WINNING ALL FINAL PLACES IN FREE SPARRING COMPETITIONS
Sifu Cheng Chang Shou, the all style full contact free sparring champion, breaking a marble slab with a Shaolin Cosmos Palm in the 1980s
Question
Sifu, I understand Wahnam students did enter sparring competitions in the past in Malaysia, and were very successful. Can you tell us about the conditions and outcome of the early competitions we entered?
-- Sifu Markus Kahila
Answer
Yes, when I taught at the Shaolin Wahnam Association in Sungai Petani, Malaysia in the 1980s, we did enter free sparring competitions and were very successful.
I particularly remember an occasion, though I cannot remember the year the competition was held, where we won all the final places in both the Under 30 and the Veteran divisions.
It was the Kedah Open All-Style Free Sparring Full-Contact Competition. There were two divisions, Under 30 (if I remember correctly) and Veteran. To us this classification was an irony because all our best fighters were above 30, which would put then in the Veteran division, specially created because the organizers thought that those over 30 would not be as good fighters as those younger.
Hong Kok Beng won the Under 30 division, while Chua Cheng Keat was the runners-up. You might have met Chua Cheng Keat at one of the wedding dinners. He was a former Muay Thai instructor before he learned from me. Now he is a successful businessman driving a Mercedes.
In the Veteran division, Cheng Chang Shou was the champion, while Lim Swee Beng (if I remember his name correctly) was the runners-up. All the champions and runners-up were from Shaolin Wahnam.
I did not mention this achievement because we did not pay much importance to winning competitions. In fact I almost had forgotten about it until you brought it up. Actually we did not specially train for the competition. Persuaded by the organizers to take part, we just sent four competitors and all of them became champions and runners-up in their respective divisions.
Another reason why I did not mention it was because I was not really proud of the achievement as the number of participants was not as large as what the organizers made it out to be, though on the night of the finals the hall was fully packed with spectators. When I asked the organizers why there weren't a lot of participants taking part in an all-style open competition, he told me, probably jokingly though it was flattering, that many did not take part when they knew we were competing!
Irrespective of whether it was a flattering joke, it was inspiring. We would like to repeat this feat where all the finalists are Shaolin Wahnam competitors. With strategic planning and systematic training now, this feat is certainly easier realized than before when we just sent in our competitors randomly.
-- Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit
Chua Cheng Keat, the Under 30 all style full contact runners-up, demonstrating a Crescent-Moon Spade in the 1980s
The above is reproduced from the thread 20 Questions for Grandmaster: Choy-Li-Fatt and Kungfu against Other Styles in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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