Pearls of Wisdom

By Jane Hallander

Karate Kung Fu Illustrated November 1988

Since it’s one of the most popular Chinese martial arts, people tend to talk about Choy Li Fut’s powerful punches, devastating palm strikes and strong kicks. All true, but there’s a lot more to Choy Li Fut Kung Fu than striking techniques. Actually, those are just skimming the surface in Choy Li Fut training.

First, here is a little background on the system itself. Choy Li Fut Kung Fu is a southern Chinese style, originating about 150 years ago in Kuangtung province. Unlike other southern styles, Choy Li Fut’s wide-reaching hand techniques and high kicks often appear to resemble fighting systems from northern China.

There are ten basic fighting techniques in Choy Li Fut. Always listed in the order of their importance, they are kum, na, sow, kwa, tsop, biu, kup, pek, dat and jong. With the exception of the first two, all are either fist or forearm strikes. But wait - didn’t we say they are listed by importance? Indeed, the most important are first.

Kum-na in Mandarin in chin-na.  Chin translates in capture, and na means grabbing. Whether it’s in Mandarin or Cantonese both words mean the same thing - joint-locking techniques. And since Choy Li Fut’s founder placed kum-na at the beginning of the fighting list, they are among the system’s most important techniques.

Joint-locking moves are so important that they’ve become a rare, almost secret art within Choy Li Fut. Sounds strange, however, there is a valid reason for it. Because Choy Li Fut’s punching techniques are easier to grasp, students always learn them first. Many students, who eventually become instructors, don’t stay with their own teachers long enough to master the joint-locking art. They smokescreen their lack of advanced training by claiming that Choy Li Fut joint locking is a secret.

Now, 150 years after Choy Li Fut came into being, few people know kum-na techniques. Only those who learned through direct lineage from the founder’s family still emphasize Choy Li Fut joint locks.

Nathan Fisher is one of those select few. Fisher, whose White Dragon School in San Diego is one of the largest Choy Li Fut schools in Southern California, studied from Doc-Fai Wong in San Francisco. Wong’s martial art lineage is linked directly to Choy Li Fut’s founder, Chan Heung.

Actually, Fisher states joint locking is one of the most useful fighting aspects of Choy Li Fut. “Most self-defense confrontations happen at very close range, where you can’t kick or use power punches,” said Fisher. “Also, today’s laws often make you the felon if you injure your assailant. So you may not want to cause them any bodily damage. Joint locks are perfect. You can effectively handle close-range situations without seriously injuring your attacker.”
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By Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong

Training For Life February 1995

In ancient China healing arts were often reserved for martial artists. Injured people went to the martial arts sifu, calling him the dit da (tit da) doctor. Dit means falling, da translates to be beat up or struck, hence people injured from fighting or falling went to martial arts dit da doctors for treatment. From there dit da became a term for any injury, covering burns, cuts or bleeding, broken bones and even bullet wounds.

There were several levels of treatment practiced by dit da doctors. The first were minor injuries caused by falling, bruising such as hematomas and muscle injuries. The next level is joint dislocations, such as a broken nose, jammed finger or wrist joints, elbow or shoulder dislocations, and any joint hyper extensions. After that comes fractured bones. There are all injuries treated by martial arts masters. Even today, kung fu sifu in Asia treat and set injuries and broken bones.

Injuries come from sports, labor or work related injuries. In the old days small Chinese towns and villages didn’t have hospitals, so injured people went to see the local martial artist for relief. Some of these people were good doctors, who had special herbal formulas and techniques handed down from generation to generation in their families.

In China in the old days there were no such things as stitches for open wounds and cuts. Therefore, using the right herbal powder was a must for stopping bleeding. Any good dit da doctor had to have a good formula to stop bleeding. The one you buy over the counter today, yun nan bai yao, is rated the best in China for “blood stop” medicine.

Besides good herbal formulas, martial artists needed to be expert at certain healing techniques, such as how to replace a dislocated joint and how to set a broken bone without it healing crooked. Remember there were no X-rays in the old days.

Martial artists got their training from watching their own martial arts teacher in action healing others. Information was passed down from teacher to teacher. Today, in various parts of Asia, martial artist dit da doctors still practice their trade. Many people will go to no other doctor for relief from injuries.

Even those with muscular pains, such as an elbow that isn’t dislocated or fractured - possibly caused by a strained tendon or muscle - go to experienced dit da doctors. Dit da doctors should know whether to massage or not to massage soft tissue injuries, like the strained elbow. Sometimes rubbing an injury causes more damage to the original injury. On the other hand, some tendon injuries come from tendons that are slightly twisted or shortened. Good dit da doctors know massage techniques that loosen the tendons and relieve pain.

