Pearls of Wisdom

Training for Life

by Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong

Guess what?  Everybody’s getting older.  So far no one’s invented a fountain of youth or elixir of life.  We all have to realize age is steadily creeping up on us.  When you reach 40, your tendons and ligaments start losing their elasticity.  With this comes an increased risk of strained muscles and tendons.  Your stamina and speed are less than a 20 year old’s, and you’ll probably tire a lot quicker.

For those who are overweight, out of shape and have high blood pressure, you’re running a serious risk when you practice martial arts based on hard active force.  The risk is of shortening your life by putting undue strain on your heart and blood vessels each time you work out using hard, forceful power.

As a student you must work out to learn your marital art.  However, once you complete your learning and become a teacher or master, what do you do?  To keep in shape, most martial artists do stretching exercises.  Some do push ups and sit ups.  Most workout with kata or forms.  While some people over 40 can still practice hard, forceful kata , many tire easily and develop physical problems with elbows, knees or muscles.  At that age many have high blood pressure and stressful everyday lives.  If they don’t know how to take care of themselves, their martial arts practice will shorten their lives.

If you’re reaching middle age, you do have a choice.  If you are a beginner in martial arts, you can take up a softer, more internal style such as tai chi.  If you’ve been training for awhile and are noticing yourself slowing down or feeling easily fatigued, you can modify your training with the addition of a softer style.

Why is it bad for older martial artists to practice nothing but hard styles?  Most so called hard styles are based on tense, stiff muscle action.  When you do nothing but tense, stiff muscular workouts, your muscles and tendons quickly lose their elasticity, making it easier to injure yourself.  That type of workout is bad for people with high blood pressure.  Tense muscles slow the circulation and prohibit normal relaxed breathing.  There are multitudes of health problems that face an aging person who constantly emits tense force.  Tai chi or chi kung (qigong) are both good supplements to the aging martial artist’s workout.  They’ll help you understand relaxation.

How can you tell if your style uses too much tense force for the over 40 person?  First, your shoulders should be down and relaxed when you punch.  If they are raised, you’re too tense.  Next, your chest should not stick out.  When your chest sticks out, your chest muscles are tight, restricting your breathing and lung capacity.  Third, all kicks and punches should be smooth and flowing.  Broken, jerky movements are bad for aging joints.  Finally, when you strike, your upper body muscles should stay loose and relaxed, rather than firm or tense.

For you beginners who decide to join the nearest tai chi class on your block, be aware of one thing:
Not every tai chi instructor is teaching a martial art.  Over 90 percent of tai chi teachers don’t know the martial art applications of what they teach.  Even if you just want tai chi for health, you’ll still need a teacher who knows the martial art aspect of tai chi.  If your instructor doesn’t understand tai chi the martial art, it’s just a slow dance, and is no different from doing a hard style kata slowly and without intention.

Focus and intention, along with the right timing and balance are essentials for any martial art, including tai chi.  Learn from a tai chi instructor who comes from authentic martial art lineage and background.  Then you’ll get a good, safe workout along with self-defense training.

For those at an advanced level in most kung fu, karate, and other martial art styles, keep doing your martial art.  However, when you practice, relax and slow your speed so your heart doesn’t work too hard.  Don’t put too much emphasis on high kicks and low stances.  When you release power, use intention instead of raw force.  Use your mind to put forth plenty of power.  Keep your body relaxed before the moment of impact, adding power at the last instant.  Your form or kata then becomes slower, between the power sections.  But when you need power, it will still be there.

Dynamic tension exercises are not good for those over 40.  Keep your breathing even.  Don’t do techniques that require you to hold your breath too long.  Of  course, it doesn’t hurt for those in the advanced category to add some tai chi or comparable internal martial art to your daily workouts.

Learn more about the benefits of internal martial arts, click here: whitedragonmartialarts.com

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.

Training for Life

Inside Kung Fu Magazine August 2007

by Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong

Chan Cheong Mo was the founder and chief instructor of the Sei Yup (four counties) Hung Sing School in Kong Moon City now called Jiang Men. He learned Choy Li Fut from Chan Heung, the founder of Choy Li Fut kung fu when he was a child. After Chan Heung past away, he continued to study from his eldest son, Chan On Pak.

