Elder Sing Lung Coming to Guangdong

During the reign of the To Kwong Emperor in the Manchurian Ching Dynasty (1821-1851), a Tibetan Lama called Elder Sing Lung went to Guangdong Province in Southern China from Tibet.

He met CHEUNG Po-Chai, the pirate who was famous for robbing the corrupt officials to help the poor in Pearl River, and had a duel with the latter. As a result, he subdued CHEUNG with his martial art and turned CHEUNG to be his student.

After some years, CHEUNG Po-Chai surrendered to the Manchurian government, which was notorious for being corrupt and oppressive, with a view to getting wealth and power.

Out of anger and disappointment, Elder Sing Lung split with CHEUNG Po-Chai, went to the Hing Wan Monastery in Guangdong and led the life of a hermit, paying no more attention to worldly matters. During his stay there, he taught the other monks in the monastery his martial art. That was when the Lama Style Martial Art was first taught in Guangdong.

 

One of the 10 Tigers Of Guandong

In his old age, Elder Sing Lung came to know a local martial artist called WONG Ping who lived nearby in the Hing Wan Monastery. Out of admiration of Sing Lung' s martial art, WONG entrusted his only son WONG Yan-lam, who was still a boy then, to Elder Sing Lung for martial art training. WONG Yan-lam then became a monk living in the Hing Wan Monastery and learnt from Elder Sing Lung. As WONG was very gifted in martial art training and he practised hard, he learnt all the martial art of Elder Sing Lung in ten years and became very proficient in it.

After the death of Elder Sing Lung, WONG returned home from the monastery and resumed the identity of an ordinary person. He then went to Shensi Province in North Western China and earned his living in valuables escort business. Meanwhile, WONG followed the instructions of Elder Sing Lung and got connected with some revolutionaries to plan to overthrow the Manchurian Dynasty. However, he had never been successful.

At his middle age, WONG returned to Guangdong Province and became a martial art instructor. Legend has it that to attract students to his school WONG set up a stage in the middle of the town and challenged anyone to a fight. Over the following 2 weeks it is believed he disposed of over 150 masters from various martial art schools with his excellent martial art proficiency. Having won so many fights against the martial artists from other schools, WONG was then honoured as the Number 1 Tiger in the "Ten Tigers of Guandong".
 
Meanwhile, LEE Ying-Chuen, another student of WONG Yan-lam, introduced the family of CHOY Yee-Kung to him because CHOY' s father would like WONG to take CHOY as his disciple.

As CHOY Yee-Kung (a little boy then) suffered from poor health, his father hoped that he could benefit from martial art training and become healthy. The CHOY family was well off, and CHOY' s father promised to take care of WONG Yan-lam until his death in addition to paying him a promising amount of tuition fee. In return, WONG Yan-lam gradually taught CHOY Yee-Kung all the skills of the Lama Style Martial Art, with the eight internal skills inclusive. When CHOY had mastered all the external and internal skills, WONG Yan-lam told him that the school should actually be named the Lama Style Martial Art as it was introduced by a Lama monk from Tibet.

 

A well learned Martial Artist Master CHAN Kwan-Ng (1903-1975) was a native of the Nam Hoi County in Guangdong Province. He had been fond of martial art training since he was young and had learnt martial art from different schools, such as Choy Lee Fat, Lo Hon Mun, Ji Yin Mun, Ying Yi Mun and Bart Gua Mun. Though he was proficient in different styles of martial art from Northern and Southern China, he was not that easily satisfied. Subsequently, he learnt the Lama Style Martial Art from Master LING Shek-lai and Grandmaster CHOY Yee-Kung, and became an outstanding martial artist in the Lama school.

Master CHAN had travelled to different places in China and had very extensive exposure. In his middle age, he got acquainted with the then young master LO Wai-Keung and became the first Lama Style Martial Art instructor of LO.

Master CHAN was a martial artist who was keen at learning all sorts of martial arts. He also liked to fight with other martial artists with a view to testing/perfecting his skills. Therefore, he was very experienced in fighting.

He used to teach his disciples 'try to cover up your best strikes, unless absolutely necessary, don' t fight'.

What he meant was that one' s opponent could always get himself very well prepared in terms of training and tactics if he had an opportunity to watch one' s best strikes before hand, and that would put one in a very disadvantageous position if he had to fight against that opponent. Therefore, to secure a win, it took to cover up one' s best strikes from his opponents and try to avoid unnecessary fights.

 

Train Hard Endlessly, but Always be Humble

Grandmaster CHOY Yee-kung (1882-1971) was a native of the Chung Shan County in Guangdong Province. He was the seventh child in the family. His father was a wealthy businessman and thus he led an easy life when he was young. As mentioned in the story of WONG Yan Lam, Grandmaster CHOY started learning martial art from WONG in his early childhood, due to his continued poor health. CHOY was WONG' s last disciple and had learnt all the Lama Style Martial Art from WONG.

