Choy Li Fut Kung-Fu Forms and Scripts
Column by Grandmaster Doc-Fai Wong
INSIDE KUNG-FU MAGAZINE
September 2004 Issue
Although known as a southern system, Choy Li Fut kung fu his its
origins in both northern and southern China. The system's founder, Chan
Heung, had three teachers, two from the and South one from the North.
Choy Li Fut is one of the few kung-fu styles strongly influenced by both
northern and southern Chinese kung-fu, combining the long-arm techniques
of the South with the quick, agile footwork that characterizes Northern
China's martial arts.
Choy Li Fut was founded by Chan Heung, a well-known and highly skilled
martial artist of that period. His martial arts career began at age
seven, when he went to live with his uncle, Chan Yuen Woo, who was a
famous boxer from the legendary Shaolin Temple in Fujian, China. From
Chan Yuen Woo, Chan Heung learned the art of southern shaolin kung-fu,
and became so proficient at it that by age 15 he could defeat any
challenger from nearby villages. By the time he reached his 17th year,
Chan Heung was ready to assimilate more martial skills. So Chan Yuen Woo
took him to Li Yau San, Yuen Woo's senior classmate from the Southern
Shaolin Temple. Chan Heung spent the next four years perfecting his
kung-fu under Li Yau San's careful eye.
It soon became apparent after only four years of training that Chan
Heung was again ready to move onto higher levels. In only ten years he
had already reached a level of skill that had taken Yuen Woo and Li Yau-San
20 years to attain. The young man's potential was so great that Li Yau
San suggested a Shaolin monk named Choy Fook, who lived as a recluse on
Lau Fu Mountain, as the best teacher for Chan Heung. When Chan Heung was
29, he left the monk Choy Fook and went back to his village where he
spent the next two years revising and refining all that he had learned
from Choy Fook. Chan Heung had now developed a new system of kung-fu.
In 1836, he formally established the Choy Li Fut system, naming it in
honor of his two principal teachers, Choy Fook and Li Yau-San, and using
the word "fut," which means Buddha in Chinese, to pay homage to his
uncle, Chan Yuen Woo, and to the Shaolin roots of the new system.
The reason the Choy Li Fut system has so many kung-fu forms is because
Chan Heung learned from three highly skilled Shaolin masters. Each of
his teachers had many traditional forms and Chan Heung himself developed
many training and fighting forms from his own experience and years of
training. He also developed forms for various students who had different
physical shapes and abilities. His kung-fu forms have been recorded into
scripts which have been handed down to his closed-door students.
My second Choy Li Fut teacher was Dr. Hu Yuen Chou. Dr. Hu spent 20
years studying Choy Li Fut under the founder's grandson, Chan Yiu Chi.
Hu Yuen Chou's hard work and the diligent training he received from Chan
Yiu Chi insured the mind and spirit of the system. He received the
traditional King Mui form scripts that had been handed down from the
founder. In the Kong Chow lineage, my third Choy Li Fut teacher, Wong
Gong, inherited his traditional form scripts from Chan Cheong Mo and
Chan Yen, who had received his scripts from the founder's oldest son,
Chan On-Pak.
My teaching of Choy Li Fut has the most complete training system of
traditional forms today. In 1978, I began to translate the Choy Li Fut
form scripts into English. From the English translations, these scripts
have been translated by my European students into Spanish, French,
Italian, Polish, Dutch, Hungarian and many other languages. Having
translated the King Mui and Kong Chow form scripts into English, I also
restored and translated the Fut San branch form scripts I learned from
Lau Bun and my other si-suks (uncles) in Hong Kong.
Doc-Fai Wong writes a bi-monthly column for Inside Kung-Fu.
September 2004