Best Kung Fu Teacher/School in Vancouver

[seanoconaill]

Hi all,

I want to start learning Kung Fu in Vancouver, BC. Of course, I would like to study with the best; so if someone could point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

all the best,

Sean

[PangQuan]

dont know about best....but, i would check this guy out.

just my opinion of course

http://www.grandmasterchang.com/main.htm

[sanjuro_ronin]

dont know about best....but, i would check this guy out.

just my opinion of course

http://www.grandmasterchang.com/main.htm

Why?
Any particular reason?

[iron_silk]

hi there seanoconaill,

I would recommend to you talk with firepalm cause he collect a master list of schools and website.

He posted it on the southern style forum but I can't seem to find it.

As for http://www.grandmasterchang.com/main.htm I called him many many years ago when I was searching for a school. I was never with him so I cant' speak about him as a teacher...but i didn't care for his manners. Maybe he had a bad day...who knows...

I would personally go check out each school and try it out to find the right one.

The best is subjective.....depends on your definition! Good luck!!!

just to get you started here's a few:

www.wccma.com (http://www.wccma.com)www.shungying.ca (http://www.shungying.ca)www.clfcanada.com (http://www.clfcanada.com)www.kinfungkungfu.com (http://www.kinfungkungfu.com)

[PangQuan]

if his biography is all true and accurate, then he was trained in an invironment to be able to intake some skill.

but only going and talking to the man and seeing his teachings can tell you if hes legit or not.

beginning your training at the age of 5 under your styles grand master is hopefully a good sign he might have the goods. yet again, contact and observation is the only sure way to find out.


another reason i say is

Tiger, Snake, Crane, Dragon, Leopard, Eagle, Monkey, Mantis, Butterfly Palms, 18 Shaolin Weapons, Qi-gong, meditation, as well as Chinese philosophy

personally, i am fond of animal styles. As well as the coupling of qigong and meditation with your studies. I enjoy Shaolin kungfu, so for me, this would be a personal decision to go and check him out based on his claims.

[firepalm]

I've posted on this topic a few times before, it depends on what you want. Are you looking for a very traditional style, internal, sparring & applications, wushu, lion dance, etc....? There are a lot of good clubs in Vancouver and conversely there are a lot of substandard ones. How one measures good and someone else can be two different things. Some clubs have good demo teams & lion dance and so on but don't really produce fighters. Some clubs specialize and are good at what they do while others offer a wider range of studies. Again it all depends on what you want. Heres a few places to look into (with a few of my personal comments / opinions);

Good Resource Page
Western Canada Chinese Martial Arts Ass'n website - www.kungfu-canada.org

Choy Lee Fut Clubs
Shung Ying Vancouver - www.shungying.ca & Shung Ying Richmond - www.clfcanada.com (also has Tai Chi, Wushu, Lion Dance & some sparring)
Hung Sing Hall Richmond - www.choylaifut.com (forms school)
Seto's Choy Lee Fut - www.setokungfu.com (good application school)
Qun Ying Ass'n - located in North Burnaby @ Willingdon Heights School
Strathcona CLF - located at the Strathcona Community Center near Chinatown
Hon Hsing Ass'n - Pender St across from Chinese Cultural Center

Bak Mei, Lung Ying & Hakka Arts
Wilkie Wu's Bak Mei (located in Chinatown @ the Gee How Oak Tin Society) - www.bakmei.ca Note - does application training as well as Lion Dance & Tai Chi
Yin Ping Athletic Ass'n (Chinatown) - www.yinping.cjb.net/
Dragon Sign Athletic Ass'n (Neil Chan & Ritchie Chow) @ Kerrisdale Community Center Note - does plenty of application training
Kong Han Kung Fu Canada (located in Coquitlam) - www.konghankungfu.com (a very good traditional school that also competes & appears to do lots of sparring)
Yau Kung Moon - club changes locations so hard to track down but good club for lion dance & sparring

San Shou club
Wuji Kung Fu Club - http://www.wujikungfu.com Note this club is taught by Ayron Howey 3 time member of Canadian National Sanshou teams & coach of the 2005 National team.

