Choy Li Fut

Quick Facts

Founder

Chan Heung

Masters & notable people

Chan Yuen-wuChoy Fook

Country of OriginChina

Founded1836

RegionAsia

Primary FocusStriking

Character & Origin

Training

Who It Suits

Organisation & Competition

What the style is built from

Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.

Comparisons

Catalogs & Databases for Choy Li Fut

About Choy Li Fut

Choy Li Fut was founded by Chan Heung (1806–1875) from the village of King Mui (Jingmei) in Xinhui county in Guangdong province. The year 1836 is also given by the Chinese government portal Yidaiyilu, and the description on the national intangible heritage list confirms the founder without giving a year. According to his biography, Chan Heung studied with his uncle Chan Yuen-wu (Fut Gar, in another place in the same source Hung Kuen), with Li Yau-san (Li Gar) and with the monk Choy Fook (Choy Gar). The name combines the names of the teachers with the syllable fut, Buddha.

History

Choy Li Fut was founded by Chan Heung (1806–1875) of King Mui (Jingmei) village in Xinhui County, Guangdong Province. From about seven he was taught by his uncle Chan Yuen-wu (sources give either Fut Gar or Hung Kuen). From fifteen he studied Li Gar for four years under Li Yau-san, then about nine years Choy Gar under the Shaolin monk Choy Fook. In 1834 Chan Heung returned to King Mui and kept developing what he had learned, in 1836 he formally founded the style and opened a school in the village. 1836 and Jingmei are given by the Chinese government portal Yidaiyilu and by the description of the item on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage. We found no independent historical study verifying the date and the teachers' role. In 1848 the eighteen original students began teaching in southern China, and in 1867 Chan Heung reopened the Great Saint Hung school in King Mui. According to legend, the founders of Hung Gar (Hung Hei-gun) and Choy Gar (Choy Gau-yee) were students of the monk Jee Sin, who reputedly survived the destruction of the Shaolin Temple. Hung Gar, with formal teaching slightly earlier, is among the parent styles of Choy Li Fut. We have not been able to confirm a personal relationship between Chan Heung and Wong Fei-hung.

How it differs

The historian Benjamin Judkins classes both Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar among the typical schools associated with the Hung Mun society, sharing the legend of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple. According to him, this legend cannot be documented earlier than the beginning of the 19th century. He cites Choy Li Fut as an often-mentioned example of long boxing, whereas Wing Chun has a reputation as a close-combat style, but experienced fighters of both styles, he says, work at all distances. According to Judkins, Wing Chun bears little resemblance to the Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut lines that prevailed in Foshan, and with its triangular stepping and higher stances it is closer to some hakka styles.

Technique

Choy Li Fut combines long and short strikes, kicks, sweeps, throws, joint locks, attacks on pressure points and grappling holds. The basis consists of the strikes gua (chop), shao (sweeping strike) and cha (stabbing strike). Chinese sources describe the style as a combination of the Buddhist palm, the short hand and foot techniques of Choy Gar and the long strikes of Li Gar. The technique is divided into ten hand elements, among them kam, na, gwa, sou and caap, and six foot elements, for example chaang, ding, liu tek and jit. Eight applications are listed for them. The stances are wide and low, the torso relaxed. In stance height Choy Li Fut resembles Hung Gar and stands lower than Wing Chun. The difference is in the carriage of the body: both Hung Gar and Wing Chun hold the torso square to the opponent, while Choy Li Fut turns it at an angle.

Training

Instruction rests on forms. The description on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage lists 39 fist forms, 54 paired forms, 64 weapon forms, 18 stand forms and 9 lion dance forms, 193 in total. Other Chinese sources give 49 forms divided into 10 beginner, 10 intermediate and 29 advanced ones, and instruction in two phases of three levels each. Beginners learn the basic forms Ng Lun Ma (the five-wheel form in stances) and Ng Lun Chui (the five-wheel form in punches). Among the named forms are also Lianhuan Chachui, Niuma Guachui and Jiangzichui. The free san shou forms are designed as a simulation of real fighting, but they are rehearsed forms, not sparring. We found no free sparring as part of the syllabus of the style. Nor did we find competition rules with an organization and a year, the Lee Koon Hung association mentions only an internal school tournament. According to a report from 2025, the CLF Kung Fu Club in Richmond, Canada, under the leadership of sifu Paul Tam, practises empty-hand forms, weapons and lion dance in two evening classes a week and on Saturday. Students of various ages and levels train together and the older ones help teach the younger ones.

Ranks and progression

We have not found a scale valid for all branches of Choy Li Fut. Chinese sources define a student’s progress by levels of sets, from beginner through intermediate to advanced, and by instruction in two phases of three levels each. The Sydney-based organization Chan Family Choy Lee Fut gives its own grades Hung Sing Gwoon and Wing Sing Tong. It awards them for skill and knowledge, for Wing Sing Tong also for observing the martial code Mo Duk, and for higher grades also for contribution to the international Chan family. The text does not give the names of the individual grades. The same organization adds that some schools use their own systems, including colored belts. We have not been able to document how these grades correspond to the levels of sets.

