wife in some stories, or lover at least. They fight many battles and join up and work in conjunction with Tian DI Hui Teen dei wui heaven Earth Society aka the Triads. Some say they start it. Woo Wai Keen joins up with them too on their many battles, similar to any good guy bad guy show where they have episode after episode. Bak Mei trying to catch them (But always letting them go) Hung Hei Goon practicing his hard style of Shaolin to try and defeat Bak Mei (but never being able to do it. From Bak Mei’s lineage perspective, Bak mei was actually not chasing them at all and again was depressed and not mentally well after he killed Jee Seen. But Bak Mei students were chasing Hung Hei Goon because they were rebel outlaws. This can be compared to the story of Robin Hood and King John and the Sheriff of Nottingham type of stuff. But there is a slight nuance here. Because Bak Mei is a Shaolin student there is an internal Kung Fiu family fight that is taking place in conjunction with the political climate, which creates some interesting rules. Hung Hei Goon will conduct a political assassination of the governor of Canton Guangzhou by sneaking into the guys house at night while he is asleep, hooking his toes on the window, bending backwards and stabbing the Governor in the neck with a spear. But when fighting Bak Mei, he tries to kill Bak Mei, sometimes one on one, sometimes as a group, with hand to hand combat using Kung Fu to defeat him. I.e. they will not poison bak mei or shoot him because their grudge with him is not political, but personal and familial. It sounds like it makes no sense…. But actually it does. And to flip that, Bak Mei has no intention of capturing these Shaolin heroes for the government. He works with the government in that he teaches government officials. But he isn’t necessarily “On the side of the government” At one point Ng Moi meets up with them. Ahhh… actually that’s a story too…. Fung Do Duk corners Woo Wai Keen So at this point the Temple has burned down and the heroes are on the run. Jee Seen has passed, and Hung Hei Goon is travelling around trying to escape the evil Qing soldiers (their not really evil though) and trying to rebuild Shaolin temple while simultaneously hooking up with Teen Dei Wui and leading rebellions to also try and bring back the Ming Dynasty. Woo Wai keen is part of the group and is still seen to be as smaller though I am assuming he is an adult by now. Somehow, he is spotted in Guanzhou/Canton which according to my Sifu, at that time was only a couple of streets, not really that bigger than Boston Chinatown. It wasn’t the metropolis you see now. Fung Do Duk sees him and chases him all the way out into the outskirts of the city Woo Wai Keen tries to fight him but Fung Do Duk’s Moh Dong kicks are very powerful and when Woo Wai keen tried to not even block but just defend himself, his arm is broken. He continues to run away and he finds a tree to hide behind. Not a small tree. A huge tree. They keep circling each other like children playing tag except for this is a game of life and death. Woo Wai Keen: Bai ah Bai ah lee chee sei gung ah. This time I’m dead for sure. Fung Do Duk is fuming and with one mighty kick UPROOTS the TREE! (possible? Probably not) Now Woo Wai Keen is really screwed and Fung Do Duk slows down in classic villain style ready to savour the murderous kick he will throw, the blow to end Woo Wai Keen’s life… He throw the kick but out of nowhere an iron palm blocks his kick and Fung Do Duk has injured his foot. He looks up to see a woman! Not quite old.. around the same age as him maybe a little older. And it really can be nobody else other than Ng Moi. Fung Do Duk does not recognize her face. He recognizes her internal power and skill. “See jei…,” He says, bowing, angered that he cannot kill Woo Duk Dai today and may actually be in danger himself. Ng Moi says, “Fung Do Duk… don’t strike the younger students with such heavy blows. Moh tung di hau sahng jai gum chong sau ho ma?” Polite words with arrogant and thinly veiled anger and cockiness. Fung Do Duk replies, “MM jau nei a see jei” and then to Woo Wai Keen, “Ha chee nei moh gum ho choi ah. You won’t be so lucky next time.” And so Ng Moi saves Woo Wai Keen, uses her teet da medicine to heal him back and also starts training the young heroes. It turns out that one of Ng Moi’s specialties is Iron Palm. But it is an internal Iron Palm. She supposedly demonstrates on a rock that is rough by moving her hand over it and using her chi to make the rough surface smooth. In the story it makes it sounds like she does it right there in front of your eyes like a magic trick. Hover as I write this it could easily have meant that she had a favorite spot that had a rough rock that she practiced iron palm on. Our iron palm, similar can be practiced on a rough tree or a rough surface. The point is actually not the hardness of the thing being hit (or massaged really, I have practiced this myself) it is the roughness. You are not breaking your hand. You are stimulating growth in your hand and building up bone muscle and skin density. But over time, it is possible that you polish the surface that you are hitting, even if it is stone. This effect can be seen on the Blarney stone or other tourist attractions, often brass statues, that are rubbed for good luck. So it’s not impossible that Ng Moi, and maybe a ton of her students as well, polished a rough surfaced stone smooth and that you could see the progression of one areas being more polished than another. Why Doesn’t Ng Moi fight Bak Mei directly So here is the thing. Ng Moi is still Shaolin, and Bak Mei and Fung Do Duk are still Shaolin. By the rules, Ng Moi is not supposed to fight Shaolin members. There was a conflict between Bak Mei and Jee Seen. But Ng Moi doesn’t wantto directly get involved. In fact there are many other Shaolin Go Sau that don’t get involved at all and simply want to say, “Brothers and Sisters shouldn’t fight each other.” And furthermore” All Life is sacred, forgiveness is the way” etc. So Ng Moi will not take revenge of Bak Mei. She did that for her blood family but she viewed it as something she did which was wrong and bad Karma. However, she does in a way take a side because she begins training the young heroes in Kung Fu and specifically in how to counter Bak Mei’s Kung Fu. In her mind, the problem is that Bak Mei has iron body. The only member of the young heroes who has iron body is Fong sai Yuk. But Fong Sai Yuk’s iron body is external. Bak Mei’s iron body is more internal. The counter to iron body, from Ng Moi’s thinking is to train the young heroes in deem yuet, pressure points. (Deem yuet I think is interchangeable sometimes with Dim Mak, but I think Dim Mak is just one specific type of Deem Yuet. Deem Yuet can also be used for medicinal purposes like acupressure and acupuncture, where as Dim Mak usually only refers to the “death touch.” Ng Moi kills Fong Sai Yuk by accident Ng Moi figured she would train the heroes how to kill Bak Mei by Practicing on Fong Sai Yuk. The problem is, while training, she accidentally killed Fong Sai Yuk one day. The heroes became depressed and so too Ng Moi, since Fong Sai Yuk was really the best of them in terms of intelligence. And also always pranking everyone. Loss of heart (Been Sum) Eventually Hung hei Goon died too. Natural causes but he died young. Why didn’t he live a long life like an internal Kung Fu Master? Well, Hung gar is sort of good for you but sort of not and if you are fighting all the time the injuries will take a toll on you. Sleeping outside and being on the run will take a toll on you too. So the heroes sort of eventually went their separate ways or retired. I think Woo Wai Keen sort of retired and Luk Ah Choi eventually taught Wong Kei Ying, Wong Fei Hung’s Father. So that’s that lineage. But now we will talk about Hung Hei Goon’s son, Hung Mun Ding, and Woo Wai Keen’s son Woo Ah Biu. So Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu were best buddies and they continued the fight. So they were on the run all the time too and they also wanted to avenge Jee Seen’s death. A man they had actually never met. Ng Moi either wouldn’t or couldn’t teach them. After all, she had killed Fong Sai Yuk by accident. But she said, “I heard about one more Si Bak Gong,” A Kung Fu elder. And that is Woo Duk Dai. “He is on White Crane Mountain inside 5,000 monkey cave.” Woo Duk Dai So to recap, Woo Duk Dai was Sing Long’s student and in any case is older than Jee Seen and Bak Mei but technically he is their elder classmate though maybe they never met. So here we come to our part of the story that you don’t see much in the movies at all. Is it in 10,000 years of Evergreen? I don’t know, I can’t find a translation of that. Hung Mun Ding is in the movies as the founder of Hung Mun, but some say Hung Hei Goon was already aprt of Hung Mun and that Hung Hei Goon the name is an assumed name. But anyway, Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu go up to White Crane mountain to seek help or refuge with Woo Duk Dai. White Crane Mountain. So, according to the story, Woo Duk Dai sort of did not get involved with fighting and this is the personality of our White Crane lineage. Don’t fight to be first or attack or rebel. Like a crane we try and stay aloof. If you attack us, then we will fight quickly and from the side. Turning our waist. A crane, not being a predator, sees from the side. So we do not face our opponent. But we will still attack from that position using peripheral vision. That is only one aspect of course. But basically opponent are more like fish when we end up deciding to attack and so at that point we are predators and kill the fish quickly and silently. So peaceful and aloof, but also dangerous. Woo Duk Dai had his thing going with students etc. on White Crane mountain. His art from this point was more internal. And he would offer Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu refuge, and members of the Shaolin lineage. But he would not directly fight Bak Mei as Bak Mei is also of the Shaolin lineage. In other words, he would not take sides and would not go against Bak Mei… at least not directly. White Crane Mountain and 10,000 monkey cave. (5,000 or ten thousand? Ten thousand is yut mahn or mahn…and seems a more natural and round number that just mean “a lot” Canton sued to be Mahn Yue or land of 10,000 tribes Yue or Viet, using the character for Moon. Yuet in Canto) White Crane mountain wasn’t just a sparse mountain. Maybe when Woo Duk Dai first got up there yes. But he had built a school up there. It wasn’t as grand as a temple necessarily but there were furnishings and fortifications. There was a door, that locked. The path up to the mountain was narrow and easily defended. He had domesticated tigers that guarded the door (they may have been chained, declawed and de fanged, which seems cruel… or maybe they weren’t. Again, this is borderline legend.) And he had students. It wasn’t Shaolin Temple. But it was a proper place/fort/Kung Fu Castle if you will. Woo Duk Dai didn’t not take a vow of celibacy (I think) so he was up there with family and students could have family. Bak Mei students attempts to assassinate Woo Duk Dai A few of Bak Mei’s students, many of whom were either Qing Officials or at least aligned with Qing officials found out that Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu were with Woo Duk Dai on White Crane mountain. One story goes like this. The Bak Mei student got up to where there were guards and there was a “who goes there!” type of deal. Except the common phrase for who goes there is “Gui sing dai ming!” What is your name and surname. The response was a Kung Fu move called “Duk Pak Wah San!” Kind of like a cup kuen but with the back of the fist coming straight down in a chopping motion. Chopping Wah San (Wah Mountain range) the idea being its so powerful it can chop that mountain range in half. Maybe there is some sort of river that splits it and some mythology about a god doing that or something. (Similar stories surround geological fomations in Ireland and Midwestern America for instance) I don’t know that story, just the move and the phrase. The White Crane sentry’s response to that was “Wu deep Kuen jerng” butterfly fist palm, which basically passes duk pak wah sahn and somewhat traps or ties you up a little bit and gets you off balance, and then he followed that up wuth “Mang Fu Tui Sahn” Fierce tiger pushes the mountain, and pushed the Bak mei Student of the mountain killing him. Well… How did he know he was even a Bak Mei student at all? The answer is Duk Pak Wah San is a Bak Mei move. (Except... is it?) And you can do some light intelligence work by asking around and asking a friend to ask a friend figure out what is going on. So then another Bak Mei student went up to White Crane mountain. Now, I forget his name but I think this man was actually more well known and might have been an official or an official’s son. Again, from what I gather, none of this is done under the orders or under the wishes of Bak Mei. In fact my understanding is this is against Bak Mei’s wishes and he is sort of being PTSD problems about having killed Jee Seen. So this bak mei Student specializes in Hing Gung and sneaks passed all the guards easily and gets right outside Woo Duk Dai’s window or antrance to his room, while Woo