Ha Hon Hung
Chinese master and physician from Guangdong Province, the first lay student of the Yau Kung Mun style, who opened the first school of this style in Guangzhou in 1924.
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Ha Hon Hung (Chinese also Xia Hanxiong) came from Ko Ming (Gaoming) district in Guangdong Province. He worked as a martial arts teacher and physician. He is known as the first lay student of the Yau Kung Mun style and the founder of its first school.
He first studied with his cousin Xia Sheng. Then in Gaoming he was discovered by a priest, whom English sources name Teat Yun and Chinese ones Tie Yin; before accepting him, the priest subjected him to a strict test of character. This priest named the style and, after the training was completed, charged Ha Hon Hung with spreading it publicly. According to tradition, Yau Kung Mun goes back to the monk Ding Yang of the Sil Lum temple in Hunan Province.
In 1924 he founded his first Yau Kung Mun school in Guangzhou. He also opened the first Yau Kung Mun Academy at the Pearl River Martial Arts Club in Guangzhou; we have not been able to determine whether this is the same institution. He trained the military police, who won the Guangdong provincial championship in 1936. The style as he passed it on stresses a low, stable horse stance and has thirteen empty-hand sets and twenty-eight with weapons; four forms come from the Bak Mei style.
In 1949 he moved to Hong Kong, where he was highly respected among fighters, and he handed the leadership of the style to his son Ha Kwok Cheung, given as his only student and successor. He died in 1965.