Originally published in the August, 1999 issue of Black Belt magazine copyright 1999 by Dennis Rovere. Used with permission.
[snip]
"The difference between the hsing-i I passed on to you and what I taught military officers during the war is significant. You learned more and had more time to perfect the art."
It was 1988. The person speaking, was my teacher Col. Chang Hsiang Wu. . . . His statement, made in response to a question I asked about the Chinese army's use of hsing-i during the Second World War took me completely by surprise.
I had recently been contracted to teach close combat to army reconnaissance instructors. Col. Chang and his wife Major Chang Yen Ying (a senior student of Du Shen Wu and former close combat instructor for the Chinese commandos) were giving me advice on how to structure the program. During the conversation Col. Chang began sharing some of his thoughts and experiences as they related to his hsing-i tenure in the military. He also, to my delight, expanded upon aspects of strategy (both in combat and training) that make hsing-i such an effective system.
[snip]
The first thing Col. Chang did was to clarify his opening comment to me. . . [snip]
so you're actually zhang xiang wu lineage? he claims that adam hsu will back his claim.... hm I'll ask john wang what he thinks.
Sam Tam lives in Vancouver, B.C., and teaches around the world. Early on, Sam trained Eagle Claw, reaching a high degree of proficiency. He also trained yiquan under Han Xingyuan in Hong Kong, and Yang-derived taijiquan from Zhang Xiangwu and (later, in Vancouver) Chi Chiang-tao.
Omar (bailewen) wrote:Here's his alleged training at the gonganbu (aka the PSB "Public Security Bureau") in Shanghai:
http://www.rovere.com/gung_an.html
Here's a photo of the "police training":
There's others but I like that one because you can read where it says "Tae Kwon Do" on the back of the dobak.
Because our Gung An approved (and security cleared) photographer would be taking pictures of the demonstration and one of my training session, Mr. Chen and Mr. Ku both changed from their camouflage uniforms into taekwondo style gi's and black belts. When I enquired as to whether they did taekwondo, the both promptly answered "No". The uniforms were a gift of the North Korean army. When we asked why they were wearing them today they quickly replied: "If we wear our regular uniform, no one will know we are the instructors. Besides, in America don't all martial arts teachers wear black belts? Now people seeing the photographs will understand we are the teachers."
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