Duk Dai is meditating. (If you want to be more dramnatic. Woo Duk Dai can levitate slightly off the ground while meditating) In any case, Woo Duk Dai hears him outside and immediately knows or guesses that he is one of Bak Mei’s students, or maybe just pretends he knows and if it was one of his students no big deal. “Come in and sit down. Let’s Talk,” Woo Duk Dai says. See again, Woo Duk Dai is not necessarily against Bak Mei. He is just for Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu and they are under his protection. The Bak Mei student would probably be freaked out that Woo Duk Dai seems to know he is there and so he flicks three ball bearing type things at him. He is supposed to be able to kill a man within 30 steps of him with these ball bearings. Now.. this part if probably fake but Woo Duk dai catches one, one hits his head but he sends his chi to protect it and one he catches in his mouth and he then spits it back out at the would be assassin, killing him. I’ve never seen this in a movie, but that sequence makes the most sense on film. Not in a live performance or even a story really. Unless it’s a joke maybe. The point of the story is, Woo Duk Dai is at a really high level of Kung Fu and hard to kill. I guess it should be noted too that he is willing to kill. Jee Seen, for instance, is not. But Woo Duk Dai only killed in this story in self defense. So not only are the different levels of Kung Fu categorized by these stories, but also varying levels of killing. And one could say that about the Kung Fu styles too. Some focus more on meditation and internal power and some are more external, and some are more blended. The personality of Woo Duk Dai’s White Crane is to stay out of it, be aloof. But, when killing needs to be done it is done quickly and without hesitation. That is different than say Jiu Jitsu where you choke someone out, or maybe even Hung Kuen where you might actually fight all the time but maybe just beat their arms to the point of breaking. Woo Duk Dai doesn’t fight. But when he does a move it’s lethal. And Again Ng Moi can even be accidentally lethal. I believe it is at this point, after an assassination attempt is made on him, that he decides to train Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu to kill Bak Mei. He also thinks back to Shaolin Temple and the fact that it is now burned down and to the fact that Hung hei Goon had to live on the run and that Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu had to grow up on the run. He also knew that it would take a while to train the boys, and that by the time they were ready to Kill Bak Mei, Bak Mei would be so old anyway. Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu are trained by Woo Duk Dai Monkey and Crane. Was it Monkey and Crane or Monkey and tiger? Or monkey tiger and crane? In any case, the plan was to both attack Bak Mei, Hung Mun ding would attack low and go for his balls and Woo Ah biu would jump on top of him and go for his eyes. But this hadn’t even worked when it was Jee Seen, Fong Sai Yuk, Hung Hei Guen and them. How would these two kids be able to defeat Bak Mei? They were anxious to go out and take revenge on Bak Mei. (and here you see this is the second generation raised in a culture of revenge but also in studying techniques from Shaolin Temple which preaches a culture of forgiveness… two opposing ways of thinking.) Well Woo Duk Dai would say, “Use dragon steals the pearl to penetrate this rock.” And Woo Ah Biu would try and of course he could not do it and Woo Duk Dai would say, “Bak Mei’s eyes are protected but the muscles around it that are so powerful that they are harder than this rock!” Is that true? Did Woo Duk Dai believe it to be true? Arguably there is another purpose in this story besides practice hard. As Bak Mei gets older, he gets weaker. The longer Woo Duk Dai can delay Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu from going down the mountain, the older and more mature they will be, both in terms of Kung Fu, as well as in terms of outlook in life. They may only be teens at the moment that weren’t really raised in an ideal situation. It would actually be best if they completely just let this whole Bak Mei thing go. But the older he gets, one could argue the less life they are taking away from him. In fact, it is completely possible that had Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu not take revenge, Bak Mei would have died within a week anyway. So his punishment is not death so much as not be able to have a peaceful death and it is more just balancing things out really than punishing. And in Chinese the word revenge is actually just “bo sau” It’s balancing things out. Now as I write out how Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu trained, I realize that tis story goes well with Sup Ji or the 5 animal form. The form has crane and tiger and monkey and dragon. Some techniques can be called leopard but they can also be called snake. There is agile jumping about… and interestingly, Bak Mei Pai also has a sup ji and there are aspects of the dragon techniques that look like Bak Mei in our sup ji. But I never learned, “This form, sup ji, is a product of this particular conflict or fight.” In fact Hung Mun Ding and Woo Ah Biu would really be considered Hung Kuen lineage despite their time, according to our oral history, with Woo Duk Dai. Woo Duk Dai trained them, but not in teaching them forms. He had Hung Mun Ding train his strength but singing a large pole which Woo A Biu gripped with his legs at the top, training a different type of strength and the whole goal was, take revenge on Bak Mei. There is also a story of the boys walking in on Woo Duk Dai practicing a soft form and they are confused because it looks so weak and they wonder if Woo Duk Dai is so old he can no longer do his Kung Fu well. It look smooth, but one cannot tell what the moves are for. He comes up close to the wall of the cave and brushes it with his motions. After completing his form they ask him what kind of Kung Fu it is. He wipes the the dust off of the cave wall and the words “Mein Lei Jum” can be read. Or Needle inside cotton. The point is, in our oral history and our version, Woo Duk Dai is at the highest level of Kung Fu out of all the Masters. Now when I first heard this story from Jing I thought it was just a magical story. And that is not to say I didn’t believe it. But just like the Ng Moi iron palm story, it could be that maybe Woo Duk Dai Practiced in this cave every day and over time could scratch words into the rock. Maybe the cave was somewhat furnished and the wall they were looking at wasn’t natural stone but some sort of cement. Maybe that cement wasn’t that hard either. Just saying, the story isn’t necessarily completely fake. Now, our Mein Lei Jum is noticeably different than the Tibetan Whiet Crane Mein lei jum at first… but looking at it more and more… well it’s also not completely different. Looking at Hap Gar Kuen, that looks sort of closer to what we do, and there is also different forms of White Crane Tai Chi that sort of look like us and since Tai Chi is just more famous, sometimes we even just say we do Tai Chi for ease of communication, but Sifu always thought it was important to draw a distinction. This is further confused by the fact that of course he knew Tai Chi Masters too and would want to see what their forms looked like and would want to put them side by side and make comparisons. I will say that when I compare our art with other arts it is strange that the stuff that looks most similar, after practicing those moves for a while… they feel very different. The stuff that looks completely different, after looking at them for a while, I can still find a similar combination or move in our forms. Weird right? And eventually they were at the level where they could “ha san” go down the mountain. They sought out Bak Mei, fought him in hand to hand combat, two against one, and killed him. Now again, in the movies, Hung Mun Ding founds Hung Mun and I have heard older people say that too so maybe it comes from either some older movies or even novels or just stories. But anyway, that’s a story that is around. I am not a Hung Mun member, but my father was, but again he died when I was four and I just don’t know much about it really. Supposedly, my father may have already been a part of Hung Mun in Hong Kong and my father, being a sailor, or a cook on a boat anyway, well that group of people tended to be members of Hung Mun. But he may have already been active in Hong Kong according to some people. My point is, as to the origins of Hung Mun and Hung Mun stuff. I really don’t know anything. But as the group is very influential in the Chinese Overseas community and maybe even influential in Hong Kong Cinema and the movies that are made about Hung Mun Ding… it may not be completely crazy that Hung Mun Ding founded Hung Mun. In fact, when people argue that Southern Shaolin Temple didn’t even exist, the argument is that Tian Dei wui and Hung Mun and these types of groups made the whole story up. So our story is an oral history that exists along side their stories and there is always a relationship, but we are also separate or at least different entities as well. There would be some overlap in a Venn diagram but we are not the same thing. But part of the reason why I was attracted to Woo Sifu’s school as opposed to other school’s I visited and learned at, like Bo Sim Mak’s school for instance, is that Woo Ching’s school reminded me of my early childhood, in the set up, look, and feel of it. Ie it reminded me of a time when my father was alive and that type of spirit and energy. Where Kung Fu is synonymous with cigarette smoke and community meetings and even some shadiness. Whereas Bo Sim Mak’s school was all white, our uniforms were all white, and recorded music was played for the performance (from Rocky IV I later realized) as opposed to lion dance and drums. As I teach at Murray Hill, the Kung Fu school where I learned is even difficult to describe to people. Taishan- Doushan- Nam On (Brief history) This is Jing’s hometown and of course Sifu’s (Woo Ching)as well. It was founded around the Sung Dynasty. Basically around this time a lot of Han Chinese started coming down from the North, fleeing the Mongolian Invasion. The South did not become part of the Mongolian Empire (Yuan Dynasty) until Kublai Khan ( I think) Anyway, this is all stuff that can be looked up. The point is that the people in this village were originally from the North, or that the dominant culture is sort of from the North… sort of…My Sifu said that the Hakka people (though also from the North) were nomadic and so were already sort of in this area. There were Yue tribes here at this time too but they mixed in. This might be something better left to historians to figure out but the general feeling of say my Sifu’s generation is that yes there is documented lineage of people coming down from the North but as to the local people and cultures, that is not documented and so less clear. It is unclear what, if any type of Kung Fu is being practiced by people at this time or what if any kind of lion or Kei Lun dance is being practiced and the animosity between different groups… that is also unclear whether there was any or if it all lined up the same as it would later in the Qing Dynasty. But there is a Sung Dynasty feel to Canton in general. Sung Dynasty is when the idea of the restaurant is invented. Yuan Dynasty is the Mongolian Dynasty (but also when Shaolin Temple and all the little branches of it are subsidized by the government) Ming Dynasty was founded by a Manichaest cult that then outlawed Manichaeism. There was a ton of trade and there was Zheng He’s expeditions and Cantonese and Vietnamese (Yue people) being on the Coast were going out as traders and also pirates into Malllacca sailing all the way to Africa and some argue even making it to the Americas, then that was outlawed, and then the Qing Dynasty and we are back to the Shaolin stories. Now, late Qing Dynasty, Taiashanese started coming to America. Gold Rush, Railroad, on all that history. A lot of Hakka people ended up in Jamaica. The many people who went out, also came back to China, especially from the United States and so Doushan has buildings from the Railroad and Gold Rush Era time. During this time, lion dance and Kung Fu was being practiced. Chinese Americans were sending money back home to build observation towers, buy guns, and hire Kung Fu Masters to train the Village to fight other Villages. Yes, sometimes to fight bandits, but there was also village warfare at this time. There was several rebellions like the Tai Ping rebellion, led by a Hakka man claiming to be Jesus’s younger brother. And then the Qing government (after putting that rebellion down with the help of the British) imposed oppressive policies against the Hakka, turning one group of Han people (Punti or local people) against another group of Han People (Hakka) and the Qing was run by Manchurian people primarily. Though many Han had to be government officials as there simply were not enough Manchurians to hold every office. But there was a Han Ceiling that wasn’t glass but actually written out policy. Choi Lei Fut was a mixed Kung Fu system that has some sort of ties to the Tai Ping. Sun Yat Sen’s 1911 revolution is much better