Chan Cheuk-Fai

"Back in the early 1970's, martial arts in Australia was very limited," says former world Kung Fu champion, Mick Spinks.

Born in Kent, England, Sifu Spinks immigrated to Australia at the age of five and took up Karate in 1970 after receiving a bashing from a drunk in the streets of Parramatta. He believes the unprovoked assault was not the main reason for his enrolling in martial arts classes, though he agrees the experience did make him determined never to be a victim of street violence again.

Spinks went on to achieve his black belt grading in Karate, but was disillusioned with the art after being disqualified from a karate tournament for leg-sweeping his opponent."I entered the Australian Karate Championships and leg-swept this guy. He couldn't get back on his feet, and I got disqualified!

"There wasn't a lot of opportunity to train with variation at the time, and I was passionate about martial arts, so I decided to have a look at other styles. In 1977 I met Chan Cheuk-Fai and he really opened my eyes. I thought, 'Gee, I'd like to learn some of what this guy has to offer'." Mick took his Karate black belt off and started training in Kung Fu with Sifu Chan as a beginner.

"Cheuk-Fai trained quite hard and taught me really good skills, but sometimes I took the classes in their fitness training and set a bit of a precedence with the level of conditioning. Cheuk-Fai would teach us Kung Fu skills and I'd push the class to new limits of fitness. At the end of the session everyone would be holding their clothes over the balcony, ringing out the sweat. It was awesome training."

They would do a series of three-minute circuits consisting of six thirty-second activities, including push-ups, free-squats and burpees. After a brief rest, more circuits would follow."We also did a lot of sprint work at the park. Unfortunately Cheuk-Fai was not a keen sprinter. He would just come along and time us. But he was the Master, so I couldn't say much," says Spinks.

"Cheuk-Fai was teaching us techniques that were so advanced, such as kicking with the shin instead of the foot, and no one else in Australia was kicking with the shin at the time. We were much fitter than our opponents at the tournaments and would clean up the trophy pools."

Chan, Spinks and the other students had a strong bond between them and would frequently go out for dinner after classes. They were like family, as were the traditional Kung Fu practitioners in China – the Shaolin Monks.

Chan Cheuk-Fai's father, Chan Keng-Wan, was a Kung Fu Grand Master. At 22, he had established many Jin Wu Koon Kung Fu academies in China and was known for his expertise with the deadly broadsword, double-butterfly swords, the nunchakus and for his brutal unarmed combat skills.

When Japan invaded China during the 1930's, Chan Keng-Wan was recruited by the Chinese military to instruct the 19th Route Army's troops in unarmed combat and fighting with the broadsword. He also led raids into the invading enemy's camps.

" My father and his elite troops, armed with just their broadswords, would strip down to their underpants and cover themselves from head to foot in black body-paint. In the dark of night, they would crawl into the invading Japanese camps, and use their hands to locate the enemy soldiers, cutting their throats as they were sleeping," says Cheuk-Fai.

After the Japanese had been defeated in 1945, civil war broke out in China between the Kuomintang and Mao Tse-tung's Communist Party. To escape communism, Chan Keng-Wan then fled to Hong Kong, where he established Jin Wu Koon Kung Fu academies and opened the Die Da Medical Clinic, specializing in the treatment of bone injuries. During this time he also instructed his son, Chan Cheuk-Fai, in Kung Fu and medicine.

In 1977, Cheuk-Fai was invited to instruct martial arts for one month in Australia by Liverpool's Richard Bradford. At the end of this term, friends from Chinatown persuaded Sifu Chan to stay and teach Kung Fu, so he opened a gym in Sydney's George Street. "When I first opened the Jin Wu Koon club, about ten people from Chinatown came to train with me. Slowly, as more people heard about the club, they came to join my classes.

"Then Mick Spinks began training with me and I taught him some techniques. He already had a black belt in Karate and trained very hard…very hard…five days a week. Because most of my other students were just beginners, I would get him to spar with me. "We sparred for about twenty minutes and Mick got kicked all over the place. Once I hit him with a sidekick and he went sliding across the floor towards this glass door, and I thought, 'Oh no, he's going to go crashing through it,' but luckily it didn't break. "Mick was so tough and could obviously take it. He trained extremely hard and I knew he could handle a hard sparring. Of course I also had to let him know how good I was," laughs Cheuk-Fai.

Sifu Mick Spinks: The Broadsword

In the late seventies, Australia's Bob Jones brought kickboxing to Sydney. Prior to this there weren't many opportunities for martial artists in Australia to compete in full contact fights. In the beginning there weren't any real concrete rules in kickboxing and shin pads were not worn. Fighters were more aware of the damaging effect of shin kicks.

Spinks welcomed the challenge of full-contact kickboxing and competed in tournaments at Dovey's Darlinghurst Gym, before becoming the state's first kickboxing champion.

"Kickboxing gave us the ability to develop as full-contact fighters, and I saw it as a way to improve as a martial artist and to test my skills. We had a pretty good team at the dojo, and on Saturdays we'd train in technique and do circuit training, then I'd be walking around, saying, 'Who wants to spar? Who wants to spar?' We were extremely competitive and became very strong as a club," says Spinks.

In 1980, Chan and Spinks travelled to Hong Kong to compete in an international full-contact tournament which allowed the use of knees, elbows and head-butts.

Originally, Chan Cheuk-Fai was to attend the competition as the Australian coach, and he hadn't trained to fight, but three weeks before the tournament, the promoter asked Chan if he'd like to compete. The previous year, Cheuk-Fai was scheduled to fight at the same event, but in a preliminary draw one of the competitors was killed and the meeting was cancelled.

Having missed out the year before, Cheuk-Fai accepted the invitation and was matched against the Malaysian heavyweight Tae Kwon Do champion.

"In the first round, I didn't really respect his ability and treated the bout as more of a spar, but he kicked me hard in the stomach and winded me. The thing is, I didn't let him know that. I just kept my hands up in the guard position so he couldn't see he'd hurt me, and fortunately, he didn't take advantage of my being winded, and I got my breath back.

"I thought, 'Right, no more mucking around'. I hit him with a volley of shin-kicks, punctuated by the occasional head-butt, and half-way through the second round, he gave up before his corner could throw in the towel, and I was declared the winner by TKO," says Chan.

Chan Cheuk-Fai then went to support Mick Spinks, who was matched against veteran thai-boxer, Payat Penchai, who was a Thailand champion and had the experience of eighty-five fights behind him. For Mick, this was his eighth tournament.

"Before the fight, I tried to establish what the rules were, but there didn't seem to be many. