Chan Tai Chi Story

In the 50s of the 19th century, the world didn’t know anything about Tai Chi Kung Fu before the grand master Yeung taught Tai Chi in Beijing. The Tai Chi system he taught was called the Chan’s Tai Chi. In the 30s of the 20th century, the famous master Chan was invited to teach Tai Chi in Beijing. His kung fu was so good and personality so kind that people called him the Tai Chi Man.

One of the well known Tai Chi forms is called the Ng’s Tai Chi. Around the time when Chan was teaching Tai Chi in Beijing, there were many people studying the Ng’s form there. A master called Lau and his students heard that Chan was very good, so they decided to invite master Chan to demonstrate his skills. Chan came and started demonstrating his kung fu routines after a brief greeting.

His style of Tai Chi was very different from Ng’s which usually did the routines much slower and with little force. Chan did the two routines in 10 minutes. The speed and the power of the moves made everyone marveled. But some started commenting that his moves are not compatible with sound Tai Chi principles. Only master Lau was able to appreciate the essence of Chan’s kung fu. Chan’s moves were quick as lightning but smooth as silk with perfect circular motions. Lau humbly became a student of Chan after being even more impressed by his push hand skills.

Chan had many students and many of them were famous taichi masters. One of the most influential persons was Hung. He spend a lot of time and effort studying and refining Chan’s combat system and came up with a modified version called the Chan’s Practical Tai Chi, also known as the Hung’s Tai Chi today.

A move that Hung improved is the beginning move of the first routine of Chan’s Tai Chi. The move is called the King Kong Pounding. In 1957, Hung visited Chan in Beijing. He took the opportunity to enquire Chan about the King Kong Pounding move. He questioned whether the move can really be practically executed in real combat to handle powerful punches. Chan was positive about it due to his personal experiences. After that Hung modified to move and simplified the uses. Basically, the move is simply to direct opponents punch with right hand forearm and at the same time to twist left arm internally to avoid any possible elbow attack and use opponent’s force to bounce himself away.

Chan had experiences using the move in real situations. When Chan was living in his home town, the town was disturbed by robber’s activities. The governors tried to hire martial artists to guard the town. One of them was Chan. One day another martial artist knew that a Tai Chi master was joining them. He went to challenge Chan. He was sitting on chair and smoking in the house during that time. The martial artist directly came in front of Chan and threw a punch at his chest. Chan immediately stand up but the punch had almost arrived on his body. He executed the King Kong Pounding move. He touched the man’s wrist with his right hand and once he stretched his fingers, the man was bounced back and fell on the ground.

Learn more about martial arts and nunchuck, visit: numchuck jeet kune do techniques

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.