documented and many of the system’s were involved in this revolution and sort of started naming themselves at this point, especially on the Tibetan side of martial arts. Some were renamed to Hap Kar (together family) supposedly at the suggestion of Sun Yat Sen himself to distance that art from the Qing Dynasty. But from my Sifu’s stories, there was a lot of Kung Fu being practiced in Doushan at that time. “If you could say it, they had it” Ngup duk chut coi dei yau ah. But the dominant practice was Hung Gar. Lion dance In Sifu’s village they had s specific style of stepping when doing the lion dance called Kei Lun Bo. This is specific to Nam On, a village in Doushan. But only Nam On did it. Not the next village over. Why? Not sure. It does take some time to develop. This type of stepping can be seen in Fujianese White Crane and the hand movment can be seen there too and in Five Ancestors Kung Fu… but they don’t use it for Lion Dance and Sifu said that this lion dance had nothing to do with his Sifu’s that did white crane. But outsiders see our steps and see our name and assume it is all one thing from maybe thousands of years ago. It was the same thing when Sifu was teaching and it is the same thing in Boston Chinatown and yes, when I first saw Jing perform Kei Lun Bo I thought “Wow he is stepping just like a crane.” But I think it is important to clarify that during Sifu’s learning years it was not the same thing. But how odd that all the systems that claim Shaolin Origin have these similarities and maybe at some point in the past these things were from the same thing. Hung Gar (Sahng Mun Sei Mun) My Sifu said that when he was growing up as a child everyone in the village was doing Hung gar. Even if it was differemnt styles or types of Kung Fu it was some sort of Hung Gar like thing and truth be told, when I went back to the village and talked to people who had learned from Sifu, they described it as “White Crane Hung Kuen” or Bak Hok Hung Kuen, and so a lot of the forms that were being taught under Sifu’s banner and brand at that point were still very much Hung Gar, and that didn’t really change until he came to the US. He once showed me and tried to describe the way the forms were and started it off with “Now don’t laugh” because he felt that these forms and drills were very unrealistic. However, A lot of elements of these forms, I can see being used for teaching children or for people who are just starting off an learning how to control a stick. These are easier to pick up and safer. The Serng Tau Gwun/ Double Sided stick form, or sometimes referred to as the girl’s stick form or children’s stick form is like this. It’s not super safe as I have seen people do it dangerously and so the more you go for safety the less realistic it gets. But back then they were teaching everyone in the village and it was a requirement. That means whether you were athletic or clumsy or maybe if your mind was just not in a place where you knew how to use common sense when it came to martial arts training, then you too were still required to do this stuff. And so that’s how I think a lot of these drills were developed. After all Hung Hei Goon was trying to get as many people ready to fight as possible. So Sifu said, “Back then wqe had Sang Moon Sei moon,” or the life door and the death door. The drill was you would stand back to back and hit or block the person behind you in a form, which seems not very likely as a performative choreography representing a fight. However, as I write this I realize that as a drill, you would be training your reaction time to the movement of the person behind you in a game while sitting in horse stance… and I think I want to introduce this back into my MHCS class. The main reason is you are back to back so it is less likely you will spread Covid or any other sickness, and at the same time you are doing a partner drill with weapons. Hung Bak Choi So the real name of the Kung Fu that Sifu grew up with and also still technically taught in the Village was Hung Bak Choi. (Hung Kuen, Bak Hok, Bak Mei, Choi Lei Fut) Now when I say this to other Cantonese people from say Hong Kong they always say Hung, Ga Choi Lei Mok. So something like that. But that’s THERE thing and that;’s what was written down by other masters. So when talking specifically about Doushan, it’s Hung Bak Choi. Now this next part is a guess from me. Like I said, Choi Lei Fut was somehow involved or tied to the Tai Ping Rebellion and a widespread rebellion would have been a time when fighters (not necessarily professional soldiers) would gather during down time, and since the Tai Ping separated the sexes and didn’t allow drinking probably one of the entertainments would have been doing Kung Fu forms and there was probably a ton of sharing and widespread learning of forms. Not to say that any of it was useful in battle. I’m saying it’s very obviously something to do and something people would be interested in doing when they weren’t fighting. There were also many other rebellions and then cla, village, and ethnic warfare, and then a peasant farming lifestyle where actually people had a lot of down time and nothing to do. Sifu said he knew a lot of people older than him that would play with these large 100 pound like weapons. Overly Heavy Gwan Do’s that may have been made for training purposes only. And Sifu said these guys would just train with the swords without any formal training. But that these guys were not necessarily not as good as people with formal training. They ate and slept well. They were poor in that there was really no economy but they ate more than just rice. They hunted for snake and ate frog and lived a more wild lifestyle and then practiced all day long. They weren’t that tall but they were wide and they were strong from training with these weighted swords that developed your muscles in a different way than say just doing squats. So basically Sifu was saying that you can get good without a Sifu too. And although I had never encountered any self taught people that were good (we would constantly meet self taught people that were really bad actually) but that doesn’t mean that someone who is self taught isn’t good or can’t be amazing. (This is even more true now that there is so much stuff out there on Youtube) The Monk Now I should clarify that a lot of the way that I heard these things were either through Jing or I over heard Sifu telling Vincent or other people from the village who stopped by to visit and who Sifu never talked about Kung Fu with while in China. In fact he was only able to speak freely about this stuff once he was in the United States. This may surprise someone reading this because now there are Youtube videos of Masters talking about their Kung Fu while in China and even describing saving this book or something like that during the Cultural Revolution. But although Sifu was teaching in China in the 70’s and 80’s, that didn’t mean he felt that he could speak openly. There were still people in power that had made him do things or done things to himand just because others felt they could speak out does not mean that he felt that he could. In any case, many of these “tong herng” or people from Doushan or Nam On had known Sifu for years but only now asked, “Do you mind if I ask after all these years what is the name of the Style you teach?” Even though they knew that he is a Master and had seen him perform in giant sports stadiums and also watched him fight. You may not understand and to tell the truth I do not fully understand. Or maybe you do because maybe you are now living in a similar environment when reading this. Times change and not always for the better so who knows? But Sifu said that one of his Sifu’s, his main mentors, was a monk at Ching Wun Jee, which I think may now be rebuilt and they are teaching Fujianese White Crane there. Or maybe there is more than one Ching Wun Jee. Ching, meaning Clear or Green. Wun ,meaning Cloud, Jee meaning temple. When Sifu went there, he was not searching for Kung Fu. In fact, he may have already been in many fights and already a Master of sorts. I don’t know the order of thigs but his main goal was to hide and try to escape out of China, and he was wandering around, moving often and looking for Kung Fu as it came up. He encountered some places that taught very good Kung Fu but only taught family members and so he was not able to learn from them. He was actually passing by the Temple and felt that he had bad luck and so went to light some incense at the Temple in hopes of Changing his luck. A monk saw him. Now, When Sifu was already passed his prime he had an aura about him still. And I have seen videos of him giving a speech in the Village. Not even performing Kung Fu. Just giving a speech. But he had a certain presence. By the time he was giving the speech one could attribute it to internal power. But his height and physique looks like someone who might do martial arts. In fact he was also an athlete. He played Volleyball. But there was a fierceness about him that leant itself to something more than sports. The Monk asked if he knew Kung Fu and if he wanted to learn some from him. Or at least that is how I think I overheard the story. The Monk found out that his last name was Woo and said, “Oh that’s good because our founder’s last name was also Woo and maybe this is destiny” So he is referring to Woo Duk Dai. My Sifu said that what he learned from the monk… techniques were not a lot. And he showed some hand positions. An dthat he didn’t spend much time with the monk, nor was the monk on him about practicing like Rocky’s trainer or something like that. The monk would show him something and he would work on it all day. One thing was fetching water. But he would push the bucket down to fill it. So there is some pressure there. Then lift it.. and of course this is all in horse stance. And it is lifted close to the body, then twist and turn the body to empty it. This is actually probably a great work out. But I have never done it, and maybe we should recreate this method in the future. Apparently, the monk could levitate slightly while meditating. But I believe the position (which is also in Yoga) was that he was pushing down with his hands, but the chi was so strong that he could lift his body without touching the ground. This sounds insane except for the fact that Sifu did get to a certain level with this. He could make someone feel ill without touching them or feel his chi from a distance at one point in his prime. And he did show Jing that he was able to move a piece of paper by holding his hand next to it. Not that impressive and not really for performance. And also, he lost this skill. That leads me to believe that it is real. Also when you practice you will feel a bit of this type of thing yourself. But of course being able to lift your whole body is on a whole other level. Now, I would like to think that Sifu learned Mein Lei Jum from the Monk. But actually we are not sure and maybe he didn’t. It seems like He learned a few moves and chi gung and that actually, that’s all you really need. And the Mein Lei Jum form itself may have come from a different source or been reconstructed. I have seen Youtube videos of similar Mein Lei Jum forms from Cousin systems like Hap Gar kuen. The Tibetan White Crane Mein Lei Jum looks completely different than ours though. He may have learned some high level Mein Lei jum techniques from the monk as he had talked about this once and said he would show me some of the moves in a second, but he got distracted and I only saw him doing it in passing as he went to do some sort of chore in the kitchen area. Am I sad or worried about this? The reason why I am not because he said as he did it he said, “The moves are pretty much the same, in fact simpler except the hand position is like this” and he showed me hand positions that look like Buddhist Statue hand positions. And I am not exactly sure what I saw, but he said, “Joi gun yeu leen” the most important thing is that you practice. And as I see many systems like, Fujianese White Crane, Ng Moi, 5 Ancestors, and other systems whose techniques seem simpler in some ways, I understand that our system has a ton of techniques, all of which are either from Shaolin or passed through Shaolin or are somehow related. But that at the highest level you sort of forget all these techniques anyway. So although the techniques are important. They are also not important. Sifu asked if he could teach this Kung Fu to other people and the monk said yes. And when Sifu asked what the name of this Kung Fu the monk said White Crane or Bak Hok. So this is oen reason why Sifu called his system White Crane. Chan Hak Fu is actually a generation above Sifu and so Sifu didn’t even meet him until he came to the United States and he met Chan Hak Fu in New York City. He did not learn directly from Chan Hak Fu but Teen Gong Kuen was floating around the Village as was Yai Wo’s basics and that style of fighting and Chuen Pow Cup was just everywhere and getting absorbed into everyday fighting. Chuen Pow Cup chuen Pow Cup Chuen Pow cup, was a viscious there move bullish crazy strategy of fighting that basically everyone was doing or trying to do or getting their asked kicked by if they weren’t doing it. It was street fighting by that point and was less about proper technique so much as three moves