ARTICLE
WRITTEN & PUBLISHED BY PATRICK KELLY
Master
Huang was well known and respected in Chinese martial arts circles around the
world for the subtlety and strength of his internal power and his ability to use
it in the Tai Ji pushing hands. Unfortunately few Westerners ever experienced
his abilities first hand and many disbelieved his skill and felt the need to
convince others of their disbelief with rational arguments founded on lack of
personal experience. I have never met one person who was lucky enough to get to
practice with Master Huang, who had any doubt of his capabilities. Some did
argue that his 20 years of practising Fujian White Crane under some of the most
famous masters of his time was a major factor in his later success at Tai Ji,
and he never denied it, but while giving due credit to the three Daoist Sages
who taught him White Crane from the age of 14, he always attributed his Tai Ji
skill to the late Grand Master Cheng Man-Ching.
Master
Huang met G.M. Cheng Man-Ching in 1949 in Taiwan. He kneeled to and was accepted
by him, the first Tai Ji exponet who had been able to deal comfortably with
Master Huang's White Crane in a friendly test of skills. Master Ben Lo Pang Jang
of San Francisco, a famous student of G.M. Cheng, was present in those early
days and he told me that when Master Huang first attended Cheng's school he was
already able to throw normal people 10 metres using his White Crane hands, but
the relaxed students of G.M. Cheng could escape his push to some extent.
Because
of this, at first G.M. Cheng refused to believe that Master Huang had not learnt
Tai Ji somewhere before but then Master Huang showed G.M. Cheng the secret White
Crane training manual handed down from his Daoist teachers containing on the
first page the characters: Sung, Sung, Sung; meaning: Relax, Relax, Relax; and
on the second: Yi, YI ,Yi: meaning: Mind, Mind, Mind, G.M. Cheng said he could
see that the systems were similar and that Master Huang had already achieved the
first 10 years of Tai Ji through his training in White Crane. Master Huang
stayed with G.M. Cheng until 1959 when at G.M. Cheng's injunction he emigrated
to Singapore and later to Malaysia stting up home in Kuching on the Island of
Borneo.
There
he remained for most of the rest of his life, steadily practising, teaching,
experimenting, developing his training system and opening new schools as well
trained instructors became available.
Master
Huang was noticeable in his teaching in many ways, but one which I as a
foreigner experienced was his insistence that it was not a person's race (being
Chinese) or the family lineage that had any influence on the learning Tai Ji,
but the person's attitude, practice method and the help of a good Master that
led to success. He told me that in his experience neither the very rich nor the
very poor would succeed in learning Tai ji as they were both too concerned with
money.