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Yau Kung Moon
By Chris Crudelli
It is thought that the Yau Kung Moon system as it stands today, dates back to the Tang dynasty where it is recorded that a solemn Buddhist monk, who by nature was known as humble, silent and stoic, spent his life refining the technical skills of the martial art that he had learned into one systemised format. However, because of the esoteric nature of many of the techniques, he refused to give the style a name.
Yau Kung Moon also known as Yau Kung Mun is relatively unknown in the West and is one of my favourites because of my early experiences training in Hong Kong as a teenager with Master Ha Tak Kin, grandson of the founder Ha Hon Hung. After taking me under his wing, in his academy I was lucky enough to receive personal instruction from him later observing and helping make the herbal medicines for his patients in the mornings and conducting traditional ceremonies and lion & dragon dance in the afternoons.
The academy is one of the most well known in the region for performing the lion and dragon dance and the schools technical mastery of these ancient skills are widely thought of as the most talented and innovative today. The system Yau Kung Moon really only became public as recently as 1915. Prior to that the art was only practiced inside the confines of the Shaolin temple. Master Ha Hon Hung 1892-1962 was the first man outside the temple to learn the system and to teach it to a wider audience. Born in Guangdong province, Master Ha, before coming into contact with Yau Kung Moon
He had already learnt Choy lee fut. and was recognised as a highly skilled practitioner of that art. He had also studied Bak Mei and yet felt unsatisfied by the external nature of the arts that he was practicing and teaching. He was looking for an internal system and in 1915 happened upon some Shaolin monks who taught him Chinese herbal medicine, Dit Dar, the eighteen methods of Shaolin and the Yau Kung Moon system.
Although a ancient art which is thought of as internal and soft, conversely, those learning Yau Kung Moon Kung Fu nowadays might expect to start with long hours of physical training including stance work, physical conditioning, conditioning of the limbs and fighting sensitivity drills, reflex training, weapons training, iron palm, iron body Ditdar medicine and Chi Gong healing methods along with pressure points and patterns and forms.
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