Who it suits

Information on children and age comes from individual schools alone. According to its website, the Chan Family Choy Lee Fut school in Sydney offers children’s courses from age 7, by arrangement from age 6, classes for teenagers from age 13 and a transition to adults around age 15. According to it, children train with soft pads, have mutual contact only with parental consent, and real sparring is reserved for adults. The Lee Koon Hung Choy Lay Fut Kung Fu Association lists a children’s program with an individual approach and sparring of children with parental consent, and gives no age limit. The load of set training was measured by the study of Cortell-Tormo et al. (Archives of Budo, 2017) in 10 men from an amateur team. Heart rate, blood lactate and creatine kinase rose statistically significantly compared with rest, and the abstract gives no mean values. The authors describe the training as a high-intensity cardiometabolic load and from the moderate rise in creatine kinase infer only slight muscle damage, and the study measured neither injuries nor long-term effect. We have not found studies on children or on seniors.

Gear

The system originally had 40 weapons, and later masters added more to them. The king of the weapons of the style is considered to be the nine-dragon trident, which according to tradition was created by Chan Heung. Training includes 18 stand-based aids, among them a sandbag and a horse stand. Wooden dummies are also named, Ching Jong, Sui Sau Jong and Ma Jong, and in the Fut San Hung Sing branch Ching Jong serves as a dummy for hip balance. We found no prescribed clothing or protective gear.

Philosophy

According to the description of the item on China's national list of intangible cultural heritage, Chan Heung did not name the style after himself but after his teacher, in the spirit of the saying yin shui si yuan, that is, when drinking water, remember the source. Chinese news sources say the name honors the three teachers from whom Chan Heung took Choy Gar, Li Gar and Hung Kuen. A scholarly study from 2011 reads the name as the surnames Cai, Li and Fo, honoring the teachers Cai Fu, Li Youshan and Chen Yuanhua, and says he chose the syllable Fo instead of the surname Chen because all three were Buddhists. The monk Choy Fook taught him Buddhism and Chinese medicine in addition to fighting, and in 1835 sent him a verse with advice, after which Chan Heung formally founded the style. The school's name was written differently in individual branches. Followers originally used the writing Hung Sing, which came too close to the banned society Hung Mun, and so they changed it to a similar-sounding writing meaning goose victory. Chan Koon-pak later replaced one character, so the name reads strong victory, and Chan Din-foon's school used the writing Great Saint Hung, which refers to a person. Hung Sing is therefore not the same as Hung Gar.

Today

Alongside the King Mui line, Hung Sing branches arose in Foshan (1848), Fut San Hung Sing Jeong Yima, Sei Yup Hung Sing in Jiangmen (1898) and Buk Sing. According to China's national list of intangible cultural heritage, the latter was created from Choy Li Fut by Tam Sam with his successors. After exchanges with master Gu Ruzhang, who taught in Guangzhou from 1929, the branch took over northern footwork. Lau Bun's club became the first Hung Sing Choy Lee Fut school in America in 1935, and Kwan Man-keng founded a kung fu and lion dance society in Singapore in 1965. The State Council of the PRC inscribed Choy Li Fut on the national list of intangible cultural heritage on 7 June 2008 as item 808 (VI-36) on Xinhui's proposal. The description of the item also mentions paired exercises and lion dance forms. A study by Jiang and Huang (Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development, 2024), based on a questionnaire and interviews, describes a decline in practitioners and successors and disrupted teaching during covid-19, and the authors note the small sample.

Did you know

China's national list of intangible cultural heritage cites a folk saying about the style, In the north taiji, in the south Choy Li Fut. Its syllabus includes 193 forms, 18 of them stand exercises and 9 lion dance forms. A study from 2011 cites a saying about walking, A firm step like a bell, a lively step like a floating cloud, and states the style uses shouts to strengthen a strike. According to Judkins, at the end of the 19th century Choy Li Fut was the public face of the southern Chinese martial arts in the Pearl River Delta, and by his estimate it had tens of thousands of students. The Hung Sing Association in Foshan was closed after the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 on the Cantonese governor's order, reopened between 1903 and 1905, and in 1927 it was closed by the Kuomintang. Lau Bun, born in 1891 in Taishan, arrived in San Francisco in 1931 and his club later became the Hung Sing Studio of San Francisco. Bing Chan and Lau's successor Jew Long began to accept non-Chinese students there around the nineteen-sixties. The Buk Sing branch first performed in 2018 in the New Year gala program of CCTV and in 2021 it was inscribed on the national list as an extension of item 808.

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