Choy Li Fut

Choy Li Fut is a southern Chinese martial art founded in 1836 by Chan Heung, a well-known and highly skilled martial artist of his period. The name records its three teachers: Choy Ah Fook, Li Yau San, and Fut (Buddha), the monk Chan Yuan Wu. The system spread from King Mui village in Guangdong across southern China, and in the twentieth century it became one of the most widely transmitted southern systems in North America.[1]

History

Choy Li Fut was founded in 1836. Chan Heung first learned the Fut Gar (Buddha family) method from his uncle Chan Yuan Wu, then the Northern Shaolin method of Choy Ah Fook, and finally the Li Gar method of Li Yau San. Rather than keep one lineage alone, he combined what he had received into a single system and named it after his three teachers.[1]

Because the art was adapted to fit the needs of society in each generation as it was handed down, its principles remained intact while its training methods evolved. Historically the system was associated with the self-defense needs of village communities in Guangdong during a turbulent century.

Lineage

The Golden Eagle schools in Alabama taught Choy Li Fut in the lineage of the Plum Blossom International Federation under Grandmaster Doc-Fai Wong, a sixth-generation successor of the system through the King Mui branch. Steffan de Graffenried, who founded Golden Eagle Martial Arts Centers in 1997, trained in this lineage and represented it in North Alabama.[2]

Lineage matters for one documentary reason: it fixes who taught what, to whom, and when. The archive records lineage as a chain of dated transmission, not as a badge.

Forms

The Choy Li Fut curriculum is organized in sets. Hand forms progress from short elementary sets to long advanced forms; weapon forms cover the classical arsenal; and two-person sets connect solo practice to application. The school’s historical materials advertised formal training in 36 different weapons, alongside the ten animal sets, Chin Na (joint locking), Chinese wrestling (Shuai Jiao), and San Shou.[3]

Weapons

Choy Li Fut preserves one of the largest weapon curricula of any southern system. Long weapons — the pole, the kwandao, and the trident — are central. The archive maintains a dedicated historical study of one such weapon, the Nine Dragon Trident (Gau Lung Cha), at its original 1998 web address: Nine Dragon Trident.

Sources on this page

This page summarizes the archival record. For cited references, see the sources listed above; the historical narrative of the school that transmitted the art in Alabama is documented in About the Archive.

[1] Encyclopedic summaries of the system’s founding agree on the 1836 date, the founder, and the three-teacher derivation of the name.

[2] Plum Blossom International Federation, teaching organization records.

[3] Golden Eagle Martial Arts Centers, historical school materials, 1998–1999 (archived captures).