Hung Gar clubs
Stephen Chang as mentioned in previous post (honestly there are a lot of better clubs)
Shaolin Hung Gar (@ UBC, SFU & Kensington) - bigger club also does lots of lion dance, San Shou training & some wushu (wushu in my opinion from this club is not great but other stuff is good)

Shaolin
Shaolin Temple Canada - http://www.shaolintemple.ca Note this club does a lot of Sanshou training as well as the typical mish mash of Shaolin & Wushu forms
Kin Fung Athletic Group - Hong Kong lineage Northern Shaolin also does lots of lion dance & some wushu (good club) http://www.kinfungkungfu.com
Northern Shaolin - HK lineage branched out of Kin Fung, good club www.northernshaolin.ca
Northern Shaolin Kung Fu - http://www.northernshaolin.com a different school of HK lineage. Good quality students.

Hap Ga / Lama / White Crane
Tibet Lama Kung Fu group is headed by GM Tony Jay http://www.freakyman.ca/Tibet%20Lama
Vincent Chow White Crane Kung Fu long established club http://www.angelfire.com/bc/whitecrane

Wushu Clubs
West Coast Chinese Martial Arts - strictly a competition style wushu club, also does lots of acrobatics & some lion dance. A good club but strictly sport wushu for competition. http://www.wccma.com
Sino Wushu Center - Wushu as well as Tai Chi & Internal styles. Located under Arthur Laing Bridge.
Dragon River Wushu Tai Chi Center - Wushu as well as Tai Chi & Internal styles. Located off of Commercial & 32nd Ave.

Wing Chun
Not familiar with all the clubs, there are several, but here are a few;
Fred Kwok Wing Chun & Kickboxing - now located at Commercial & 12th Ave.
Yuen Kay Shan Wing Chun - operates out of Western CMA in Richmond http://www.westerncma.ca

Clubs teaching several styles or other styles
Wilson Wu's Kung Fu Ocean (located in Richmond) - http://www.kungfu-ocean.com Note - does good application training, several external & internal styles & in my opinion one of the better of the newer schools in Vancouver / Richmond
Shouyu Liang Wushu Tai Chi Institute - known for Wushu originally but does lots of good traditional & internal as well as San shou. http://www.shouyuliang.com
Traditional Kung Fu Training Center - offers a village style of Hung Gar, Tai Chi Praying Mantis, Tai Chi, Lion Dance & Sparring. Good club. http://www.traditionalkungfu.com
Ken Low Shaolin Kung Fu Club teaches Hung Gar, My Jong Lahon & some wushu. Was quite a strong club a few years ago but in my opinion not as strong as it once was. http://www.kenlowkungfu.com
Chow Gar Kung Fu - club is located in Coquitlam not sure of location & is a very traditional style club
Western Chinese Martial Arts Center - several styles including Yuen Kay Shan Wing Chun, Tai Chi & Internal Arts & a branch class of Kin Fung group. http://www.westerncma.ca

Tai Chi well there are a lot of groups doing that too many to list if you are interested in that let me know & I can list those as well.

Again it all depends on what you want & what you consider good. Hope this helps!

[PangQuan]

firepalm regulates

[Three Harmonies]

Hu Xi Lin www.sixharmoniesmantis.com

[street_fighter]

Hu Xi Lin www.sixharmoniesmantis.com

oooh. haven't seen that school before. he looks quite skilled.

Its funny how many topics there are on this. There is so much MA in vancouver its overwhelming. good luck, i'm still unsure of where i'll be training come august. lots of great schools.:)

[Three Harmonies]

Hu Laoshi has the best mantis skills I have seen in the US (hence me training with him ;)). He brings over 50 years of experience to the table. If you are interested let me know, or you can contact him directly.
Van has an overwhelming number of martial artists, all very skilled! One of the hotbeds of CMA in North America. Hell, the world for that matter.
Cheers and good luck,
Jake :cool:

[firepalm]

Hu Xilin of course & speaking of other oversights

In the realm of Praying Mantis there is also Jon Funk @ http://www.mantiskungfu.com in Vancouver's West End. Good well rounded training traditional but incorporates sparring & groundwork.

Also new to Vancouver is William Geng Ye of Western Canada Chinese Kung Fu @ http://www.kungfuye.com. He is from the Wan Laisheng lineage & also does internal styles and well quite new to the local scene he looks to be onto establishing himself as one of the better new clubs in Vancouver.

