Tibetan White Crane
Tibetan White Crane, also known in Cantonese as Bak Hok Pai, is a Chinese martial art with origins in 15th-century Tibetan culture that has developed deep roots in southern China. Tibetan White Crane became so established in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau by the twentieth century that it was accepted as a local martial art in that region. From there it has spread around the world.
Lama Pai and Hop Ga Kuen are closely related branches of the same lineage descending from the same original art, which the founder called Lion's Roar. This style is not related to Fujian White Crane, which developed independently in Fujian Province within the Southern Shaolin Five Animals tradition.
Tibetan White Crane played an important role at a key pivot point in Chinese and worldwide popular culture, when a 1954 charity match between a master of that art and a master of tai chi attracted massive attendance and avid media coverage, generated broad acceptance and celebration of Chinese martial arts, and resulted in new waves of wuxia literature and kung-fu film that continue to this day.
History
The white crane and the ape
In Tibetan White Crane tradition, the origins of this martial art can be traced to the 15th century, and a Tibetan lama whose name has been transliterated into Mandarin as Adatuo. In Cantonese his name is pronounced Ah Dat To, and he also sometimes known as the Dai Dat Lama.Adatuo lived in what today is China's Qinghai province, where he learned Tibetan wrestling sports and joint-locking techniques before becoming a monk. Then one day while meditating in the wilderness, he observed a battle between an ape and a white crane, in which the crane gracefully avoided the ape's attacks and aggressively counterattacked. Based on this experience, he developed a new martial art based upon the ape's powerful swinging and grabbing, and the crane's evasive movements and vital point striking.
Some writers have voiced skepticism of this story, as this parallels the legendary origins of other Chinese martial arts. For example, both Wing Chun and tai chi are said to have been inspired by battles between cranes and snakes. This story has unique aspects, with the snake's role taken by an ape, and the story is more vicious, with the ape losing an eye during the encounter. The story is also more detailed, as Adatuo then compassionately nurses the injured ape and develops his art while playing with it. Nevertheless, the similarities make some uncomfortable.
Lion's Roar, a Buddhist term commonly used by Tibetan practitioners, was the name Adatuo chose for his new martial art. Tradition states that he, his disciples, and the following generations continued to develop the art during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Tradition aside, Tibet is home to a fierce martial culture, and Qinghai has long been a place where Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese cultures encountered each other, and where martial arts concepts such as animal-based styles have been absorbed and developed locally. In addition, no doubts have been raised about the overall history of the art from the Qing dynasty on.
Qing patronage
The Qing dynasty was founded by Manchu conquerors from the northeast who followed Tibetan Buddhism and felt a strong cultural affinity with co-religionists of the north and west like Mongols and Tibetans. It was natural that they would value and support a martial art from Tibet, inviting masters to teach, train, and serve at the capitol in Beijing.Lion's Roar masters served in the imperial palace guard, and official support for a wide range of Tibetan Buddhist pursuits is evident in the massive Lama Temple of Beijing. But as Qing rule and the state of the nation declined, one master from the west brought the art to the south instead.
Journey to the South
In 1865, 11th-generation master Sing Lung arrived in the Guangdong area via Sichuan. Unlike his predecessors, this lama was no friend of the Manchu rulers. He quickly made a name for himself as a fighter – legend has it he defeated and then befriended a pirate, among other adventures – and began training a group of Lion's Roar disciples.Residing at a monastery, at first he trained only other monks. But his last two disciples were laymen who became the founders of two new branch lineages:
Southern schisms
Lama Pai, meaning "Tibetan Buddhist Master Style", began as an informal name for Lion's Roar but had replaced it by the end of the nineteenth century. Today's Lama Pai lineages began with Wong Yan-lam's disciples Choi Yit Gung and Jyu Chuyhn. Jyu's disciple Chan Tai San also trained with a Tibetan monk from Manchuria representing yet another Lion's Roar lineage.Chan believed that because Jyu trained with both lay disciples of Sing Hong, Wong Yan-lam and Wong Lam-hoi, only Lama Pai represented an authentic and complete version of this tradition. As Chan's disciple David A. Ross has noted, Lama Pai had by then evolved to represent the vast tradition of Western Chinese martial arts as practiced by followers of Tibetan Buddhism of many ethnicities, and had further evolved through interaction with northern and southern Chinese martial arts. But two new styles stemming from the lineages of Wong Yan-lam and Wong Lam-hoi took this evolution one step further:
Hop Ga Kuen was founded by Wong Yan-lam's disciple Wong Hong-wing who chose that new name — which means "Martial Hero Family Fist" — in honor of his master and reportedly at the suggestion of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, to create some distance from the lamas of the imperial guard. Wong Yan-lam's innovations, some based on exchanges with Hung Ga stylists, include an emphasis on hand strikes, mostly low kicks, and fierce no-mercy attacks, with equal weight given to ape, crane, and other animal-inspired techniques.
