The Way of the Master

[Wong Chun Yian]

Hi brothers and sisters,

Since so many of us are looking forward for the new book, I must speed up the editorial process and make the book available as soon as possible

It is very hard for Sifu to set up the system for Shaolin Wahnam Institute and Sifu does share a lot of the secrets in one of the three major parts of the book - Building the Foundation (Chapter 30 to Chapter 47). I believe we can get a lot of strategies and tactics, planning and management, inspiring ideas and etc from this part to be applied in our daily life.

In Chapter 34, Sifu describe how he make a revolution in chi kung teaching which others might think that this is a crazy move. Indirectly, Sifu also reveal his strategies and tactics to counter disagreement and also his strong mind set which is the core for Shaolin Wahnam Institute, as we know - as long as you are the deserved, I will teach irrespective of race, culture and religion.


Revolutionary Approach to Chi Kung Teaching

Instead of teaching chi kung the traditional way in the past where a teacher just taught at the spur of the moment, often not knowing what he would teach next, and students just learned what was taught, often not knowing where the teaching would lead them to, I planned a package course of six months where I knew exactly what to teach with set aims and objectives, and students knew what results they would get when they had completed the course. I taught the public the Eighteen Lohan Hands, irrespective of race, culture and religion. Although the majority was still Chinese, there were also many Malay and Indian students.

This was a revolutionary move, teaching a package of chi kung with set aims and objectives in six months. It was unprecedented in chi kung history. Previously, chi kung meant years of training. A few years later some chi kung teachers from China came to South East Asian countries to teach chi kung in package courses like what I did.

At that time some masters were laughing at me.

“Wong Kew Kit has gone crazy. Now he’s teaching chi kung in six months!” They said behind my back.

Some were angry.

“How can he teaches our Chinese treasure to non-Chinese?”

No one accused me in front of my face. I had ready responses if they did.

First I would ask them who the First Patriarch of the Shaolin arts was. This was a rhetoric question. Everyone, or at least everyone who practiced the Shaolin arts and knew a little of its history, knew the answer to be Bodhidharma.

I would then ask, “Was Bodhidharma Chinese?” This, of course, was also a rhetoric question, asked for effect rather than an answer.

My last resort would never fail. If someone still persisted in accusing me of teaching non-Chinese, I would ask him for free sparring. This was not logical. There was no relationship between winning free sparring and the right to teach non-Chinese, but the custom among kungfu masters was such that if you could beat them in free sparring they would have nothing more to say. Those who knew me intimately enough to accuse me in front of my face, knew that I was good in free sparring. So they would not accept my sparring invitation.

“How about some free sparring to settle the issue?” I would say.

“Mo wah ho kong” (无话好讲), which is in Cantonese meaning “I have nothing more to say”.

Although no one accused me, a few people later suggested to me in a polite way that I should not teach kungfu to Westerners!

I told them that kungfu was now a hobby. Though we could get many benefits form kungfu, the tremendous benefits the West had brought to us were beyond comparison, like modern medicine, modern education and transport and communication. Mobile phones, the internet and even coloured television were unknown then. The irony was that these few people who were chauvinistic to preserve kungfu for the Chinese, did not practice genuine kungfu; they practiced flowery fists and embroidery kicks. Genuine masters of kungfu and chi kung were generous; they would teach deserving students irrespective of race, culture and religion.


The Eighteen Lohan Hands

I did not learn the complete set of Eighteen Lohan Hands (十八罗汉手) from any of my sifus. I learned only a few of the Lohan Hands from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam, like Lifting the Sky, Pushing Mountain, Separating Water, Three Levels to Ground, and Big Windmill. When I asked my sifu whether I could learn the complete set, he told me the Eighteen Lohan Hands were meant to make the Shaolin monks healthy, and as I was already healthy I should focus on Shaolin Kungfu.