that were constantly be used and tested and were really giving other systems a hard time. So here are the stories of Chan Hak Fu visiting Toisan. Chan Hak Fu during WW2 So supposedly Chan Hak Fu helped to train certain infantry units in China during WW2 and Ng Gong Yi or Wu Gong Yi heped to train certain officers. Not only is there Youtube video of the 1955 fight between Chan Hak Fu and Wu Gong Yi, there are also KMT training videos and you can definitely recognize Wu Gong Yi training the officers. Now, it is likely that he wasn’t really training them for battle as he is showing sword forms and this is WW2 and I know someone will say, well China lost bad t the Japanese and it was America that saved them. Though that can better be examined in history books. But from our history Chan Hak Fu trained some sword techniques that were used in a certain unit in WW2. Our history did not have this on detail which I instead found from the book “King Hui: The Man who owned all the Opium in China” but this unit (Chan Hak Fu was not mentioned in the book) was made up of young boys. Children aged 12. My Sifu may not have known about this because my Sifu probably would have been a very small child at this time. In fact I think My Sifu was also born in 1934. Interesting that my father and Sifu were born in the same year probably. This unit according to that book was called “Sei Gwai Dui” or Dead Ghost Unit. And basically it sounds like the same unit. They killed Japanese officers with knives (or short sword. In Chinese “Do” or “Dao” is the same, a single sided sowrd/knife) And this unit according to the book eventually founded 14K when they were adults in Hong Kong. And this all makes sense. What else would men whose childhood was spent killing do? But our history leaves out the fact that they were children. I should point out here that Sifu was very young during WW2 but in the1960’s that is when he was already teaching Kung Fu in Guangzhou in the park and there were other Kung Fu Masters there and from what others tell me, Sifu was the best by a lot, not by a little bit. This had to do with skill but also height and strength and internal power and fighting experience. He did have to fight people that were physically stronger, but often those guys had less skill or were slow. I am skipping ahead, but I mention it because some people who saw him teach at the park were tied to 14K but were of the younger generation, so not founding members, and maybe they were not part of it when they were at the park. I am talking about Ngau Ming right now, who I realize when only now, after seeing and trying to copy Tibetan White Crane Mein Lei jum, that Ngau Ming had demonstrated some free style movements from that form to me. At the time I thought it looked stranged and was weird. And he had suddenly stopped and said, “But you know all this already” which I didn’t. But he would have said this because it was White Crane. And that is the name our system uses. And we also have ties to Chan Hak Fu. But we are not doing the exact same thing and the overlap might be smaller than I had thought. So, I’m not sure if Chan Hak Fu trained those kids to kill directly. My guess is no, but who knows. My guess is that he trained some people, and those people trained people, and a unit was formed of children. But in any case, the story of that unit is part of our oral history and there is a secret to those sword techniques to be revealed to inside students when they learn the sword form (Mo Ching Do) “merciless sword.” But to outsiders we call it Dan do, or single sword form. The moves look pretty actually, and I have seen the moves in Wushu forms too but they obviously don’t practice the moves with the intent to kill and maybe that’s why a simple story and a simple secret few words makes all the difference. Which is why I am not saying what the secret is here. I will also say thet Ngau Ming was so impressed with Jing’s sword form that he was a total fan boy around Jing even saying Jing was better than Sifu, which was crazy to us and Jing. Because Sifu’s power and fighting skill is just so much better than Jing’s. But Sifu didn’t often perform sword. Where as at one point Jing’s specialty was that sword form and he was performing it all the time and you could barely really see the blade. Now why would Ngau Ming be impressed by these particular moves? Well, as it turns out he had been in quite a few machete style knife fights (the Hong Kong Fights with Watermelon knives) And he totally had PTSD from these events and later talked to Ling Fei about his trauma and how disgusting it is to see a hand chopped off and how he did a lot of stuff that he just would not do again. So keeping that in mind, when he looked at Jing’s sword form, his eyes are much different than yours and mine. I mention this only because Ngau Ming was said to have ties to 14k and also have ties to Ping On in Boston. But I met him at the Kung Fu school in Tai Tung. Some other older Chinatown guys knew him too. But I didn’t met him through my father, who was also in Ping On. It’s just interesting that there is this constant parallel history there, between groups that you would really view as so completely separate if you were just a Kung Fu practitioner. Chan Hak Fu fights 40 people So after World War 2 Chan Hak Fu was travelling back to China back to his hometown from Hong Kong. I think this takes place in Guangzhou but I’m not sure. Chan Hak Fu was getting off the boat and he only carried a small suitcase with him instead of a ton of luggage. The porters asked if they could take his bag but he said there was no need. But after they got to the end of where they would have carried his bag they said he had to pay them. And so this started the fight. At first he was knocking them all back and out with Chuen Pow cup so the started to use the bamboo poles with the metal hooks on the end of them to fight him but still using chuen pow cup he was knocking those all out of the way too and so then they were taking a further step back and throwing them at him but again he is using chuen pow cup and deflecting and even throwing them back at this mob of 40 people basically getting their asked kicked by one guy. At this point his wife steps in and just pays the small amount of money and apologizes for her husband who likes to fight when he gets drunk etc. But one guy who was watching is from Taishan and when he goes home he tells this story to his buddies “Man you wouldn’t believe this guy, He could really fight!” and then as he is telling the story, in walks Chan Hak Fu! Holy crap! You’re from taishan too? So Chan Hak Fu becomes a local hero and celebrity and local Kung Fu people kind of want to try him out and learn from him. Japanese Stories from WW2 and before Okay so we have to back up a bit because there are some stories about the Japanese in Taishan that need to be told which are not always Kung Fu related and one is not from Sifu, but they are important to understand the culture a bit The Tea Pot There was a time in Taishan, not sure if this was a very long time ago, but there was a Japanese Business man visiting. This was during a time period when Japan was much stronger than China, at least economically. It was likely before Communism but it may have also been in the 80’s not sure. But writing about it, I can’t imagine a Japanese businessman in Taishan in the 80’s. In any case the Japanese businessman saw an old Chinese man drinking tea, pouring the tea out of one of those small clay tea pots. The businessman asked the old man, “Do you drink tea using this tea pot every day?” The old man replied, “Yes I have used this same tea pot every day since I was a young man?” The businessman asked, “And you are how old now?” I don’t remember what the number was., Could be 70-100, the point is a long time. The businessman said, “I will give two thousand dollars US (or whatever the equivalent is) for that tea pot.” Over joyed the old man went to the sink and washed the tea pot out before giving it to the businessman who upong seeing what he had done became enraged. “What have you done! Why did you wash it out?” “I washed it out so it would be clean for you since you are paying so much money for it.” Said the old man “I won’t pay anything for it now. I would only pay that much because of the residue from your lifetime of using it to drink tea. Even if you paid me two thousand dollars to take this pot now I wouldn’t want it as it would be a hassle to bring back to Japan.” The Gun and the Umbrella The Sword and the Children (This one isn’t Japanese and happened in the 90’s) The ancient sword and the teenagers (from 2000’s or late 90’s) an old woman tries to sell Jing a Japanese Sword Chan Bak Fahn watching the torture of a Japanese woman who was a school teacher and left behind by the retreating troops A Doushan monument to the forgotten soldier who held off the Japanese (Sifu had money raised to build the monument. He was one of the children that escaped up into the mountains while this soldier died holding off the Japanese so that the rest of the town could escape and live.) (There is now a Monument to the railroad workers that returned as well and Xi Jin Ping I think may have commemorated it. Chan Hak Fu and Yai Wo (Street in front of what is now Fu Yuan) Yai Wo was a Hung Gar master in his own right but the story goes that he tried hands with Chan Hak Fu in that Doushan Square outside of Fu Yuan hotel (That was there in 2002 at least. And I believe as I mentioned before there was a commemoration to Chinese American Railroad workers put in and when I was there there was the Commemoration to the Soldier who held off the Japanese that Sifu had had put in. But what was there when Chan Hak Fu fought Yai Wo? I actually think it might have been the street, the square and small buildings. Actually every morning when I was there was a market and some sort of announcements over the loudspeaker. For such a small town there was a lot of commerce and hustle and bustle. I think anyone can pretty much sell anything on the street. One could compare it to flea markets in the United States. Anyway, Yai Wo came at Chan Hak Fu with Pak Kuen. Sifu told me, now you might not know but Hung Kuen’s Pak Kuen ius very powerful, not like you see people doing forms around here. It’s very aggressive and fast. The techniques are similar to sup ji and is your typical Kung Fu Sau faht hand technique that you would think of. Dominant hand fist attacking with the knuckles in a downward back hand like a Kwa kuen with the non dominant hand in the back with a palm as defense. In fact, I think I am going to start introducing tis drill, and recreate this fight as a basic way to train my students. Because Pak Kuen is just a very obvious and simple way to fight that you can learn and then immediately use and if you hold a stick or knife or hammer or sword you can use the same move. Which means you could hold an empty water bottle and have hids spar in that way. However, Chan Hak Fu defeated Yai Wo by seem Seem Seem,. He evaded all the hits and then jabbed Yai Wo but maybe using double sided stance or cat stance like counter punches that get you at a weird angle and Yai Wo was pushed across the street. I will tell you this is not impossible at all because I have knocked people down with jabs when their footing was just in the wrong place and when they try and catch their footing, they push off harder making themselves fly back further. They weren’t even hurt afterwards actually. Not to say Chan Hak Fu’s punch wasn’t powerful. I’m just saying to knock someone across the street in a sparring situation with one punch is not at all impossible. Now, another part of the sparring session was that Chan Hak Fu brushed Yai Wo’s lip with his fingers. Actually Yai wo said he only felt the wind from the fingers touch him. But the next day his lip swelled up like a lap Cheung sausage. These stories I think are from Yai Wo. So from this encounter Yai Wo let go of Hung Gar and bowed to Chan Hak Fu as his Sifu. This is probably why Sifu also viewed White Crane as a better system and chose to name his system White Crane. Like it was “wai di” Because he had two mentors that both did a Kung Fu called White Crane, and Chan Hak Fu had a special reputation in Doushan because Yai Wo had a special reputation too would later challenge basically everyone. He would later perform by doing Chuen Kuen running forward, turn around (instead of going backward) and to fahn cup, like a reverse cup or circular upper cut which is more continuous than a pow cuen, and then he would do cup kuen and end the form. People made fun of this because it borderline doesn’t even look like Kung Fu compared to Hung Gar forms and is so simple. But looking at a lot of Tibetan White Crane forms…. They do look like that actually, especially the beginner forms. In fact I think I should bring back these “forms” or free style forms at least for teaching adults or teaching people more interested in fighting. But the problem is when you teach kids or even adults, when they do these “basic” forms, they tend to look ridiculous and it’s actually hard to do these well. In other words, they are good for training if you are actually interested in training. But they aren’t that good for performance. Maybe if you do a bunch of other stuff and then you have one guy do that, it will make