Grandmaster CHOY was a fellow native and a friend of Dr. SUN Yat-sen, who was the leader in the revolution overthrowing the Manchurian Ching Dynasty in 1911. Being inspired by the political ideas of his master WONG Yan-lam, Grandmaster CHOY was a revolutionary against the Manchurian Ching Dynasty. He worked closely with the revolutionary organizations of Dr. SUN and was a bodyguard of the latter. For those reasons, Grandmaster CHOY had been hunted by the Ching officials and there were many occasions that he had to fight against the hunters in order to get away. He used to travel frequently among Hong Kong, South East Asia and Japan to coordinate the revolutionary activities. After the success of the revolution, Grandmaster CHOY declined to take the office offered by the new government and led the life of a hermit in Guangzhou (Canton) instead. At that time, he started to teach Lama Style Martial Art there. CHAN Kwan-ng, YUNG Tak-pei and WAN Man were his outstanding disciples then.

Grandmaster CHOY went to Hong Kong before the foundation of the People' s Republic of China in 1949. He took HUNG Yuet-ki, WAI Wing-chiu and LO Wai-keung as disciples in Hong Kong before his death in 1971.
 
In his lifetime, Grandmaster CHOY used to teach his disciples 'to train hard endlessly in order to be the best of the best, but to remain humble as if you just know very little'.

What he meant by this was that the Lama Style Martial Art was a school which necessitated extreme hard work for achievement. Thus, a student of the school should fully devote himself to training and it might take him thousands of practice to perfect an action. Also, Grandmaster CHOY fully appreciated that one might always confront an opponent who was too strong for him. He thus admonished humility among his disciples lest they would fall into the pitfall of complacency, which would lead to ultimate failure.

 

Master LO Wai-Keung was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the famous St. Paul' s College in the territory. Master LO Wai-Keung is a native of the San Wui County in Guangdong Province.

When he was young, Master LO was already very keen at learning martial art. He first learnt Hung Kuen (Hung Style Boxing) from Master HON Hoi, a good friend of his father.

Having been proficient in Hung Kuen, Master LO asked for permission of Master HON for him to learn other styles of martial art from various martial art masters. As a result, he had learnt from Masters HA Hon-hung of Yau Kung Mun, HA Pik-chi of Choy Lee Fat, LAM Yiu-kwai of Dragon Style, TUNG Ying-kit of Tai Chi and a monk named Gwai Yin of Wah Shan Pai. When Master LO was only about 16, he had already learnt a number of martial arts of different style and had a high degree of proficiency.

 Acquainting with Master CHAN Kwan-Ng

Though having learnt a variety of martial arts, Master LO was not satisfied with his achievement and thus he continued to look for opportunities of learning the more advanced martial art. In the 1950's, he was acquainted with Master CHAN Kwan-Ng by coincidence. Out of a common interest in martial art training, they became good friends in spite of their age difference. As Master CHAN found Master LO a talented and keen young martial art learner, he taught Master LO the Lama Style Martial Art which he had learnt from Grandmaster CHOY Yee-Kung.

Following Grandmaster CHOY Yee-Kung

After Master LO had mastered the basic skills of the Lama Style Martial Art, Master CHAN introduced him to Grandmaster CHOY with a view to letting him learn the advanced techniques of the art. Though having retired from martial art teaching for some years, Grandmaster CHOY adopted Master LO as disciple in view of his talent and determination, and he tried to groom him to be a brilliant martial artist of the Lama school. Over many years of intensive drill and close supervision by Grandmaster CHOY, Master LO successfully learnt all the Lama skills. This in fact makes Master LO an inheritor of the art at the contemporary age.

The many skills of Master LO Wai-Keung

Master LO has been a martial art instructor for over 40 years. Over the years, he had set up his martial art gymnasium/bone setting clinic in different districts in Hong Kong Island. Some of his students participated in the Chinese martial art free fighting competition in early years and attained very good results. In the 70s, Master LO also worked as a part–time martial art instructor in the ex-Shaw Brothers Film Production Company in Hong Kong. Since then, he had also started taking students from overseas. At present, there are students of Master LO in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Italy, U.S.A. and
Argentina.

The Permanent President

In 1978, Master LO and his fellow students established the Lama Style Martial Art Association (registered as the Lama Martial Art and Athletic Company Limited) in Hong Kong.

He was elected as the Permanent President of the Association. After his retirement in the early 90s, Master LO concentrated on his bone-setting business and taught the Lama Style Martial Art individually so as to pass on the art and make it world known.