But I had strong sentimental feelings for the Eighteen Lohan Hands. They were the first exercises taught by the great Bodhidharma to the Shaolin monks. So after graduating from Sifu Ho Fatt Nam and returning to Penang, I spent a lot of time researching what the 18 exercises of the Eighteen Lohan Hands were. I found a few different versions. I selected what I considered the best 18 exercises and linked them together into a set, starting with the 8 exercises of a famous Taoist chi kung set called the Eight Pieces of Brocade (八段锦). When I was a boy scout in school I practiced a similar set of 8 exercises for the Tenderfoot Test, the fundamental test for boy scouts.

I remember musing to myself that some people might laugh at us practicing the Eighteen Lohan Hands which was the basic chi kung of Shaolin considered to be Buddhist, but the eight beginning exercises were taken from the Taoist Eight Pieces of Brocade. Imagine my great surprise when I later discovered a classic written in the past listing the same 18 exercises of the Eighteen Lohan Hands in exactly the same order I listed them! I thought when I selected and listed the Eighteen Lohan Hands, I must have been in touch with the cosmos drawing upon ancient wisdom. Alternatively it must be because of divine guidance.

With Shaolin Salute,
Chun Yian

[Kevin_B]

Thank you again Sipak Chun Yian! I am really loving these snippets of what will be a masterful publication.

All the best,

Kevin

[Wong Chun Yian]

Hi there,

A little story about how Sifu experienced self-manifested chi movement. Enjoy...


Self-Manifested Chi Movement

My chi kung teaching was very successful. Many people with so-called incurable diseases, like diabetes, asthma, arthritics, peptic ulcers, hypertension and heart problems, overcame their health problems after learning and practising chi kung from me. As I was still working full-time as a school teacher, I found that I did not have sufficient time to teach the increasing number of students.

A chi kung master from Alor Setar had some problems in his area and wanted to move to Sungai Petani. He asked me for help. He learned Soaring Crane Chi Kung from a master in Penang, and kungfu from my sidai, Lau Weng Woh. He invited me to his chi kung school in Alor Setar, and I was impressed with the result of his students. A special feature of his chi kung was self-manifested chi movement (自发动功).

Self-manifested chi movement is a genre of chi kung where students perform a number of chi kung exercises which generate an energy flow which may result in vigorous spontaneous movements. Sometimes, the spontaneous movements can be quite extraordinary, like jumping about wildly and making interesting noises. The students are aware of these movements and can control them if they wish. However, onlookers who have not been exposed to this type of chi kung may mistakenly think the students are in trance or being possessed. This type of chi kung is excellent for overcoming illness.

I had read about self-manifested chi movement before, and some of my students had such movements but it was the first time I witnessed self-manifested chi movement in such intensity in a class.

Seeing that I was keen on self-manifested chi movement, the master said that he could induce one in me. He asked me to stand upright and relax, which I did. He then opened an energy point called ming-men (命门), which means “gate of life” and is located at the back along the waist opposite the navel. He attempted to channel some chi in to induce a self-manifested chi movement. But he failed.

“Your chi flow is so strong,” he said. “It repulses my attempt to channel chi. It pushes me back. I’ve never met such a powerful flow of chi before.”

When I returned home, I tried to induce self-manifested chi movement myself. I reckoned I could do so by repeating what I saw the students did in class. I also remembered that I had read in some chi kung classics on Five-Animal Play (五禽戏), a fore-runner of self-manifested chi movement, that one could induce chi flow easier if he opened his baihui (百会), an energy point at the top of the head, and pressed on his navel a few times before performing appropriate exercises.

So, in the living room in my house in Sungai Petani, I stood upright and relaxed. I opened my baihui and pressed on my navel three times. Then, I performed about thirty Soaring Crane Chi Kung exercises. I felt my chi moving inside me. I relaxed totally and let the chi move me. Soon, I was moving round the room, and before I could realize, I was moving very fast. I ran round and round the room in top speed. It was the first time I moved so fast in chi flow.

Although it was not unpleasant, I wanted to stop and conclude the exercise. But I did not know how to stop! Meanwhile, the chi was pushing me to run extremely fast, without any muscular effort on my part. On hindsight, it was actually a remarkable attainment, but at that time, my only concern was how to stop my extremely fast movement. I was not panicky. I remained calm. Then an idea struck me. I could stop the very fast movement by throwing myself on a long sofa in the living room.