In 1898, Chan Cheong Mo opened the first Hung Sing School in the Wong clan family temple in Jiang Men city and invited Chan On Pak’s younger brother Chan Koon Pak to be the head instructor and he assisted Chan Koon Pak in teaching Choy Li Fut kung fu. In 1906, Chan Koon Pak went to Canton (Guangzhou) and Chan Cheong Mo officially took over the school and became the head instructor of the Jiang Men’s Hung Sing School.  Before Chan Cheong Mo past away in 1953, his adopted son and successor Chew Kam Wing was appointed to be the keeper and head instructor of the Hung Sing School in Jiang Men city.

Chew Kam Wing taught in the Jiang Men’s Hung Sing School until the Chinese government banned traditional kung fu teaching. All of his students eventually stopped practicing and no longer taught the great Choy Li Fut Kung Fu system. Chew Kam Wing taught his sons Choy Li Fut privately; unfortunately his sons were not up to the standard that was required for passing down the traditional teaching. Chew Kam Wing’s occupation was a full time doctor in the People’s Hospital of Jiang Men practicing traditional Chinese medicine. He finally retired couple years ago having served the community for over 45 years. He became one of the most well known doctors in Southern China.

Today, only few of the senior students of Chan Cheong Mo are still alive in China and around the world. In Jiang Men city, there are Wong Kan Fu, Lui Sieh Gen and the old keeper Chew Kam Wing. In Canada, Yan Jun Ho was teaching in Vancouver’s Chinatown for over 30 years and he also retired from teaching kung fu. Today, in Hong Kong only Wong Gong is still actively involved in teaching Choy Li Fut. Chew Kam Wing now is in his mid 80’s.  He and his fellow classmates had a meeting and all agreed that he should pass on his Keeper’s position to his kung fu brother Wong Gong. All the senior members of Chan Cheong Mo’s students believed Wong Gong had achieved the greatest success in the teaching of Choy Li Fut. On February 16, 2006, Chew Kam Wing officially signed the certificate of Jeong Moon Yen to Wong Gong as the new Keeper of the Sei Yup Hung Sing School.

Wong Gong was born in 1928 and he is a native of Jiang Men city. He studied kung fu with his father as a child and later became a disciple of Chan Cheong Mo. With his teacher Chan Cheong Mo’s permission, he continued his studies from Chan Yen, the chief instructor of King Mui Village’s Hung Sing School. Chan Yen learned Choy Li Fut from his father Chan Yau Kau who was the student of the founder of Choy Li Fut, Chan Heung. In 1949, the communists took over mainland China. Before Wong Gong moved to Hong Kong both of his teachers told him to continue teaching kung fu in Hong Kong in order to keep the Choy Li Fut Kung Fu system alive. Today, Wong Gong has over 50,000 student memberships down through 6 generations from him all around the world.

Training For Life April 1989

By Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong

One of the biggest selling points of internal Chinese martial arts are their health and longevity benefits. You know, practice Tai Chi and life becomes better for you.

Well, that’s true. However, people question why several famous Tai Chi and Hsing-I masters have died at relatively young ages. If we who teach tai chi tell the public that internal martial arts promote longevity and health, why did these well-known masters die so soon?

Those people’s early deaths resulted from the lifestyles, not their martial art. Actually, if they didn’t know Tai Chi or another internal martial art, they probably would have died much sooner.

Well-known martial arts masters around the turn of this century had far different lifestyles than the ordinary martial teacher. They often worked for rich families, who exposed them to all of the excesses available to the wealthy – opium, women, alcohol, and gambling. Before long their social habits cut into their Tai Chi practice time. They spent more time gambling, drinking and carousing, and less time practicing Tai Chi. They ate more of the wrong foods, increasing their cholesterol levels and overtaxing their digestive tracts. The best tasting food was not always the healthiest food, especially when they didn’t get enough exercise to digest their extra fat.

They slept fewer hours, stressing themselves with addictive habits. In China, before the People’s Republic, the upper-class fashion was to smoke opium. Of course, only those who could afford it smoked it. Many great masters, whom I will not name, with respect for their martial arts fame and leadership, became wealthy from teaching government officials and rich families. Unfortunately, their opulent lifestyles outweighed their internal training, and they died young.

