ANN/THE CHINA DAILY – On Hong Kong’s Lantau Island, 77-year-old Gam Bok-Yin demonstrates the swift and powerful techniques of Hung Gar, a traditional Chinese kung fu style.
With his long white hair tied in a knot and dressed in traditional Chinese attire, the Australian master moves gracefully, showcasing his skills.
Behind him, a group of Chinese students mirrors his movements, learning the rich martial art traditions from a foreign teacher.
Gam has dedicated over six decades to mastering Hung Gar, also known as Hung Kuen, a martial art rooted in southern China and known for its strong hand techniques like “bridge hand” and “tiger claw”.
His journey with Hung Gar began in the 1940s in Sydney, Australia, where the art gave him a new lease on life.
Gam, who also goes by the name Graham Player, was born with a disability that baffled his father and uncle, both medical doctors trained in Western medicine.
He said he was put in a wheelchair and his hip was immobilised by a plaster cast that went from his waist to the bottom of his right leg. “That’s how the Western medical treatment remained for many years until I was five-years-old,” he said.
An operation was suggested, but Gam rejected the idea as he was warned it might leave him with a limp.
Unexpectedly, a Chinese neighbour offered to help the young boy and asked Gam to copy leg movements and simple exercises he showed him.
Within just a few days, Gam said he experienced a remarkable change, and sensed feeling in his legs for the first time.
He persisted with the training. By the age of eight he could take his first steps, and by the time he was 12, he could walk normally.
red-tasselled spear at Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong. PHOTO: CHINA DAILY
EASTERN EXPOSURE
One day, Gam accompanied his neighbour to Sydney’s Chinatown and was astonished to witness many people practicing the very same training techniques he had learned.
His neighbour told Gam that the practice was called Hung Gar, a traditional Chinese martial art from South China with hundreds of years of history.
“Hung Gar is my destiny. I never chose Hung Gar – Hung Gar chose me,” Gam said. He continued studying under his neighbour, until his mentor passed away after 10 years of tutelage.
The neighbour never asked for money, and before he died he told Gam to, “Please carry on the practice and pass it on to others.”
In the 1970s, Gam pursued a career as a Chinese medicine practitioner in Australia.
However, at the time it was not widely recognised among Westerners. He became a computer engineer and relocated to England where he established his own successful IT company.
He later sold the business for a tidy profit and decided to start a new phase in his life.
Gam moved to Hong Kong to study Hung Gar and became a master’s apprentice. However, during a training session the master criticised his tiger claw technique and urged Gam to study the actual movements of the big cat.
After three years he had mastered the technique, but more importantly, he realised that various kung fu styles, such as Northern Praying Mantis, Fujian White Crane, and Fanged Snake, were based on emulating animal movements. These martial arts not only taught practitioners the physical techniques of animals to harness aggression, but also sought to imbue them with the animal’s spirit.
As Gam’s skills improved, an increasing number of people, primarily Chinese, approached him to learn Hung Gar. He established the Hung Kuen Academy Hong Kong in 1996 and over the decades he has taught hundreds of students, including children and adults, Chinese and foreigners.
However, most people quit soon after starting. They usually complain that practicing martial arts is painful or boring, Gam said.
Traditional martial arts not only provide practitioners with skills and develop qualities such as patience, resilience, and courage, but they can also open a gateway to understanding and inheriting the wisdom of ancestors, Gam said.
Hung Gar is famous for its 12 bridges technique, which involve hardness, softness, forcing, straightness, division, steadiness, inching, lifting, flowing, sending, controlling, and arranging. Gam believes these bridges are not only techniques, but also symbolise distinct personality types.
Learning martial arts empowers people to transition between these different personalities and use the appropriate one when required. Discerning when to be soft and when to be hard, and to adapt accordingly, is a philosophical approach of Chinese kung fu to navigating one’s life, Gam said.
Martial arts allow people to inherit past wisdom, cultivate virtue, and discover their roots, Gam said.
Even though he is a foreigner, he has vowed to pass on his knowledge of Hong Gar.
IN SEARCH OF THE MASTER
Paul Brennan, aged in his 60s, is another Australian who came to Hong Kong to follow his martial arts dreams. He is dedicated to a niche martial art from southern China called Chow Gar Tong Long, which emulates the movements of the praying mantis.
Brennan’s Tong Long journey began in the 1970s when he enrolled in a martial arts class, after previously studying South Korean Taekwondo and Japanese judo.
He said unlike the two other martial arts, Tong Long gave him a profound sense of inner calm. “The feeling was amazing,” Brennan said.
He continued practising the martial art and later learned about an esteemed Tung Long master named Ip Shui living in Hong Kong, whom he was determined to study under. At that time, Brennan was living in Mt Isa, an Australian mining town. He worked several jobs for three years until late 1991, when he had saved enough money to move to Hong Kong.
However, with no Internet or mobile phones back then, locating Master Ip in an unfamiliar city proved difficult.
After two months of visiting martial arts schools and making inquiries, Brennan finally discovered Master Ip’s whereabouts. They arranged to meet, but Brennan was worried the master might not accept him as a student.
“I came to Hong Kong just for him. If he had rejected me, it would have shattered my life,” he said.
Master Ip, who couldn’t speak English, relied on his family to communicate with Brennan. After listening to the Australian’s story, the master told him that he had retired.
Brennan refused to take no for an answer. He showed the master a sleeping bag he carried at all times and declared: “If you don’t accept me, I will sleep on your doorstep. Every morning when you step outside, I will be there, saying ‘good morning’ until you accept me.”
Master Ip chuckled and replied, “all right, you can come.”
“I was willing to endure all hardships. I knew one day I would return to Australia, so I devoted 100 per cent of my energy to practicing Tong Long, cherishing every second I spent in Hong Kong, leaving no excuses,” he said. – Oasis Hu