This I did. I just slammed myself down onto a long sofa. It was quite unpleasant. I lay on the sofa for about a minute or two. When I stood up, I felt dazed. I walked about and could recover my composure in about five minutes.

That was an exciting experience, the first time I generated a fast and vigorous chi flow, and did not know how to stop properly. Now, after years of improvement in our teaching methodology, we can easily come to a graceful stop readily. Just think of the dantian, slow down and gently stop.

With best wishes,
Chun Yian

[Andy]

The beginnings of a revolution!

Thanks for sharing, Sihing

[brendan]

Such a joy to read

Thank you Sifu and thank you Siheng,

Shaolin Salute,
Brendan

[LeeWeiJoo]

Thank you Chun Yian Siheng for sharing these stories here first

With Shaolin Salute,
Lee Wei Joo

[JasD]

Awesome.

Thank you Siheng. Really looking forward to the book.

Best,

Jas

[Nick Jones]

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Wonderful to read this. Thanks for sharing

[Hubert]

Dear Chun Yian Siheng,

Thank you very much for posting yet another very interesting excerpt! It is wonderful to have ongoing glimpses about how everything got started.

With love and respect,

[Jacek Kaleta]

Awesome, what a privilege to be part of this unfolding development...

Many thanks for sharing Chun Yian Sipak.

[Wong Chun Yian]

Dear brothers and sisters,

In fact, the story about that master is quite long and I just share the beginning of the story, the complete story makes up the whole Chapter 36 which is very interesting to read

Well I believe a lot of us will face the difficulties when we try to promote our arts to the public. Sifu shares how he expands Shaolin Wahnam Institute when it first established in Chapter 37, which might gives us some ideas or guidelines to market the arts. Following is an interesting about Golden Bell during Sifu's early years.


How My Family Helped Our School to Expand

How did I expand chi kung taught by Shaolin Wahnam Institute, which operated in a sole proprietor format to so many centres without the help of executive committees in my early years? It was due to the untiring effort and dedication of my family, especially my wife, two eldest daughters and eldest son. For those few years of expansion, my eldest daughter, Wong Sau Foong, was about 12 years old, my second daughter, Wong Wei Foong, about 9, and my eldest son, Wong Chun Nga, about 5. My youngest daughter, Wong Siew Foong, and my youngest son, Wong Chun Yian, were not yet born.

It was quite a sentimental experience. First, I prepared brochures explaining what chi kung was and the benefits one could derive from practising it, and stated the place, date and time of a free seminar. I drove my wife and the three children in an old car to a housing estate, and my children would have fun putting the brochures into post boxes of houses, while my wife and I made sure they were safe from cars, drains and dogs.

On an appointed day, usually at night, I would talk about chi kung and its benefits, and then answer questions from audience. I announced that we would start a chi kung class at the place if more than twenty people indicated interest. If there were less than twenty interested people, we would not hold the class.

There were almost always more than twenty people interested in an audience ranging from about fifty to a hundred. On two or three occasions when there were less than twenty people interested, those present persuaded me to conduct the class and they promised to bring their family members or friends to make up the missing number. They always kept their promise. I was sincere in my approach, and the audience appreciated my sincerity.

I preferred to work on a sole proprietor format for Shaolin Wahnam Institute. After my experience with Shaolin Wahnam Association where any innovations had to be approved by an executive committee who might not meet often, and my experience with Advanced Service where innovations had to be approved by the other two partners though they usually agreed to my proposals, I found working in a sole proprietor format where I was responsible for my own innovations and their success depended on my own ability was more suitable for my purpose.

Besides these chi kung classes, two multi-national corporations also invited me to teach their top executives and senior managers chi kung. When I first started teaching in one of these two multi-national corporations, a senior engineer had a serious heart problem. He was supposed to go to the United States for some newly invented treatment where a balloon was to be inserted into his problematic artery. He asked for my opinion, and I told him that he could first give chi kung a try. He did and after a few months, medical tests showed that his heart problem had disappeared.