Not all famous internal martial arts teachers fell prey to temptation. Wu Tu-Nan, a Wu and Yang style Tai Chi expert, lives in Beijing. Wu is almost 105 years old, and he still practices tai chi every day. The author of many outstanding Chinese Tai Chi books, Wu is very healthy. He emphasizes three things for a long life – good nutrition, enough rest, and daily Tai Chi practice.

A well-known Tai Chi master is San Francisco and Taiwan, Kuo Lien-Yin lived into his late 80’s. Kuo also practiced Tai Chi every day, outliving several wives.

Professor Yu Peng-Si, one of the most renown Hsing-I (I-Chuan) masters of modern times, died in 1983 at age 83. He would probably be alive today, except that he suffered from acute diabetes. His demise came from complications caused by restaurant food that triggered a diabetic attack.

Professor Yu was once quoted as saying “If you want a long life get eight hours sleep every night, don’t eat a large meal right before you go to sleep, and don’t let yourself become emotionally upset.”

Professor Yu, also a distinguished medical doctor and full professor at the University of Shanghai, practiced his I-Chuan internal martial art every day until his final illness.

My own teacher, Hu Yuen-Chou (Woo Van-Cheuk in Cantonese), is 85 years old. He is famous in Hong Kong and Taiwan, having been a direct disciple of Yang tai chi’s leader, Yang Cheng-Fu. Hu practices and teaches tai chi every day. He is also a doctor, believing that daily exercise is a must for a long healthy life. Hu refrains from eating greasy foods. They are hard to digest and raise blood cholesterol levels.

These are just a few examples. There are many Tai Chi and other internal masters who have lived well into their 90s. I have observed many external martial arts teachers, younger than them, in the Orient who must use canes to walk and can no longer practice their martial arts.

I believe that the benefits of internal practice, living a long, healthy life, means that you should practice certain principles. Practice your martial art every day, staying relaxed and calm. Don’t overdo your workouts, but do enough. Stay away from other excesses, such as drugs, alcohol, and the wrong kinds of food. Get enough rest every night. Do these things, and you too may be teaching Tai Chi, Hsing-I, or paqua well into your 90s.

Discover the many health benefits of Kung Fu & Tai Chi: whitedragonmartialarts.com

Training for Life

Nov 2003

by Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong

Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan (standard spelling, using pinyin Romanization, in China is “tai ji quan”) originally had only one form with 108 moves. This is the form that the great Yang Cheng Fu performed for a photographer in the early 20th century and is still a valuable reference. Today most people call this the “long form.”

In China, this form is known as the “88 form,” because some long sequences are counted as only one move. In my schools, throughout the Plum Blossom International Federation around the world, we refer to this form as the “108 form.” This is the original tai chi form practiced by Yang stylists in the old days. However, in the Yang family system, there is another, even-longer sequence form called the “long form,” which is infrequently taught, therefore we don’t call our “108 form” the long form.

In 1949, China turned to Communism. Most of the martial arts systems were not allowed to practice anymore. But tai chi was proven good for health, therefore the government decided to put out a shorter sequence form for the people to practice. In the early 1950s, citizens were encouraged to learn the “24 form.” This form can be completed in four-to-six minutes and has both left- and right-hand movements. The 24 form is not like the original 108 form with its complicated repetitions and the 15-to-20 minutes required to finish. The new shorter form was easier to learn and easier to remember. It had the added advantage for the government of getting tai chi enthusiasts to work quicker!

When a person practiced it three times in a row, it was almost equivalent to the old form. Since the “leftist” Communist government in China developed the “24 form,” people were required to start to the left instead of the right, as was the case with the original Yang form!

Over time more and more people began to practice tai chi in China. This meant many styles of tai chi chuan re-emerged to be practiced there. The Chinese government in the 1960s created a combination form and put the four major styles of tai chi together to become the “48 form.” This 48 form includes the Yang, Chen, Wu and Sun styles of tai chi chuan movements. The 24 form, 88 form and the 48 form have been practiced widely in China for years.

Wushu has almost become a national sport of China. Since tai chi chuan is one system of martial arts, it is included in the forms competition. In the late 1980s, the Chinese government came out with a competition form called the “42 form.” This competition form has the four major styles of tai chi like the 48 form. The 42 form balances the numbers of movements of each style of tai chi. In com- petition the tai chi player is required to accurately demonstrate the movements of each style. No matter what style of tai chi chuan you practice, if you want to compete in tai chi in the national tournament, you must do this 42 form. The tai chi competitor must complete the 42 form in five minutes or less.