sense. Yai Wo meets Ng Siu Jong Yai Wo was actually quite wealthy and ended up selling a bunch of his businesses to bring a cash filled Hung Bao Red Envelope to give to his Si Gung when he went back with Chan Hak Fu to Hong Kong to meet Ng Siu Jung. This sounds crazy today and I guess it’s why a lot of traditional Sifu’s complain about how Sifu’s are treated in America. But I think in general the world has modernized to the point where it’s unlikely anyone would do that for Kung Fu. However, you do see examples of this in the United States with Religious figures but it is usually seen as a scam. But Yai Wo not only did this of his own accord, but we will see in a moment that it ended up being the right move. So Ng Siu Jung was happy of course to get this huge Hung Bao and he also noticed Yai Wo practicing and said, “Hey that guys punch is pretty powerful. Tell him to come over and show me his punch.” So Yai Wo is told this and gets all excited and goes over to Ng Siu Jung and shows him his punch. But for whatever reason, he totally throws his punch right at Ng Siu Jung’s face! Now Ng Siu Jung didn’t expect this but he dodged and simultaneously struck Yai Wo in the side with the crane’s wing. The story goes that he damaged Yai Wo’s intestines and yai Wo had to get surgery. Now, here is why this story is actually kind of curious. It is very probably that Yai Wo had appendicitis. I mean that’s what it sounds like was removed. So in a way, it’s a good thing that he was in Hong Kong when this happened because surgery would be relatively simple there. That was not the case in Taishan at that time. So it’s basically a good thing that Ng Siu Jung hit him at that time if that were the case. Not taking away the power of Crane spreads its wings and the internal damage it could do. But the appendicitis coincidentally acting up makes sense too. Now, the story in Taishan about Yai Wo’s scar was that he fought a Gwai Lo and that the Gwai Lo’s punch was so strong that it cause internal damage etc. And Sifu had to correct people, because that was the story going around Doushan. Yai Wo did fight a boxer and for some reason I have the story that he was Russian but the fight took place in Hong Kong. As I write this I am only questioning it because there is a similar story about a Russian “Boxer” fighting this Shaolin Monk who could at one point stand against the wall with one finger. (They took a picture with wires for a documentary. And I think he was the first Abbott of the modern day Shaolin Tample and he went around trying to get all the masters to come back up and sort of rebuild. Interestingly the Modern Shaolin Temple has since trained many people able to do this trick but they do it more as a circus trick as opposed to a training method. The guy that was Abbott has his finger pointed forward for the position in which to strike someone with one finger. Anyway, I only mention this because… did Yai Wo fight a Russian Boxer?) So anyway, according to our version of his fight with the boxer who was definitely white and probably Russian, and this fight was done with gloves, Yai Wo, by his own account sort of lost that fight. What happened was he was surprised by the speed and the pushing power of the boxer and at the beginning of the fight Yai Wo had full intention of fighting him solely within Boxing Rules. But he realized he was not only about to lose, bu6t about to get knocked out, so he started throwing cup kuens to the back of the boxers head and he knocked out the boxer and even fractured his skull, but Yai Wo was deemed the loser by disqualification because he used illegal moves. Yai Wo doesn’yt really contest this. He said that it was better to lose by disqualification than by knock out. Now.. ineterstingly as I watched the 2020 Olympics which took place in 2021. The amateur boxing had a lot more boxers that obviously are doing wrestling, mma and wushu. Not only this but the referees were constantly stopping the fights and demanding that the boxers stand up with their head up, as opposed to hunched over with the head down which was more common in American Boxing and also the Peakaboo method. When doing this hunched over method, because the back of the head is not a target, it eliminates the ability to use Cup Kuen by position. One could argue that even standing up, Cup kuen might be hard to use based on a straight punch theoretically being faster and without stance training, the over head haymaker is slower and uyou only ever see one thrown as opposed to continuous cups. My point in all this, is that Yai Wo may not have been disqualified in modern (or frankly older) rules. And if Yai Wo and the other fighter were the same race fighting on the same terms… maybe he would not have been disqualified either. In fact in the fight between Logan Paul and the Basketball Player (forgot his name), Logan Paul hit him in the back of the head with a haymaker sort of catching him by luck. And Logan Paul was deemed the winner. In other words the way these non professional proper fights played out among Kung Fu vs. Boxing people is not crazy because we see this sprt of stuff happen more often when the fighters are not from the same style or are not as refined. In fact the Deonte Wilder vs. Tyson Fury fights are criticized for being sloppy. But Tyson Fury’s style is sort of an older style of boxing more common in the 19th and earlier 20th century. And this would have been the style of boxing that mixed with Tibetan White Crane in Ng Siu Jong’s era. In fact Chan Hak Fu was a boxer before doing Kung Fu. And Tyson Fury’s style of boxing does look similar to us in terms of straight punches and hooks, but without the cup kuen. Chan Hak Fu vs. Ng Gong Yi (Wu Gong Yi) 1955 Macao The video of this is on Youtube. Although when I used to read the comments they were very negative, with more of these fights for entertainment happening surrounding Mike Tyson, you can see similarities because you have rougher fighters of different backgrounds, and the same is true of the Olympic boxing with different countries having different styles. And perhaps this fight might not be as looked down upon by people watching by the time your read this. At the time when people watched it live, they were very impressed and this kicked off the Wuxiz novel craze by authors like Jin Yong aka Louis Cha which started as serialized short pieces in the newspaper, which developed into the Kung Fu movie craze. The people that most looked down on the fight I bet are Kung Fu movie fans looking for movie choreography, or martial artists used to seeing sparring matches within the same system, which tend to look cleaner, especially when it is among sparring partners that have worked together before. The pieces of the fight I picked up on was straight punches and cups with the footwork that enabled Chan Hak Fu to fight from an extremely far distance. The first round, though sloppier, was awesome on Chan Hak Fu’s Side in terms of speed and power. Ng Gong Yi’s skill in Push hands is harder to catch but he is smooth and powerful. Chan Hak Fu tried some closer techniques but was forced to stay outside because of Ng Gong Yi’s superiority at that distance. Also Ng Gong Yi’s Strike first punch was impressive. Although his Pek keun’s were avoided, we have those techniques in joi jung kuen and the speed of the technique as an isolated move is very fast on Ng Gong Yi’s part. But is stance cannot keep up to bring him close enough to Chan Hak Fu. Part of this may be the system but it can also be age. Anyway, there is a lot to learn from watching that fight repeatedly and studying it. But most people don’t even know what they are looking at. It should be noted that we sort of do things that both fighters did, and also are different from both fighters. So although we are cheering more for Chan Hak Fu, our system is sort of both and neither. And, a;lthough I didn’t really study BJJ for instance, I feel that we should absorb that into our system in my son’s generation. And even looking at Chan Hak Fu’s son, there appears to be much more of an emphasis on high kicks. Whether this was due to the popularity of high kicking in Chan Hak Fu’s son’s time or whether because Chan Hak Fu just didn’t do those kicks because of the rules I am not sure. Chan Hak Fu demonstrated a form when he was older in Oakland, California where he did some high front kicks (similar to those in Teen Gong Kuen… which come to think of it also has a side kick that can be thrown high.) So maybe the fight did not have high kicks just because of that fight and there has always been high kicking in Tibetan White Crane. After all looking on Wikipedia it very likely mixed with Northern styles in the Qing Dynasty which are famous for high kicking. (Legend of Ng Gong Yi’s tooth. Reappropriated in Western Boxing taught in China and Attributed to Muhammad Ali) Now, there is a story surrounding Ng Gong Yi getting hit so hard in the jaw that it knocked a tooth loose. If you watch the video it is probably the right hook that Chan Hak Fu throws and lands right on the jaw at a spot that usually people get knocked out when they get hit there. Ng Gong Yi takes it and actually his entire body is moved over in a solid stance almost like he was a rock statue in that moment. Which is unusual in most modern fights and I have seen in sparring but not when getting hit in that part of the jaw like that. People usually go out. Anyway, the story goes that Ng Gong Yi swallowed the tooth so that other people wouldn’t know that he was hurt at all but upon examining him after the fight, the doctor could see that a tooth had been knocked loose and wondered where it was. And Ng Gong Yi denied that such a thing had happened, which means he must have swallowed it. Now…. I was watching a documentary about Boxing in china.. this is say 2019 or something, and this same story was told by Chinese Boxing coaches, Western style Boxing coaches in China, who, for some reason have long beards and are drinking tea in a very ancient looking garden or setting (which is sort of rare in China if you think about it) and they tell this same story attributing the tooth swallowing instead to Muhammad Ali. They tell the story to the boxing students or athletes basically to to encourage them to practice and be tough etc. Weird right? So does the story actually come from a story that is even older than the Chan Hak Fu Ng Gong Yi fight and it was attributed to Ng Gong Yi at the time of the fight because he was well known? Anyway, from the video, that hit to the jaw did look like it could have knocked a tooth loose and they were not wearing any kind of gear or mouth guards. (Teen Gong Kuen was probably passed onto the village at this time. Interestingly, Yai Wo did nt usually perform it and in fact I am not sure if it was really performed openly. I always only saw Jing perform it for the longest time in Boston and it was something new to him, so it may sort of have been a borderline secret form for us. Not secret secret, but we list it as more advanced among our forms and I used to be surprised by this because it appears to be simple compared to Sup Ji. But when teaching it I would quickly learn that the simple movements are difficult for a beginner to pick up. Chan Hak Fu’s Si Hing Dai (name?) Violinist Three attempts at escape to Hong Kong Sifu made three attempts to escape to Hong Kong and was caught each time. Once he went in the front of the pack, once in the end or once in the middle he joked. I remember him recounting getting caught by soldiers at a certain point wehere you have to swim over and he was talking to someone who had made the same trip (based on his information maybe as this man was slightly younger) this man, a tall and thin but wide shouldered man of gentle demeanor, I suppose you could cast him as a sort of Chinese Jesus. He had shoulder length hair and a mustache but looked very calm and chill, especially for someone who didn’t really speak English, if that makes sense. He had come to visit the school and was tall but did not do Kung Fu. He came to visit Sifu. He was lucky because during his escape there were no soldiers at all and he just smoothly escaped. Sifu said the soldiers pointed guns at him, machine guns and were like , “Mo Yuk!” In this conversation about comparing escapes the other man and someone else asked Sifu if he tried to use Kung Fu to get away and Sifu said, “Are you crazy? Back then at that time they would shoot you and kill you with the same mentality as stepping on an ant!” and they all were like, “Oh right that’s true.” Another time he was caught and locked up and with the help of some other strong people locked in the room were able to get their fingers under the door and lift it until it broke at the hinges and they escaped. Being a teen, I asked Jing if it was because he used his Kung Fu power, when I heard this story and this was before Sifu really learned White Crane, but he had done all sorts of Kung Fu before that in the Village. But the only reason why this is important is because Sifu was developing the system not just passing it down as he learned it the way they might want to depict a village in a Kung Fu movie, and he was influenced by the experiences he was going through. One could compare the Woo Duk Dai and Woo Ching story or trope or whatever you call it to the Liu Bong and Liu Bei trope where the Liu’s