Alarming Story about Golden Bell

There was an interesting, if not alarming, story connected with this senior engineer. This multi-national corporation rented a compound from the University of Science Malaysia for chi kung practice. One afternoon, after our weekly practice, we spent some time talking about how chi kung enhanced martial art. A student asked whether Golden Bell, where a practitioner could take punches and kicks and even weapon attacks without sustaining injury, was real. When I told them it was true, some students asked whether I knew it, and if so, whether I could demonstrate to them for “opening their eyes”.

So, in the following weekly session, I brought along a chopper, the type that hawkers used to chop bones. I intended to give a demonstration of Golden Bell before starting chi kung practice. The senior engineer, who was tall and huge, was standing in front at my right side. I casually handed the chopper to him, not because of his huge size but because he was nearby, and continued talking to the class.

I saw from a corner of my right eye he was making an exaggerated movement, swinging his body back with the chopper firmly in his right hand. I thought he was making a joke, or rehearsing his swinging movement. But no, in the next instant, the chopper was coming right into me, powerfully and fast. It was so sudden, and so unexpected that there was no way at all to escape.

The sharp chopper hit me full force on my stomach, bounced away about twenty feet, making a few clanging sounds as it struck a tree and rebounced on the hard ground. Luckily, the chopper did not hit anyone on its way. Even if it struck someone on the blunt edge, it would have killed him.

I could remember very clearly the senior engineer was in total shock, his eyes and mouth were wide open, and not a sound issued from him. He was probably shocked at what he just did. Indeed, not a sound issued from anyone present. Everybody froze. There was no doubt that any other person who did not have genuine Golden Bell would have his bowel open with his insides pouring out!

My T-shirt was cut, but I was totally unhurt. There was a red mark on my stomach, but it disappeared the next day.

Usually, in a Golden Bell demonstration, the one chopping a sharp weapon at the Golden Bell master would do so very gently at first. The master would have to ask him to chop harder and harder. Certainly no one, not even the senior engineer himself, would expect him to really swing a sharp chopper at full force and full speed at a demonstrator.

The chopper was really sharp. When I returned home and related the incident to my wife, she was shocked. She said she just sent the chopper to be sharpened by a grinder the day before.

Attach two pictures:
1. A picture showing a chi kung seminar in the early days of 1980s.
2. An old picture showing me demonstrating Golden Bell.

With Shaolin Salute,
Chun Yian

[Hussain]

Wonderful . Many thanks Chun Yian for sharing

Looking forward to the book

Best regards,

Hussain

[LeeWeiJoo]

I can't help but feel excited for this book!

And the photos are worth their weight in gold!

With Shaolin Salute,
Lee Wei Joo

[Wong Chun Yian]

Hi there,

Another part in the book which related to our school's treasure - Distant Chi Transmission, was also not welcoming by other kungfu schools during Sifu's early years where Shaolin Wahnam Institute was just founded.


Interesting Cases of Distant Chi Transmission

Distant chi transmission, a very high-level skill of sending chi to someone or a group of people in a distance, is unbelievable but true. I first read about distant chi transmission performed by Sifu Yan Xin (严新), one of the greatest chi kung masters the world has ever produced. Professor Qian Xue Sen (钱学森), regarded as the father of the Chinese rocket, conducted some experiments at the prestigious Tsinghua University (清华大学) and confirmed that distant chi transmission was a reality.

I had some experiences with distant chi transmission that were interesting. Once I was travelling in a car from Sungai Petani to Kulim to conduct a chi kung class, and had to transmit chi while driving to a sick student as promised to help him recover. Later, he told me that he received my chi transmission and benefited from it, but he was curious that he felt like being in a boat. At first, I was curious too, but suddenly I realised that the road I was travelling while transmitting chi, was undulating.

On another occasion, I had to transmit chi while having supper at a table with some students after a chi kung class in Alor Setar. I told the students to carry on with their supper but leave me alone while I transmitted chi, sitting at the same table with them. I closed my eyes, entered into meditation and sent chi to a student. The student later told me that he sensed a very strong aroma while receiving chi. He searched all over his house as well as around it outside, but could not determine the source of the strong aroma.