Most traditional tai chi practitioners don’t like the 42 form. Each style of traditional tai chi wanted its own division. In the early 1990s, each of the four major styles of tai chi chuan was finally given its own five-minute competition. To fit this five-minute requirement Yang tai chi has a new competition form called the “40 form.” This form is designed to allow the competitor to apply any of the traditional movements from the different lineages. There are versions of movements from Yang style grandmasters such as, Chen Wei Ming, Dong Ying lie, Fu Zhong Wen, Hu Yuen Chou, Cheng Man Ching and others who had learned from Yang Cheng Fu or his students in China. The “40 form” requires five minutes of competition time. If a player performs under five minutes or over six minutes, the judges will deduct points from the score.

Despite the many forms available to the tai chi player, it should be remembered that doing one form properly under the guidance of a qualifled master is more important than knowing lots of forms. Thanks to the many martial artists who brought their knowledge with them when they emigrated from China, and the acceptance over time by the Chinese government, all these forms have become popular throughout the world.

To learn more about Tai Chi classes in San Diego visit: whitedragonmartialarts.com

Training for Life Jan 2002

by Grandmaster Doc Fai Wong

Choy Li Fut is one of the most popular kung-fu systems in the world. A martial artist named Chan Heung, from Xin Hui, Guang-dong province, created the style in 1836. He took northern footwork from Choy Fook, who came from the Northern Shaolin Temple. Choy Li Fut’s Strong fighting fist techniques came from Li Yau San of the Southern Shaolin Temple. Chan Heung’s Buddhist open-hand fighting techniques were handed down from his uncle, Chan Yuan Woo. He named the system Choy Li Fut to honor his teachers.

Choy Li Fut staff and spear forms have both northern and southern China’s unique fighting techniques. When both hands grip the bottom end of the long staff, the techniques are single-ended staff techniques. The kung-fu fighter can concentrate on using the front end of the staff to fight his opponent. If both hands hold the staff in the center, with both thumbs facing each other, it is a double-ended staff technique. One advantage of the double-ended technique is that it is much faster, since Choy Li Fut stylists can use both ends of the staff as a weapon. However, the length of the staff is shorter than the single-ended staff.

In Choy Li Fut there are ten sets of staff forms and four sets of the spear forms. The staff forms are in three categories: single-ended, double-ended and single and double-ended forms. Within single-ended forms, there are five forms or sets: The great banner staff form (dai hung kei guan) is based on the footwork moving in a large triangle pattern like a Chinese lion dancing banner’s shape.

The lifting and smashing staff form (chau sot guen) emphasizes two powerful striking techniques: chau (lifting) and the sot (smashing). The plum blossom lancing staff form (mui fa cheung guen) uses either a single-ended staff or a spear for practice. Diving dragon staff form (chim lung guen) is an advanced staff technique form that has many unique, yet practical movements.

The five point plum blossom paqua staff form (ng dim mui fa bot gua guen) is the basic Choy Li Fut staff form. This form contains the most complete staff fighting techniques of all Choy Li Fut staff forms. For that reason, it is referred to as the staff seeds of Choy Li Fut.

In the double-ended staff category, there are four sets. The flat crutch staff form (bin gwai guen) contains the most practical staff fighting techniques. There is a saying in Chinese martial arts, “If you don’t know the bin guai guen form, you don’t know the Choy Li Fut system.”

Coiling dragon staff form (poon lung guen) is a basic double-ended staff form. It is easy for beginners to learn and good general training in the Choy Li Fut system. The monkey king staff form (hang jieh guen) is also an interesting double-ended staff form. It has acrobatic movements similar to the famous Monkey King of Chinese opera. Another double-ended staff form, twin dragons inhaling air (seung lung kup hei guen) is an advanced double-ended staff form of Choy Li Fut. Most Choy Li Fut schools don’t even have this form in the teaching curriculum. Twin dragons inhaling air has many pressure-point striking techniques.

The only set in the single-ended and double-ended staff form category is the single-and double-ended staff form (seung gup darn guen). This form is the most popular staff form in Choy Li Fut. In fact, plenty of schools only teach this set. This set is important because it contains techniques of the single and double ended staff.

To learn more about Choy Li Fut Kung Fu in San Diego: Visit White Dragon Martial Arts