Besides massage, dit da doctors had a lotion to apply to the injured area. Now known as dit da jao, this lotion hastens healing when used with massage. Jao means alcohol or liquor and describes the base ingredient that speeds absorption into the injured area. Dit da jao has become the most popular lotion in the martial arts school.

For major injuries and deep bruises, rubbing dit da jao won’t do the job. Martial arts healers made a dough based plaster to apply to injured area for four to eight hours at a time. This means the dit da doctor has to have another remedy called dit da fun (powder). Dit da fun is made from many types of herbs, ground into powder, stored in a container and used by scooping anywhere from one half to one cup, heated and mixed with different lotions to make a dough that is not too weary nor too dry.

In the old days the dit da doctor might use a piece of leaf, like banana or lotus leaf, as backing for the dit da dough. Nowadays, they use wax paper or Saran Wrap, with the dough spread about a quarter to one half inch thick in a four to six inch rectangle, depending on the size of the injured area. For an injury caused by a hot swelling, a cool plaster is used.

If the injury is not swollen a hot plaster is used. The plaster is then wrapped with an Ace bandage. For example, a foot injury is treated by wearing a plaster for about eight hours overnight (longer than that might develop a rash because of a lack of air on the skin surface). Then the dried plaster is taken off its base and put in a bucket of hot water, where the injured foot is soaked for five to ten minutes for a second treatment at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Deep injuries or internal bleeding that disturbs circulation heal faster with dit da yuen (pill), an internal medicine that helps improve circulation. These are large, ping-pong or golf-ball sized pills. The actual herbal pill inside is about the size of a marble - the rest is wax. To make dit da yuen, a special dit da powder is mixed with honey and rolled into a marble-sized ball. Then wrapped with a piece of rice paper, bee’s wax is used to seal it into a large ball for a longer shelf life. Dit da yuen is taken once in the morning and once at night, sometimes for a week to ten days. The pill can also be dissolved in a liquor and rubbed on the skin for muscle injuries.

Dit da doctors must also have the knowledge to cook specific herbs into teas for internal treatments. These are called dit da tang (soup). Most martial artists had only three formulas: neck and above injuries, body, and one for the legs to feet. Some with more knowledge have more formulas, one for every kind of injury.

While today many people go to hospitals for serious injuries, martial arts doctors still flourish in Asia and many Chinatowns throughout the world.

Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong is a columnist for Inside Kung Fu Magazine.

Wong Gong aka Wong Ming Sang, was born in 1928 in the city of Kong Moon (Jian Men), Guangdong province of China. He began his study of Choy Li Fut Kung Fu when he was 10 years old from the famous Choy Li Fut Great-Grandmaster Chan Cheong Mo. Besides his great Kung Fu skill, he is also an expert in traditional Southern Chinese Lion Dancing . Each year when the city had its annual city parade and on all the other celebrations for different occasions, he was the lead lion head performer. He was also one of the senior instructors of Chan Cheong Mo’s Hung Sing Studios in Kong Moon city.

When he was 17 years old, he met Great-Grandmaster Chan Yen, the chief instructor of the King Mui Village’s Hung Sing studio. Wong Gong and Chan Yen got along quite well and Chan Yen invited Wong Gong to visit the King Mui Village. After Wong Gong paid respect to the original Hung Sing Studio founded by Chan Heung in 1836, he saw and admired Great-Grandmaster Chan Yen’s fighting ability and his Choy Li Fut Kung Fu skills. He decided to ask Chan Yen to take him as a closed-door student. Chan Yen believed he was a good martial artist and a good student and accepted Wong Gong’s request. When Wong Gong was 19 and 20 years old, he was the head instructor at two branches of Hung Sing Studios for Chan Yen in the neighboring villages of King Mui.

In 1949, when China turned Communist, he went to Hong Kong to work as a traditional Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist. Although there were too many traditional Chinese medicine physicians in Hong Kong at that time, he was very talented and made his living as a marine seaman and worked on the ships as a carpenter and maintenance engineer for many years. Since Hong Kong was handed back over to China in1997, he has practiced Chinese medicine as a full time profession until today.

Wong Gong learned all of Choy Li Fut Kung Fu’s unusual animal forms and the founder’s special weapon, the Nine Dragon Trident and other advanced weapon sets from Great-Grandmaster Chan Yen. Grandmaster Doc-Fai Wong is his senior student and the primary representative of his teaching outside of China.

Science is organized knowledge.  Wisdom is organized life.

-Immanuel Kant

Knowing others is intelligence, knowing yourself is true wisdom.  Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.

-Tao Te Ching

Years teach us more than books.

-Berthold Auerbach