Then I remembered that at the time I transmitted chi, a hawker was pouring rice noodles into a burning hot wok, or frying pan, with bubbling oil, to fry “char koay teow”, a local delicious dish, with rising vapour full of pungent aroma.

“Was it an aroma of char koay teow?” I asked.

“Ah, that’s it. How come I didn’t think of the char koay teow aroma!”

The molecular structure of chi in the air of the moment was transmitted to the recipient.


Concerted Attacks on Me

Distant chi transmission caused me a big difficulty, but like many other difficulties, it turned out to be a great blessing in disguise. It led to events that eventually enabled me to spread the wonderful benefits of the Shaolin arts to thousands of people irrespective of race, culture and religion all over the world.

In support of Sifu Yan Xin, I made an announcement which was published in many newspapers that distant chi transmission was a reality. This gave many people a reason, or an excuse, to attack me. I believed before this many people were not happy with me for various reasons, but they did not have a good opportunity to vent their anger on me. I lived my life as an exemplary kungfu and chi kung master. I didn’t smoke or drink, I didn’t gamble, I didn’t womanise, I didn’t cheat, I didn’t tell lies, I didn’t boast, I didn’t challenge others to fights – activities a few masters seemed proud to indulge in.

The attacks were consistent and concerted, and came mainly from masters and schools in Penang. I was quite disappointed that, except from those in our Shaolin Wahnam groups, considering the effort and time I had contributed in the promotion of kungfu and lion dance in the state, no masters or schools from Kedah stood out not necessarily in defence of my views but in a more objective and balanced manner. The basic attack was that I was insane to even suggest distant chi transmission was a possibility.

The trouble started quite innocently. During a public seminar in Bukit Mertajam where Shaolin Wahnam Institute organised to promote a new chi kung class, a group of martial artists whom we suspected came from another famous Shaolin school, challenged us, suggesting that chi was unreal. One of our instructors, Chan Chee Kong, channelled chi to a person in their group to prove the reality of chi. He tensed his body to resist the chi transmitted, resulting in him sustaining some serious blockage. To avoid trouble, I opened the blockage and reactivated his chi flow. The seminar went on, and a new chi kung class was formed in Bukit Mertajam.

After the incident, Chan Chee Kong said to me, “Sifu, you were very kind. That person was pale with energy blockage as he tensed his muscle to resist my chi channelling. But you opened his blockage to let his chi flow again.”

“I didn’t want to create any trouble,” I said.

A few weeks later, during a chi kung class in Bukit Mertajam, a challenger whom I suspected was an instructor from the other Shaolin school, came with a friend and aggressively accused me of publishing his photo in a newspaper about chi kung where our school, Shaolin Wahnam Institute, was mentioned. He said that this implied he was my student, which was not true, and challenged me to a fight.

I calmly and politely declined his challenge, and pointed out to him that the photo in question was not from us, but posted by the journalist of the report without our knowing. His friend, who was soft spoken, identified himself as a police officer in plain clothes and told me he was glad there was no fighting. In fact, he said, he came along so that he could stop any trouble should it arose.

These two issues could have spread among the public. A few days later, a well-known Shaolin school in Bukit Mertajam clarified in newspapers that the challenges were not related to their school at all.

The attacks on me regarding distant chi transmission continued, in newspapers as well as in private talks. It was interesting that no one ever suggested to test whether distant chi transmission was possible, or to ask me, the accused, to prove that it existed. The accusers just assumed that distant chi transmission was simply absurd.

I again announced that distant chi transmission was a reality and stressed that chi kung could be employed to help people overcome illness. I implored chi kung and kungfu masters to come together to study it so as to bring its benefits to the public. Had my suggestions been taken seriously, the history of chi kung healing today would be very different.

But no one was interested in my suggestion, in my willingness to share the knowledge and skills to help people overcome illness. My attackers were more interested to show what a big idiot I was to say one could transmit chi over a distance. So, I proposed that some responsible organisations could first conduct a test to find out whether distant chi transmission was true.

Best wishes,
Chun Yian

[LeeWeiJoo]

Sifu's humility and courage are inspiring.

With Shaolin Salute,
Lee Wei Joo