by Bill on Wed Mar 18, 2015 3:18 pm
Luo Fu Shan is the mountain where Sifu Share Lew lived and studied at the Yellow Dragon Monastary.
While reading his book, The Night Wind dragon, Sifu Lew talks about learning both Choy Li Fut and Tao-ga kung-fu styles while there. I was suprised to read that Choy Li Fut was taught there.
I should not have been. I have been reading about Choy Li fut and see that it got its start on Luo Fu Shan.
Here's the story, copied from a Choy Li Fut web site.
"It was apparent to Li Yau-San that after only four years of training, Chan Heung was again ready to move on to higher levels. In ten years, he had already reached a level in kung-fu that had taken Chan Yuen-Woo and Li Yau-San twenty years to attain. Li Yau-San suggested a Shaolin monk who lived as a recluse on Lau Fu mountain as the best teacher for Chan Heung. The only problem was that the monk, Choy Fook no longer wished to teach martial arts. He wanted only to be left alone to cultivate Buddhism. Realizing that reaching his highest potential in kung fu meant finding the monk and becoming his disciple, Chan Heung set out on the long trek to Lau Fu mountain.
Choy Fook was a Buddhist monk whose head had been seriously burned when he took his Buddhist vows and had healed with ugly scars. This gave him the nickname "Monk with the Wounded Head ." Armed with that knowledge, Chan Heung sought out anyone on Lau Fu mountain who could help him find Choy Fook. Finally, he located the monk, and handed him a letter of recommendation from Li Yau-San. After waiting patiently to be accepted as Choy Fook's disciple, he was stunned when Choy Fook turned him down. After much begging from Chan Heung, Choy Fook agreed to take the young man as a student—but only to study Buddhism. So, Chan Heung studied Buddhism for many hours a day with the monk of the scarred head, and practiced his martial arts by himself, far into the night.
Early one morning, Chan Heung was practicing his kung fu, sweeping both legs across heavy bamboo bush and kicking up stones, then smashing them to pieces before they hit the ground. Suddenly, the monk appeared and asked him if that were the best he could do. Chan Heung was shocked when Choy Fook pointed to a large rock weighing more than thirty kilograms and told him to kick it twelve feet. Bracing himself, Chan Heung exerted all of his strength as his foot crashed against the rock, sending it barely twelve feet away. Instead of giving the expected compliment, Choy Fook placed his own foot under the heavy rock and effortlessly propelled it through the air. Chan Heung was awestruck by this demonstration of "superpower." Again he begged Choy Fook to take him as a martial arts disciple. This time the monk agreed, and for eight years Choy Fook taught Chan Heung both the way of Buddhism and the way of martial arts."
It hurts when I Pi