are book ends to the Han Dynasty and Woo Duk Dai, the ancient founder and Woo Ching, the modern founder our sort of book ends to our Shaolin History Legendary past I guess. And although Sifu in China was always synonymous with Nam On Village… like if you said Nam On to a guy selling wares on the street he woulds say, “Woo Ching” he said this in front of Jing not realizing probably that Jing was Sifu’s son. But when Sifu would answer the phone or identify himself he would say “Boston Woo Ching” or Bo See Dun said out in Cantonese. And the way he taught in the US was different than the way he taught in China, and the basics and the class structure and the different days for internal and external are sort of something that were started in the US.An dthough I have moved away from that somewhat, I try to keep to it in training my kids and I do see the school in Tai Tung as sort of a Temple in itself. As I write, what I could consider to be the Woo Ching White Crane Bible or Book in away, Woo Ching would be our Jesus. Shaolin would be the Old Testament. And I guess it would follow that younger story of Jesus making it to India but instead Woo Ching made it to Boston and passed at 85. Now who am I in this story? I don’t know because obviously there will be different branches, but as most of my students are just pass throughs now, through Murray Hill Chinese School, a written text to take the place of hours and hours of conversation and hou kuet has become apparent to me. And of course I will have to collaborate with Jing on this. Woo Ching- (Sei Suk, Jiang Suk, Ai Ngan doi, One more…) So Because Woo Ching knew the escape route so quickly he was able to pass this information on to his brothers…I feel like Yi Bak, his older brother, was not part of this crew to escape to Hong Kong. Maybe it was just Sei Suk, Jiang Suk and Ai Ngan Doi… maybe it was just three people. But here is an important story for the system and perhaps a training method that I always thought should become a tradition. Because the training involved a lot of swimming, hand to hand combat skills (not forms, just the important useful stuff) a ton of pull ups and one armed pull ups and the practicing was done at night. In other words, I always saw this story as a potential right of passage training. A test with elements to represent the story to remind us of our past. But of course since that past during my time was not that distant, people sort of shrugged this off. Jau Gung was a part of this training, because as Sifu was showing this to me and Sei Suk walked in one day to borrow the parking pass, Sei suk watched me practice (probably the way he had practiced) and Sifu explained tat he was showing me this stuff now and Sei Suk was like, “Hai Le” like “Yes Yes that’s the way.” This training at first was considered somewhat secret. As it was opened up to more people though they realized it was not really secret but was somewhat kept from the beginner level peope for a reason. To train this way without foundation is practically useless. You just can’t even do it. In fact, even as I write this I have gotten so out of shape that I know to do this training again I have a long way sto go. In fact in my journey to attempt to do this I tried doing it with a sort too and ended up pulling a muscle. I will likely try to replicate Jau Gung again soon, but it will be in an internal way. (Their adventures in Hong Kong) Sei Suk Tai Chi vs. hard Kwa in the elevator Now this isn’t necessarily the first thing that happened and this isn’t really in Chronological order. But the story goes that Sei Suk and a friend who did Tai Chi got into an elevator and there was this Gangster type dude that basically started yelling and you know that male machismo, he started a fight with the Tai Chi Friend. Sei Suk took a step back and let his friend handle it because it was his beef and also he did Tai Chi so Sei Suk figured he could handle it. I should point out at this tije in Hong Kong, Tai Chi was being done more like a martial art, in fact it is more of a grappling martial art and so in an elevator that would have it’s advantages. Now the friend wasn’t losing, He was doing okay but it was basically taking too long. Sei Suk would say “Too soft” anyway… it sounds like he kind of got bored and annoyed with hpow this was going and stepped in quickly on his friends behalf with a Kwa Kuen, real hard, just knocking the other dude out. All actions have consequences though and that other guy was indeed in a gang and Sei Suk was invited to “drink tea” and “Gong So” which I guess is sort of gangster speak for a mediation and a settlement. Sei Suk basically had no choice but to go. But, when he sat down and the other guys Dai Lo saw him… he recognized him of course from the village and although Sei Suk wasn’t in that organization, the boss guy was under Sei Suk in the family village hierarchy and may have even been one of the guys that escaped to Hong Kong with Sei Suk (Ai Ngan Doi?) anyway… he ended up scolding the kid that started the fight and made him bow to Uncle (Sei Suk) Fighting for a place to sleep Now this was probably the first thing that happened. Supposedly it was Jiang Suk, Sei Suk and Ai Ngan doi and they had found a place to sleep. Just as an aside, thanks to Kenneth Eng’s “My Life in China” where his father explains where he slept and where a bunch of laborers slept outside.. and area of course that is gentrified and condos that are probably millions of dollars, was at the time.. I guess 70’s? or maybe still in 60’s, a place where people could sleep outside and then work during the day. In other words, this was a common practice. So our three Uncle Heroes were sleeping in a similar area, but this area was where a Hung Gar Master (and I am sure Jing might even know the name) was teaching class. And basically they said, “Hey you can’t sleep here we’re teaching class.” And Sei Suk and the other guys were like, “You teaching class and us sleeping… what do those have to do with one another?” And the Hung Gar students or master or someone was like, “You can fight us for the right to sleep here.” “Ho!” which means good but is really the Cantonese for what people would now use the word “Bet!” for and now I forget the exact sequence of the fights but Jiang Suk (Whose daugters only ever knew their father as the sweetest gentlest man and were surprised to hear this story) caught a dude with an elbow to the solar plexus and slammed him into the boards that were pushed up to the side as a sort of makeshift wall covering. I’m Pretty Sure Sei suk beat the guy he was fighting by slipping the punch and side stepping with a Pak Kuen from Cat stance which is typical in Tibetan white crane.. but with more of a hung gar spirit the way Sei Suk demonstrates it. Which makes sense given all the history I already wrote previously. Ai ngan Do won, his fight, again not sure how, but more importantly, the Hung Gar Master recruited Ai Ngan doi to continue to fight for this club or school that taught in this abandoned area in tournaments. Ai Ngan Doi in tournament on behalf of a Hung gar School v. Chan Hak Fu’s school So here is the weird thing. Ai Ngan Doi fought on behalf of a Hung Gar school but at some point they went up against Chan Hak Fu’s school and it was a little weird because although Ai Ngan Doi was wearing a shirt that said Hung Kuen, the opponent on the other side obviously could see that the White Crane team was throwing out Chuen Pow cups and the Hung Kuen representative was responding… also with Chuen pow cups. Ai Ngan doi struck with a continuous cup into a kwah kuen which knocked the opponent down with the first cup, then there wa a whistle and the kwa struck him after the whistle. So Ai Ngan Doi was disqualified. But interestingly the competitors from Chan Hak Fu’s school came over and at first Ai Ngan Doin thought there was trouble but they came over with the Trophy to give it to him and say “You really won” after all, they knew those combinations as well and understood that it’s hard to just stop mid combination and it was Ai Ngan doi’s first tournament style fight. Now from this tournament one was supposed to then go and fight in Thailand. Ai Ngan Doi decided not to continue with that for fear of non tournament violence. And I have heard that in the beginning amnd indeed for quite some time, Kung Fu fighters did not do well against Muay Thai Fighters in the ring, all the way up until Sanda Mainland Chinese Kickboxing. The exchange with Hong Kong fighters meant that more Hong Kong people started doing Muay Thai I think. Sifu teaches in Nam On So at some point it became okay for Sifu to teach openly in the village. Actually, what happened is he ended up teaching at several villages and formed a sort informal corporation of Sifus who were either his students or associated with him and sort of acted like employees. Fei Lo Gong, Fat Guy Gong, was one of them and many of them were really teaching forms that I may never have seen before. So it wasn’t like some of these styles of Karate where there was one way or even like styles of Kung Fu, nor was it even the way that I learned from Sifu in Boston in Tai Tung Village. So I will explain a little bit but as I learned more about how Sifu taught in China versus how he taught in the US… basically Sifu preferred the way he was teaching in the US. Believe it or not the way he was teaching in China was partly due to circumstances and he felt he was not teaching his own pure art, one could say, and he also did not trust a majority of his students in China. He felt that the society was broken, corrupt, and basically he was holding out for his American Dream, which would be teaching the True Woo Ching White Crane to Americans. I only mention this because it is quite the opposite of what people would think, including many of his students. And the truth is after having taught myself for a couple decades, this also might just have something to do with one’s age. In any case, as Sifu told me how he taught in China I realized that perhaps that model was more successful than our current model partly because of the model itself. First of all, Sifu was a warrior, a champion and as much of a celebrity as one could be in his situation. In other words, it wasn’t like he was making movies or winning televised bouts, but he had a reputation of winning, overwhelming and being completely undefeated in these Kung Fu fights, some of which were friendlier than others. But even if it was a “friendly” match, Sifu would take it serious because of face and reputation, so even if he didn’t knock someone out, or break their arm, he most likely would hurt their arms to the point where they wouldn’t really be able to lift them for one or two weeks. Which, in the grand scheme of things is not a serious injury at all. But it was intentional and Sifu said you cannot “Hak Hei” with challengers. Or treat them too nice, then your reputation is gone. He only ever ate to be 20-30% full because at any time some would could challenge him to a fight and he had to be ready right then and there. Though he said if someone challenges you like this, you should not fall into their trap but instead set a date for a duel of fists, as it were, and make sure it is public and there are witnesses otherwise even if you win, the other guy can say whatever he wants. So, to bring it back… first of all, Sifu was famous and I believe that is an important part of the equation with his teaching. Anyone associated with him or his stamp of approval sort of got a reputation for being at least good enough to teach. The erason I say this is Fei Lo Gong, I am told was more of an academic Martial Artist that even made clay figurines of all the moves. A great teacher with a great memory of many many forms. But he wasn’t really a fighter. Sifu had students and associates that were fighters. But those fighters couldn’t necessarily teach. In fact, chances are they were a little unstable doing criminal stuff. And one in particular (whose grandchildren stopped by the Kung Fu School in the CCBA building) was what Yi Bak called the best student. Just in fighting. He didn’t do lion dance or forms really. And he didn’t live in the same area. So he never taught under Sifu’s brand. His granddaughters were American Chinese Athletes playing lacrosse and though they visited they decided not to join. But my guess is that he was also athletic and that for people of that type of athleticism and dedication to working towards something in American society, will gravitate more towards sports that can get you a college scholarship or something. So back to Nam On. People inside Nam On did not necessarily know Sifu was that good. Nam On is a village where everyone has the last name of Woo. So to them he wasn’t really a great Master. He was their cousin (Hing Dai) or brother or kin or brethren. It was other people constantly coming into the village from all over, having heard of Sifu’s fighting reputation from when he taught and fought in Guangzhou that turned local people’s heads and made them realize that their relative and neighbor was good. It’s like how Jesus when preaching but people from neighboring towns would say “What good can come out of Nazareth.” Sifu was hired by other villages to teach fighting but one cannot be in so many places at once. So William aka Go Lo Si Hing, or Fei Lo Gong or countless