Chan Tai San stories

[Felipe Bido]

TTT. Excellent thread

[lkfmdc]

Chan Tai San 3, NYC crime 0

More details on the event that made Chan Tai San a celebrity in NYC...

Sifu Chan arrived in this country, he spoke no English (never learned any either!). A friend told him, at least he could see kung fu movies if he went to 42nd street. At the time, 42nd street was crime central, a real slum... off Sifu Chan went, not knowing it was a bad area.

Sifu Chan is wandering around 42nd, looking for this darn movie theatre... there was only one that showed Kung Fu movies, the rest, er, showed lots else

Three guys walk up to Sifu Chan and start talking to him. He doesn't know what they are saying, but he said when they pulled knives he got an idea

A few minutes later, three guys are lying on the sidewalk, none of them is Sifu Chan... the cops are laughing their azzes off as an ambulance has to take the three guys away. The daily news ran something like "kung fu YOU!" or something equally as stupid, but the story circulated like wildfire

When I applied for NACMAF membership YEARS LATER, Ken Fish said to me "oh, you're teacher is that old guy who put those guys in the hospitol, Tai Yim told me that story" so it really got around

[Newb]

The question I have to ask is: Do you have any video you'd like to share?

[lkfmdc]

unlike the Gracie family, we didn't follow sifu around with a video camera waiting for him to get into a fight, so sorry, no "Chan Tai San in Action" coming out anytime soon

[Newb]

Originally posted by lkfmdc
unlike the Gracie family, we didn't follow sifu around with a video camera waiting for him to get into a fight, so sorry, no "Chan Tai San in Action" coming out anytime soon

Just seeing him teach or talk would be nice too =P

[lkfmdc]

One of my training brothers uploaded some video of sifu that I think you guys might be able to view??

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...anLamaDemo.mpg

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...StaffForm2.mpg

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...anIronHead.mpg

[Newb]

I viewed all 3 fine. Thanx alot.

[lkfmdc]

glad the links worked....

[lkfmdc]

not everyone was Chan Tai San....

In his later years in China, Chan Tai San found employment as a coach of the Guangdong Wushu Team. He coached south fist and fighting sets, also did some hard Qi Gong demos with them (he traveled to the philipines, the first time he had left China!). During this time he hung out with a lot of guys who were coaches...

After Chan Tai San had retired, Steve Ventura, Steve Innocenzi and I were having tea one day, we were introduced to a guy called "iron head" who was a friend of Chan Tai San's and had been a coach also in Guangdong. He was a village Hung Kuen stylist and also a Qi Gong person.

Personally, I wasn't very interested, but Innocenzi was interested in getting more Qi Gong, so we met with him, spent some time with him. Ultimately, his kung fu wasn't really really Chan Tai San standards so we lost interest...

But the reason I bring him up.... he was trying to talk himself up and get us interested, especially Ventura and I who weren't really that interested to begin with.

"Iron head" said that when he sparred with all the coaches, he always won. To which I asked him, "do you mean you beat Chan Tai San"....

His response was instantaneous, he shook his head and waved his hand, NO, NOT CHAN TAI SAN.... he was talking about "friendly sparring" and there was no such thing as "friendly sparring" with Chan Tai San. He said what many had told me before, if you didn't want to get hurt, you didn't mess around with Chan Tai San...

I always found this interesting, how many sifu engaged in almost juevenile "slap fighting" under the name "sparring" and guaged their skills based upon it!

Chan Tai San didn't believe in it. If he was talking about "fighting" he was talking about REAL FIGHTING...

"Iron head" wasn't a bad guy, he just was dealing with students of Chan Tai San...

He brought his nephew down the next time to try and help him teach, the nephew assumed we were idiots with no training, when we left him in the dust, he told his uncle "you dont need me here" and stormed out...

[diego]

Originally posted by lkfmdc
One of my training brothers uploaded some video of sifu that I think you guys might be able to view??

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...anLamaDemo.mpg

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...StaffForm2.mpg

http://www.nykungfu.com/school/docum...anIronHead.mpg

thanks a lot for those links...is there much footage of CTS out there? do you know if there is any footage of Harry Ng?

[jon]

Thanks heaps for the clips and the tales.

The clip's are very interesting, your sifu must have had one hell of a crushing bridge. You can see the power he gets into those swinging arms, ill bet that must have been top fun to try and contend with.


lol did you end up with constantly bruised forearms from his 'blocks'?



Thanks again for sharing.


Also wanted to say Im still laughing at the comment.
"My sifu is a nut, yours is a nice guy".

My sifu is 'exactly' like this, to everyone else he is a nice mild mannored Taichi master. To me he is the scary old guy who is constantly yelling at me and physicaly throws me around when he gets frustrated.

[ngokfei]

[MasterKiller]

LKFMDC,
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19772

[lkfmdc]

Why should I even care what a BJJ zombie says? He's probably got like a year of training and thinks he is the deadliest person alive... It is, after all, bull sh it do forum isn't it?

If you listen to some of these people, and most act like they are 12 and just got their first computer, no one ever fought before Helio Gracie appeared on the planet.

The proof is in the pudding, one of the largest and most successful FIGHTING programs in the US is run by two of Chan Tai San's disciples. The newspapers, the many masters who knew Chan Tai San, the many people who actually met the man, they don't lie.

As for Ngokfei, hey, did you hear about my new movie?

"eagle lurks in lama thread" LOL!

[rogue]

(Bad lipsync) You should care because it's been said on Bullshido! Have you no honor. Go now across the country and avenge your master. Or they could just show up and enter your next event and go up against some of your guys.