From Lee to Li: An A–Z guide of martial arts heroes. Ben Stevens
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however, it was discovered that most of its internal organs had been ruptured. Such was the lethal power of Cheung’s ‘iron hand’.)
CHIN, GEN PINH
A Buddhist monk who came to Japan from China around 1559, bringing with him his knowledge of what the Japanese referred to as kempo or kenpo—the ‘law of the fist’. Following Chin Gen Pinh’s demonstrations of what he knew, parts of kempo were quickly assimilated into the type of jujitsu being taught to samurai warriors at that time.
CHIN, LIP MON
An ‘iron palm’ practitioner (See Sing Pak, for more information about iron palm) and drunkard who, after a night of wine-fuelled debauchery, found himself fighting empty-handed against a tiger. Due to his mastery of iron palm, however, Chin Lip Mon was able to kill the creature.
The following morning, none of the villagers living nearby believed Chin Lip Mon when he told them what had happened.
‘Bah! You’re making it up,’ they scoffed, until Chin Lip Mon led them into a forest where the deceased tiger lay.
‘We take it back,’ said the villagers in awed tones. ‘And from now on, we’re going to call you “Tiger Master”.’
This victory caused Chin Lip Mon to get his act together, stop drinking (as much), and open up a kung-fu school.
CHOI, HONG HI
The purported founder of tae kwon do (although this is contested by some), Choi was born in 1918 in the remote Hwa Dae, Myong Chun district of what is now
North Korea. He was a somewhat frail and sickly child (this seems to be something of a pattern for famous ‘founding fathers’ of martial arts—refer here to Morihei Ueshiba).
Aged twelve, Choi was expelled from school for protesting against the Japanese authorities who were then in control of Korea. His father sent him to learn calligraphy—although so alarmed was the new teacher by Choi’s lamentable physical condition that he also arranged to have him taught the martial art of taek kyeon(’foot techniques’) as well.
Choi went to Japan in 1937, where within two years he’d become a black belt in karate. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Choi was forced to enlist in the Japanese army. However, when his links with the Korean Independence Movement were uncovered he was arrested, tried, and thrown into a cell.
This gave Choi some much-needed time and solitude in which to practise the martial art that would become tae kwon do. Soon the other prisoners were demanding that Choi teach them a little of what he knew—and Choi readily obliged. Finally, the situation threatened to descend into farce as even the jailers requested that their prisoner teach them what was—at heart—a mixture of taek kyeon and karate.
Choi was freed in August 1945 (according to some sources, just days before he was due to be executed for ‘treason’), and made his way to Seoul. There he was soon promoted to the rank of Lieutenant (ultimately he’d become a Major-General) in the South Korean army, taking this opportunity to teach soldiers—both American as well as Korean—tae kwon do.
In 1955, tae kwon do (’the way of the feet and the hands’) was formally recognised within Korea, with a special administrative board being appointed, and from there word concerning this new martial art soon spread across the globe. It became an official Olympic sport for the first time at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. (The middleweight gold medal that year was won by Cuban Ángel Matos, who was, however, disqualified for life in 2008 after he intentionally kicked a referee in the face at the Beijing Olympics.)
CHOI, YONG SUL
The founder of the Korean martial art of hapkido, Choi (born in 1904) always claimed to have been abducted, aged eight, from his village in present-day South Korea by—of all people—a Japanese confectionary maker. (There exist, however, several conflicting stories concerning Choi’s early years.)
The man abandoned the child in Moji, Japan, and Choi made his way to Osaka, where he was picked up by the police and placed in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto that cared for orphans.
In the two or so years that he spent at this templecum-orphanage, Choi had a particularly miserable time. Endlessly bullied because of his nationality and the fact that he couldn’t speak Japanese very well, he reacted in the only way he was able—with his fists.
Finally, the temple abbot thought to ask Choi where he saw his life going, and the young Korean replied that he was extremely interested in learning a martial art.
By a stroke of good fortune (surely by now deserved by Choi), the abbot—a man named Watanabe—knew the founder of the martial art daito-ryu aiki-jujitsu, Takeda Sokaku.
By all accounts, Choi was next whisked by Sokaku to a dōjō on Shin Shu mountain, where he and his sensei lived and trained for the following thirty years. During this time, said Choi later, he grew to have a complete understanding of Sokaku’s style.
Following the end of the Second World War, Choi returned to Korea, where for a time he earned his living raising and selling pigs. However, a local brewery chairman happened to see him in action when a heated discussion he’d been having with several men turned ugly. In the ensuing skirmish, Choi quickly saw the men off.
‘Hey, you’re pretty good,’ said the brewery chairman, a man named Suh Bok Sub (who was himself a first dan in judō). ‘Why don’t I pay to have a dojang (the Korean for training hall) built on my premises, so that you can teach there? I can be your first pupil!’
And so it was; in 1951 the two men opened a school named the Korean Yu Kwan Sool Hapki Dojang, followed, in 1958, by Choi’s very own school—which for the first time bore the shortened title ‘Hapkido’.
Having travelled as far as North America to teach his new martial art, Choi died in 1986 at the age of eighty-two.
CHOU, SENG
Seng Chou (480-560 AD) was feeble, slightly-built, and often bullied by the other monks who were resident at the Shaolin Temple. Greatly peeved by all of this, Seng Chou went one night into the Temple’s great hall, where there stood before him a massive statue of the Buddhist military god Jingangshen.
‘If you can hear me, great one,’ whispered Seng Chou in prayer, ‘please help me. Make me strong, and big, so that I can defend myself when next the other monks chide me.’
This continued for several further nights, with Seng Chou praying alone to the fearsome-looking statue. Finally, after almost a week had passed, Seng Chou’s prayers were answered.
‘What’s the matter with you, mouse?’ mocked Jingangshen in great, booming tones, suddenly appearing in his divine form before the cowering monk.
‘The other monks are always mocking me—they call me weak, and useless,’ protested Seng Chou in a faltering voice, wholly unable to meet the god’s fiery gaze.
‘But you are weak, and you are useless!’ laughed the god, swiping Seng Chou around the head. It was the mildest of blows, and yet it knocked the monk flying.
‘I know I am,’ nodded Seng Chou as he picked himself up slowly off the floor, tears appearing. ‘That’s why I need your help to change.’
So obvious was his misery that Jingangshen felt something stir in his otherwise hardened heart.
‘So be it,’ said the god solemnly.
‘You’ll…you’ll help me?’ stammered Seng Chou, wiping his eyes.
‘In a way,’ answered Jingangshen cryptically. ‘But first you must help yourself.’
‘How