other students would teach in those villages and Sifu would make his rounds late at night maybe once a week or every few weeks or so basically putting in a celebrity appearance and to show some techniques and lecture on Kung Fu (and maybe someone would challenge him and he would have to accept). But the money actually came from teet da treatment. Sometimes he had to refuse teaching at some villages of mutual friends because those villages were feuding and he didn’t want to take sides. My point here is Sifu did not have a Woo Ching White Crane business. Instead, he operated out of his own Village, teaching all the men, sort of making it a requirement. But the elders supported him because of Village feuds etc. The men had to know how to fight. Boys women and girls could learn but they were not forced to learn. One of the few girls to teach was Win’s mom. But children were learning forms. In other words, the focus for these type of students was some self defense but performing forms and lion dance and being part of the team etc. Then students or associates that were good enough could earn some money teaching at other villages, and also factories. It was the factory owners asking Sifu to teach the workers not so much to teach them how to fight, but just as a cheap way to give them something to do, maybe get out some aggression, and probably more because the factory owner was just a fan of Sifu and Kung Fu and thought it was cool. This gets twisted in a Kung Fu movie where the purpose always has to be fighting for justice or something like that. The fighting, when it happened was not always just. It wasn’t always fighting foreign invaders, or raiders, or gangsters or bad people. It was good people figting good people and bad people fighting bad people or just regular people fighting regular people in these village feuds. And it also wasn’t always about fighting. Even back then there was a cultural aspect to it. For instance, the hand to hand stuff was fighting. The stick fighting stuff was fighting because people were fighting with sticks still at that point. But there were unwritten rules or at least understandings. There was not a lot of murders by stick in other words. But as for the swords and polearms… in terms of use… that was for performance. The moves might have been real, but people were not spearing or hacking each other with swords. (They may hack each other with knives and machetes but these were not Jian Duels at this point in time.. 1970’s. ) The performance swords were for performance. And the lion dance was also very important and one of the main aspects of the village team. In fact…. Most of the fights tended to happen on Chinese New year or Qing Ming and for Chinese New Year the fighting was often between Lion Dance teams… but the teams were just villages and there was an under current of a rivalry already there. So the teams went out with the intention of getting into a fight with a particular group if they happened to see them. Sifu thought these fights were stupid by the way. And these were real fights. Not “let’s see whose skill is better” fights. Just “I don’t like you and I am trying to hurt you even though I don’t even really know you” fights. So Sifu basically went straight to almost a feudal or corporate status. Whereas most people think of Kung Fu as a single brick and mortar school teaching their “Way” or a village keeping their ‘Way” a secret and passing it down as a religion or tradition. But I just wanted to describe how Sifu and others described it to me, because it wasn’t really like that. Now by this time Nam On was known for White Crane because of Sifu and Chan Hak Fu and Yai Wo, but the emphasis in terms of belonging to a group was the village itself and the blood relationship. And then others who were students could sort of be adopted in. But as far as the village was concerned, they would want to learn whatever martial art worked. And then there was the cultural aspect of forms and lion dance and drumming. But in this way, the art was mixed in with Western martial arts, boxing, fencing, etc. And it didn’t necessarily matter if something was pure or not the same system in terms of form/. Sifu taught Masters some fighting strategy and white crane techniques. But when those masters taught, under Sifu’s name, the forms were still their own Hung Gar or other system’s forms. They would still have their own way of teaching which 2was similar, but not necessarily standardized. So although everyone knew similar things, not everyone was doing the exact same thing. I feel this is an important distinction to make because American Students who did Karate and were used to OCD level standardization were confused by how even one technique could be done a few ways in the same form, let alone how a form could be done differently in the same school or system. And further more that multiple ways could be “right” but also that some ways were just straight up “wrong” or not as good and why that was. Or that it could be just as good, but that was different than the form. In fact, it was probably from Karate and Tae Kwon Do students that joined us that briefly, we became more like Karate and Tae Kwon Do in terms of being more rigid. And maybe also Sifu wanted the proper way to be passed down in preserved. However, in China, he was less concerned with this and said that if someone was throwing a legitimate technique that was different from White Crane, for isnatnec, if they through a Hung Gar punch without turning their waist, and they were an outside student, to correct them would just anger them and who cares? But you can show it our way too and just say “There are two different ways of doing it and there are two different techniques.” A long rant made short, Sifu was less rigid about the techniques in China. And a lot of the class was just simpler. There were some basic warm up stretches. No meditation. There was some stance work, some punches and then forms. You learned to fight informally on the side and not everyone got this privellege. By the time Sifu was teaching the focus was forms and lion dance for the purpose of performing. And fighting was taught for the purpose of the type of fighting that was either an underground human dog fight sort of situation (but usually not as brutal, in fact even these fights were largely about skill) or straight up fighting. This stuff wasn’t taught openly and in fact Sifu got in trouble with police for teaching. A students students student or whatever fought 12 cops (who at the time did not carry firearms) and they sort of contact traced it back to Sifu and he at that point had to teach the police. Sifu was also not happy about being forced to do this, but at the same time, this added to his reputation as many soldiers and police then knew him and would salute him, (In that Western Military way, or Communist way, not the Buddhist or Chinese Kung Fu way) That’s also a point I feel the need to make that in some ways the more “traditional” way of doing things taking the mainstream in China is actually a recent development. And also we do a more traditional bow in the United States with Buddhist roots, but that is not how the older generation in China did things. And all of this makes perfect sense when you think about the political situation. In other words, Sifu had the Freedom to be more traditional and to be more Chinese in America… weird right? But when I started to teach outside of the school in Tai Tung, I began to take into account the fact that maybe the simpler way of doing things, less information, not more… might be good for certain Americans. I havbe changed my teaching style many times and continue to do so and I have also seen Jing sort of change the way class is run many times and the personality of the school even in the United States has changed many times even with the same people. Especially since children behave differently than teens. Teens behave differently than adults. Adults with children behave differently than Bachelors and I would even say at 40 I may have different goals than I had at age 30 so I can see different changes in our sort of collective village of a school. But although I am not from Nam On.. it is important to see that our roots are in the Village of Nam On which is different than a Hong Kong School which is a business. And that Nam On Root affects and informs the Kung Fu that we do just as much as our Shaolin roots or other influences, which I may talk about later. Go Lo Si Hing Go Lo Si Hing just means “Tall Guy Si Hing” or Tall guy older brother. The “Si” refers to class like a Kung Fu class but the police also use this “Si Hing” word. His English name is William and actually Susan is his daughter (never did Kung Fu really but if you are from Boston Chinatown form her generation.. maybe born in the 90’s, you may know her from Church activities and that sort of thing. Go Lo Si Hing was around 6’ 2” and he was Sifu’s top student in China and followed him to the United States. He was a disciple as opposed to a regular student. He excelled at lion dance and Kung Fu and the generation under him watched in awe as he practiced the long black stick still used for fighting perhaps in the generation above Sifu. By Sifu’s era it was used in Martial Arts fights… and although the generation above Sifu already had access to guns I feel like that stick might have meant something more than just martial arts contests and of course something less than an all out battle. These stick skills would come up again in Hong Kong with people from Doushan using them in street fights with a bamboo stick but these were just ocassional. I think at one point the stick dipped in tar with Villages fighting each other with them was a dominant cultural thing. In any case Go Lo Si Hing, (I believe his Chinese name was Wai Lem…so William was an obvious choice, would also do demos with Sifu where he would bend iron construction rods used to reinforce concrete, warpping them around his arms in that Joi Jung Kuen move. Sifu would then do them around his neck. They still do this in China with children even performing the move around the neck (not easily) but there is a trick to it and in the end Sifu didn’t really respect these tricks, although he performed them, but didn’t really seem to value them enough to pass them along. They are by no means easy though. I saw William do Lion Dance with my own eyes a couple times and it was so powerful and fast that it was almost frightening watching it as a 14-15 year old. That performance was not great over all because I had supposed to drum for Chung and Jim in a routine we practiced. At the last second to give face Gai Suk was put on the drum by Gai Suk’s Si Dai (I forget his name but he had Shrapnel in his arm and would gong for us before moving onto another group.) I remember him saying “Not You Not you!” for the drum. This is why when I say I have experience with performances that were complete chaos I am not joking. This was the Kung Fu Federation days and there was a lot of different groups coming together suddenly as one group without much communication before hand and of course the youth got pushed to the side. In any case, William had to jump in to save face because the dance was going so terribly. But in other words, if things had gone as planned, I really wouldn’t have ever seen William perform lion dance. Although it didn’t have the beats to follow him properly…it was educational to see the moves that I now practice, done with not only that much skill, but power, and a different type of power at that. I wouldn’t even know that you could do that had I not seen it. Interestingly, Go Lo Si Hing was not that good at drum or even cymbals. He would do it… but he just wasn’t that good at it. It’s just bizarre because at the other related activities I just mentioned he was almost super human. When I write this we are sort of in the middle of racial tension in the U.S. with a lot of anti Asian assaults happening and the media is often spinning it rather than examining it. So I will add a little uncomfortable tid bit here. Eddie aka Mang Fu, who brought me into Woo Ching White Crane had a story of having a misunderstanding with William when he first joined and the language barrier played and issue, and Eddie would become the American Dai Si Hing , or top Si Hing of the school, which was William’s position in China. But William was not officially a part of the school in the US as he was always working in the restaurant industry and came only to help out. The tension was not over the position and Jim did not have this tension with William. What happened was a child that was with William went right up to Eddie and as a joke said, “Fuck you!” and Eddie, being from Georgia where children respect elders, as they do in Chinese culture as well, began to spank the child and William, who did not necessarily know what was going on started yelling and standing up at which point Eddie stood up to fight and then Sifu stepped in and said don’t fight. But Sifu also did not speak English. Jing was not there to interpret nor would necessarily have been able to at that point because his English may not have been that good. In any case… I have seen a lot of misunderstanding sometimes based on language and sometimes on culture. Though even when everyone is speaking the same language, I have had experiences of