Bak Hok Pai or "White Crane Style" was founded by Wong Lam-hoi's disciple Ng Siu-chung. Ng is known for defeating the foremost of the "Five Tigers Who Went South to Jiangnan". It is lost to history whether the name of this art was selected solely to emphasize crane techniques, or to avoid association with Hop Ga's veneration of another master, or to move away from association with the Manchu era, or all of the above, but today with the passage of time Bak Hok Pai is also called "Tibetan White Crane" to distinguish it from other white crane techniques, forms and styles. This art of course emphasizes crane techniques, with a defensive approach, evasive footwork, high and low kicks, and aggressive hand counterattacks to vital points.
Ng moved to Macau and served as White Crane grandmaster there, in Hong Kong, and worldwide for many years. In martial arts circles his most famous disciple was Chan Hak Fu, whom we shall discuss in more detail below.
Southern success
After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the descendants of Lion's Roar no longer had official support. The Jing Wu organization and the government-led Guo Shu institute focused on Han Chinese martial arts, and mostly northern styles at that. But in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau, the three new Lion's Roar lineages developed deep roots.By the 1950s, Bak Hok Pai was one of the most well-known styles in Hong Kong and Macau, and popular in nearby Guangdong and Guangxi as well, alongside native southern arts like Wing Chun, Hung Ga, and Choy Lay Fut. Grandmaster Ng Siu-chung and his senior disciples Chan Hak Fu, Kwong Poon Fu, and Luk Chi Fu — the "Three Fus" or "Three Masters" of White Crane — proudly presided over schools that trained many Hong Kong and Macau officials and celebrities, including local police. One notable practitioner was the actor Kwan Tak-hing, who played Wong Fei-hung in at least 77 of his 130 films.
For many in the region, this was the only White Crane style they had heard of. Fujian White Crane, in any variant and under any name including Shaolin White Crane, was little known there. When someone in Hong Kong said "White Crane Style", they meant Tibetan White Crane. It was for all intents and purposes a local martial art. Meanwhile, in Guangdong Province, in the 1950s Lama Pai and Hop Ga masters established themselves as military trainers and as top competitors and coaches in the mainland's new wushu sports organizations, and in Hong Kong a Hop Ga center was established by the 1960s.
Wu vs. Chan, 1954
Tibetan White Crane was at the heart of a major pivot point in Chinese and worldwide popular culture, when in 1954 Chan Hak Fu of Macau faced off against Hong Kong's recently arrived Wu Gongyi in a wildly popular public match organized for charity and held in Macau. Master Chan represented not only Grandmaster Ng Siu-Chung's Bak Hok Pai against Grandmaster Wu's Wu-style tai chi. He also represented natives of the south against newcomers from the north, Cantonese speakers vs. Mandarin speakers, external vs. internal kung-fu, modern training vs. traditional practice, Macau vs. Hong Kong, and yes, a Tibetan Buddhist martial art against a Han Chinese Daoist art.The fight's outcome is not the most important aspect, especially as it was disappointingly halted after only two shortened rounds, with the result declared as "no winner, no loser, no draw". An unsophisticated bout by today's standards, all that can be said is that Wu impressively held his own against a much younger opponent, bloodying Chan's nose and severely bruising his arms, while Chan showed great skill and aggressiveness in a good demonstration of the techniques and strategies of Tibetan White Crane within the strict limitations set by the organizers such as no kicking.
More important, as Y.L. Yip has argued, this massively attended event and its avid media coverage generated broad acceptance and celebration of Chinese martial arts throughout modern Chinese culture, resulting in a new wave of wuxia fiction and kung-fu film, from the books of authors like Louis Cha to the movies of Bruce Lee, followed by second and third waves with stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
Martial arts schools also benefited from this explosion of interest of course. Wu-style tai chi attracted many new students in Hong Kong and abroad, and White Crane expanded strongly as well. Chan Hak Fu alone opened Bak Hok Pai schools in Australia, the US, Canada, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Italy, and Israel, as well as Hong Kong and Macau.