Dao Pei under Sifu Kwong Kit Fong is another club, especially if you want to get into Lion Dancing. http://www.vclda.com

Many Chinatown societies in Vancouver also have Kung Fu clubs (only drawback is most are only on the weekends);
Yue Shan Society
Shon Yee Society
Hoy Ping Society
Chinese Freemason's Athletic Club
Mah's Athletic Club

Another good resource is going to either one of the two Kung Fu supply places;
Kuen Way on Victoria & 49th
Dragon Martial Arts Supplies next to the Chinese Cultural Center in Chinatown

[seanoconaill]

Thanks for all these great replies. I find it amazing that with such a vague posting, you were all able to give me such good advice. To narrow down my search, I’ll say where I’m coming from. In the early nineties, I trained at Kung-Fu Sil Lum Hung Gar in Montreal http://www.kungfumontreal.com/ I like the ‘fact’ that Hung Gar has links with Ch’an Buddhism and Shaolin Temple. Incidentally, I’m also into Ch’an/Zen meditation. So, I'm basically looking for a very traditional style and, although I also studied Tai Chi in the nineties (and think that the internal arts are awesome), at the present I'm looking to study an external art. Are there external CMA styles that are more ‘traditional’ or more closely linked to the Shaolin Temple than Hung Gar? Also, to go back to my original question and with these interests in mind, who should I turn to in Vancouver?

best,

seanoconaill

PS: Firepalm, thanks for your awesome list and yes I would be interested in your Tai Chi/internal arts list.

[firepalm]

Several of the persons mentioned in the previous posts also teach Tai Chi & Internal Arts, most notably; Liang Shouyu, Wilson Wu of Kung Fu Ocean, Traditional Kung Fu, Dragon River, Shung Ying (Richmond Branch - Paul Tam), etc....

Then you also have the following;
Sam Masich http://www.sammasich.com

Canada Tai Chi Federation, Gu Ming Wei http://www.canadataichi.com/home.htm

Fu Style Martial Arts (Fu Tai Chi & Bagua) Victor Fu is grandson of Ba Gua Legend Fu Chen Sung. Classes in Surrey & Vancouver. http://www.fustyle.org/

Jan Parker Tai Chi http://www.janparkerarts.com/

Sylvia Wong of Western Chinese Martial Arts Ass'n mentioned teaches several styles of Tai Chi http://www.westerncma.ca

Li Rong Taiji & Qigong Slocan St. Vancouver
http://www.tristartaiji.com/index.html

Paul Ng & Lyn Vong of Wu's Tai Chi in Richmond
http://www.wustyle.com/en/db/instructor.php?id=10067
http://www.wustyle.com/en/db/instructor.php?id=10065

Kelly Maclean, very talented & experienced Tai Chi competitor teaches in various community centers.

Go up to Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Park on the weekday or weekend mornings in particular and you can find literally dozens of groups including some external groups practicing there.

As to Shaolin connection, hmm.... , well several will claim Shaolin in their school title or style lineage but I personally find it a dubious one. The Shaolin Temple of Canada, the teacher Yuan Zhen Wu claims to be a Shaolin monk but several in the local community are dubious of his claims, some believe him to actually be from one of the many private schools in Deng Feng village (close to Shaolin Temple there are many private 'Shaolin' styled schools). Teacher Marquis Lung of Northern Shaolin Kung Fu (www.northernshaolin.com) is the son of Lung Kai Ming of HK, who studied under Ku Yu Cheung (famous Northern Shaolin Iron Palm master). I would say his lineage is as good in terms of Shaolin as any. Danny Ma of Kin Fung Athletic Group is son of Ma Kin Fung that studied under several reputable Northern Shaolin style masters, he is also good.

As to who to turn to I would recommend looking around and deciding for yourself. In listing these schools I am trying to be impartial but honestly there are some that I would not bother with but then for yourself you might find them suitable.

Good luck! :cool:

[iron_silk]

Good luck to you OH by the way I found the thread I was talking about earlier but I guess it's pretty redundant now.

http://forum.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41583

Also not sure if going into this looking for the "best school" and considering hung gar a "connection to buddhism/shaolin" is going to really be helpful in finding school you are looking for since......it all may end up dissappointing you.

that's just my opinion...good luck...

(isn't hung gar is one of the original style to leave shaolin and thought that only Gung Jee Fok Fu is the only set from the temple while all the rest was collected after???)