misunderstandings that were cultural organizational wise. But these instances are important to learn from and we can’t pretend they didn’t happen either. Go lo Sing Hing’s brother Gong Suk also did lion dance and he arrived in Boston while I was already at the school. He was shorter than Go Lo Si Hing and only did lion dance, no Kung Fu. I thought this was weird at the time, but now that I have kids and some students that are adults and we go out and perform, I realize that its just easier to go with what people are good at and not to force them to learn everything with tests and all that like it is school. Especially if your main purpose is to go out and perform and you are sort of immersed in the culture. However, if the goal is to pass on something that is dying, then you have no choice but to do it the school way and in this sense you are learning ABOUT Kung Fu and Lion dance rather than actually learning and participating in it like native practitioners. In any case, I remember when Gong Suk first came to the school with his wife and daughter and he was talking to Sifu and he would talk about the old days etc. And it was mentioned that I was learning Fu Hok Song Ying kuen, and he said oh like “So and so” the form he used to do. And they were talking about someone who was very short and could do the form with his shirt off and still you could hear is arms creating wind with the movements. Whether that is tru or not, it is based on some truth, but more importantly I like how the forms always had a personal note to them in the experience of a team member who didn’t even do Kung Fu. Gong Suk’s lion dance also focused more on Kei Lun Bo. And here is something interesting. Even within our own school the students in China tended to focus on Kei Lun Bo after Sifu left, because I supposed it was some that defined the Village. Only Nam On does it. Even the next village over doesn’t do it. And being to us, the most advanced, it was probably seen to them as the most valuable and worth preserving. The point is, the “Go Si” and upper body stuff was not as good in some of the videos I saw compared to the lightning fast Kei Lun Bo. This is not true of course of Go Lo Si Hing’s Lion dance, who had the incredibly strong upper body in a very advanced type of strength, as well as the Kei Lun Bo. In the States, we tended to focus on the power upper body moves first and even though we did learn Kei Lun Bo and started practicing it, it’s nowhere near the level that I saw Gong Suk do. The time I saw it in the United States was when we were doing the parade in Boston and Gong Suk was working at Hong Kong Eatery as the guy you chopped up all the lap yuk. He ran outside and jumped into the head. I was drumming because it had to either be me or Jing Drumming…or was Yi Bak Drumming? In any case. Maybe it was me and Jing on cymbals and Gong and Yi Bak on the drum. Because only a few people can follow Kei Lun Bo. That’s right. I probably had to kick Justin off the Gong or something which was odd because that was his usual position. Anyway, Gong Suk’s legs were lightning fast and it actually makes me think right now, “Why don’t I practice Kei LUn Bo more?” I mean he must have practiced A LOT because I would think that I practice a lot. William, Go Lo Si Hing, showed me how to practice ones and actually, similar to Salsa you have to really take small steps. But you wouldn’t realize that because you are lifting you legs up so high. And he also said you have to do it slowly. This is also weird because the end result is lightning fast. But just like Martial Arts moves, You do it slowly first and work out all the errors and problems and the speed comes from Smoothness, and then later you add even more speed. I guess. In any case, I am glad I got to see it in person. I also saw video that was current at the time that I had watched it from the New Year celebrations in Nam On and then later by a year or two Gong Suk came over to the States. Now, this could be seen as a problem in terms of preserving an art because all of the really good guys keep leaving and since it is an art that is specific to the village as opposed to Wushu, or Basketball, it ends up being difficult to rebuild and that’s how arts are lost. But the economic opportunities of coming to the United States, at least at the time this all happened, outweighed that preservation of local culture. I suppose theoretically, Jing or his nephews could always go back and teach if things ever got really lost… and even though there are people in the village who know the arts, for whatever reason it isn’t practiced with a ton of enthusiasm. (This is true where I am currently teaching at Murray Hill Chinese School as well) So what to do? The truth is as to the village, I could imagine not valuing that sort of thing until you have gone out and seen the world. As to the Chinese School, I have to just working on getting new people that are interested in learning the art…. From me. Because I think a lot of people are learning stuff from other Martial Arts schools, with tests and belts etc. And they learn other arts. And they learn from me too, but we just haven’t gotten to that point where we are even a true team in the sense of the word that I expected from my own childhood. And even during that time I saw room for improvement. However, when comparing our team to the Village teams.. although those guys were in many ways much better, there were a lot of other guys that weren’t, and there are similarities between my experience teaching in the states and maybe even Sifu’s Experience teaching in the Village, which sounds insane, but its just true. Hing Suk (One arm) Hing Suk was actually once a village chief…but let’s start from his child hood I am told he fell, maybe off of a Chinese Water Bufallo or something at a young age. He did not know Sifu at that time. Anyway, his arm never healed properly so he has one arm that is underdeveloped and smaller and has to be kept close to his body. Now, one has to remember, this is China in the old days. It isn’t politically correct, people are mean as hell sometimes. So basically having one arm shorter, well it’s not like it was completely uncommon either, but…basically he had to learn how to fight with one arm. In fact for a man not to fight or not to have to fight was very unusual during that time period. Which is not what you would learn in a history book because we are talking about fist fighting. China is particularly violent in terms of hand to hand fighting at least back then. As of 2022 it is not the image you see and even the image in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s in the west is an image of students riding bikes, that kind of thing. But anyway, Hing suk had to farm, by hand, and learned how to fight (from Sifu) with one arm and he got good at it. As a Village chief, which is an elected position and also Hing Suk said it was a bullshit and weak position as the Party had the real power, however I think he sells himself short because in the US, someone in that position actually does not as much defactpo power and negotiating responsibility as he did. In fact in the US, it is companies that are first or free holders or random position nobody heard of depending on the county, municipality, state….it’s not what we all think. Anyway, to negotiate a grievance with a neighboring village, he would have t “Gong So’’ which basically means negotiate but in the end.. even as responsible adults holding positions, it would always come to a fist fight. (This was also more true in America 100 years ago or more as well) So he would drink a tall glass of water, swing a 20 pound or so weight around, drink cold water to calm himself, and basically repeat this process before going to a meeting. Now, I only met him in the US and he actually got into a fight on the Subway at least once and that story is also interesting. Chiu Gor You know I only spent a couple weeks with Chiu Gor in Doushan but I feel a connection to him. He is now a grandfather and when I met him his daughter and son were teenagers. I guess his daughter thought I was weird. Actually I spent more than two weeks because I recall now that I went back to China more than once. Once with Jing but I also went back and it was just me hanging out with Chiu Gor most of the time. In any case. Chiu Gor would have been like 12 When Sifu (Woo Ching) left China. And so Woo Ching didn’t realize that Chiu Gor would necessarily be a driving force in continuing on the traditions inside Nam On because he was not an adult and hadn’t inherited all the Kung Fu. (This, one could say is an argument for forcing kids to learn the art in a way that they are able to practice on their own and create a resurgence of the art if they are left alone as the only one who knows anything. Why? Because you never know who that person is going to be.) In any Case, Chiu Gor was one of the few that could drum and do lion head in the village and one of the few that had performed Kung Fu with the team. Actually others talked about performing and had even been Chiu Gor’s partner for various fighting forms. But when the drums were brought out, a few old guys played gong and cymbals, but besides me… it seemed like only Chiu Gor drummed that I can remember. Others might have too. Part of this is everyone that can moves to the US or other overseas countries like Venezuela or pretty much anywhere else. Young men move to cities within China if they can’t go over seas and only come back once or twice a year. Chiu Gor’s body type reminded me a lot of Se Jai Snake Boy from Jing’s generation. Jing Woo Obviously Jing is my Si Hing but he may pop up a few times in this account as there are different stages in his life that he was involved. He is Sifu’s son and so he experienced the team in the Village from a Child’s perspective. There are picture of him performing in from of a very large crowd at three years old doing drunken style (which none of us really learned in Boston and Jing had explained he had done more free style techniques using various concepts and he demonstrated some sweeping attacks that were done continuously with drunken hand techniques. But by that time he found it difficult to do. There is also video of him doing a basic form where he just bowed without the white crane or hung gar-esque salute, which makes sense given the time period. The form was mostly Chuen pow cup and was also more of a free style form, with some kicks as well. When the lion team went around Doushan the town proper, on New Year he would perform this in front of Yai Wo’s house and people would cheer on and tell Yai Wo that that was his style of Kung Fu. Yi Bak Guangzhou Ngau Ming-14k Hong Kong- Jewelry Store Manhattan Chinatown- Brief history NYC- Teet Da Boston Chinatown- Brief History Boston Kung Fu Federation Tai Tung Mang Fu- Eddie Watkins Yong Fu- Francis Luk Fu- Jim Six Tiger Henry Yee (Yee Jee Jik) Charlestown High (brief Background) Ben Woo’s Tiger claw and hockey punch incident (Chuen Kuen Hew siu Hoght kiew) Jing Woo Se Jai K Lun Hong Mao Lac Sing Go gerk Ming- (Married to Bo Sim Mak’s niece) Ah Fu Wu Nga Charlestown High Kung Fu Stories Chinatown/ Castle Square/ Tai Tung / Downtown (Brief back ground (Brief background of my family history my dad, Ping On etc. ) Kwong Kow and Dulcimer Kwong Kow and Bo Sim Mak Jing Woo Teaching Lion Dance at Kwong Kow Alhambra Theodore Gar Hay Adam Cheung Michael Lu Ah Dong (Jing Woo teaching at Tai Tung) 252B Harrison Ave. (some background) Adam Cheung Chung Dinh Sebon Fields Corner (now Little Saigon) Tet Later and also before Vincent Ng -The Sungs Malden Branch Providence Potential Branch Michael Chin (Aka Daniel) Heen Jon Katz Phong Simon Hing Bruce LeBlanc Joe Callahan James Fedolfi Scott Brian Ah Kit Alhambra and Theo Evelyn Sasha Juravleva (Then Watkins) Takeshi Justin Dennis McCarthy Andre (So luen Lo) The Wolf Ling Fei’s adventures Tony Hawkins (Roxbury- brief background) Aleks Nowicki (Impact Model Mugging) Adam v. Charlie Wong story Peter Welch Boxing The Ring Sityotdong Kids Class Brandon Ong Justin Ong Kelly Tang August Tang Peggy Lei Vincent Lei (Sup yut) Win Hu Adam teaches at Kwong Kow Eric Chin Ah Long- Hok Fu My College Years Living at Moh Goon and working at the Bank (Crime Watch) Kwong Kow summer camp DA’s office Gund Kwok – Ching Imn Tan Grace Cheng Beverly Lee Sau King Carmen Chan Connie Wong Angela Training with a Baby and then two babies. Little Panda Kwong Kow class Tai Tung Preschool Jamaica Plain Thomas Cater (I recognize your Fu Hok Chut San Kuen) Noah Cheung Jonah Cheung Wing Sang Bak Hok Pai (Cheung Family Kung Fu) Teaching at the Sugar Bowl Teaching and Vinh and Kristen’s house Boston Chinatown Blog Gund Kwok piece Jeanne Chin Adriana Li Tony Hawkins passes away New Jersey Murray Hill Chinese School Lin Sifu’s ANJCS Peter Shen Asian Dragon Lion Gear Henry Lee Lion dances Trip to San Francisco Covid Pandemic and Anti Chinese sentiment BJJ Jing Woo’s School Gar Hay’s kids generation defacto Village Association Jwan Cater Woo Ching Passes Away Grace takes Karate after watching it on the Olympics My cross over inter internal especially after getting Covid Free style work out. Adapting to a new generation Tiger Hunt dance Butterfly knives and Butcher knives. Tomahawks hammers. Drum sticks. Baseball bats, homemade spears. Chickens and the two Jians of wood.