Choy Fook

Choy Fook is the first character in Choy Li Fut — and the last of the founder’s three teachers. The founder’s own preface identifies him plainly: 「蔡者即蔡福大師」, and in Choy Fook’s own reported words, 「某實福建少林寺僧，人稱爛頭和尚福者，即某是也」. He was not a stylist of Choy family boxing; he was a monk of the Fujian Shaolin line, and the founder credited him with the largest share of what he learned: 「計餘生平所學，得之蔡師者為多」.

A monk of the Fujian Shaolin line

In the account Choy Fook told Chan Heung — recorded in the founder’s preface and therefore among the oldest documents of the school — the southern Shaolin temple was burned in the Yongzheng era and only a handful escaped, Choy Fook among them, his scalp scarred by the fire. That scar gave him the name by which the countryside knew him: Rotten Head Monk (爛頭和尚). His formal dharma name in tradition is Green Grass Monk (青草和尚).

The same account carries the school’s claim to Shaolin descent: the fist art’s distant ancestor was the monk Bodhidharma (達摩禪師), its nearer ancestor the master Jueyuan (覺遠上人), who gathered Li Sou (李叟) and Bai Yufeng (白玉峰) and brought the Shaolin arts to maturity. Historians treat the burning itself with caution — it enters the documentary record late and is often read as a later construction — so the archive preserves it as lineage memory told by the master himself, not as settled fact. A modern academic line (Zhou Zhihui 周至譓, 2023) links Choy Fook to the circle of the monk Zhishan (至善禪師) and makes him fellow-disciple of Choy Chan-kwong (蔡展光), founder of Choy Gar fist; a Choy Gar lineage at Jinpen village, Baiyun, Guangzhou, traces its four-gate pillar form to Choy Fook himself. Both points are secondary research, and the archive marks them as such.

The recluse physician of Mount Luofu

Having left the monastic robe, Choy Fook lived at the White Crane Temple (白鶴觀) on Mount Luofu — one strand of tradition writes 白雲觀 — and practiced medicine, especially trauma medicine for knife wounds and falls, with a reputation that people came far to test. It was this reputation that reached Li Yau San: a recluse whose medicine was that sure, he reasoned, must have the gong fu to match. Li brought Chan Heung up the mountain, and the direction of the founder’s life changed.

The three conditions

Choy Fook did not accept the visitor at once. The school preserves the terms as the Three Conditions (約法三章): ten years on the mountain before descending; never use the art to harm anyone; and, as the immediate test, kick the heavy stone mortar back to its place. Chan Heung sent it back with one blow and was received. The story is a teaching story — the archive keeps it as school tradition — but it encodes the order of values the system kept: length of training, restraint in use, proof of capacity.

Ten years of teaching

The preface is explicit about both the length and the method: 「蔡師教授每一手法、足法，必教以明意勁妙之奧」, each technique explained for its principle, its power, its use, before the next was taught — and 「技擊之為用，必正、必捷乃可制人」, a technique must be correct and direct before it can control another. What passed between them was wider than boxing: the internal and external methods of the Shaolin line, the trauma medicine, and the Liuren (六壬) arts, 「醫藥、六壬等術相傳授」. That whole is the root of Choy Li Fut’s martial-medical tradition — the Yong Sheng dispensary the founder later kept in King Mui, and the medicinal practice the federation schools carry today, both descend from these years.

Why the Choy stands first

The order of the name has been argued over; the founder’s arithmetic is simpler. Of his three teachers, Choy Fook taught him longest and, by his own account, most: ten years against four and one, and 「得之蔡師者為多」. The municipal history of Jiangmen records the same judgment — the first position reflects time served and depth received, not seniority alone.

The parting admonitions

When the ten years ended, the master’s farewell entered the school’s permanent record, and with it the gate rule every King Mui student learns — 「未曾學藝先學禮，未曾習武先修德」:

「惟是技術雖精，只可自圖保衛，慎勿以技凌人；既勿濫相授，庶免挾武犯禁；亦要代代有傳人。世間能者極多，同門老前輩亦不少，今後處世更宜謙恭，為斯術玷也。」

Three injunctions: skill is for protection, not domination; teach carefully, lest the art arm the reckless; and never let the line break — there must be bearers in every generation. The archive’s own editorial rule about restraint and transmission is, in a small way, a secular echo of the same advice.

At the ancestral hall today

At the Choy Li Fut Ancestral School in Jingmei village, Xinhui, four stone figures stand in teaching order — Chan Yuen Wu, Li Yau San, Choy Fook, Chan Heung. The third figure is the man from Mount Luofu, placed exactly where the founder placed him in the name.

Cautions

• The Yongzheng-era burning of the temple rests on the master’s own oral account as recorded in the preface; the historical profession questions the event, and this page preserves it as lineage memory rather than fact.
• The apparition of Bodhidharma in the same account is devotional narrative and is treated as such.
• The ninety-six years and the computed lifespan (c. 1731–c. 1843) come from the preface alone; independent corroboration does not exist, and the transmitted figures are not fully reconcilable with one another. Both are preserved as transmitted.
• The bamboo-crushed-by-a-palm demonstration belongs to legend, not document, and the archive records it as that.

The record continues

Chan Heung’s life and the founding of the system are recorded on the Chan Heung page; the full system is documented at Choy Li Fut. The other two teachers are recorded at Li Yau San and Chan Yuen Wu.

References

[1] Chan Heung, preface to Choy Li Fut Ji Ji Xue 《蔡李佛技擊學》自序 (founder’s own record of Choy Fook’s self-identification, the temple burning, the ten years, and the parting admonitions; compiled by the Choy Li Fut Ancestral School, Jingmei) (primary).

[2] Choy Li Fut Ancestral School official lineage records, Jingmei village, Xinhui (primary).

[3] Xinhui County Gazetteer 新編《新會縣誌》, biographical section (shelf mark D/K29/D4, Xinhui Library) (historical).

[4] Guangdong Quan Dao 《廣東拳道》, entry on Choy Fook — dharma name, nickname, seclusion and medical practice (historical).

[5] Lin Wenbin 林文斌, “Early Development of Choy Li Fut Martial Arts” 《蔡李佛武術早期發展初探》, in Guangdong Culture and Arts Compendium (2005) (historical).

[6] Secret Methods of Shaolin Boxing 《少林拳術秘訣》 — early martial-arts historiography touching the southern Shaolin transmission (historical).

[7] State Council of the PRC, second batch of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage register (2008), Choy Li Fut fist, no. VI-36 (secondary).

[8] Guangdong Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Transmission Base listing for the Choy Li Fut Ancestral School. Source: jmswhg.cn (secondary).

[9] Jiangmen Municipal Government and Jiangmen Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center records on the naming order of the system (secondary).

[10] Zhou Zhihui 周至譓 (Guangdong Southern Martial Arts Research Association), field research linking Choy Fook to the Zhishan line and the Jinpen Choy Gar transmission, reported 2023 (secondary).

[11] Xinhua News Agency and China News Service reporting on Choy Li Fu — Choy Fook identified as a disciple of Zhishan (secondary).

[12] CCTV Exploration and Discovery 《探索·發現》, Choy Li Fut documentary (2022) (secondary).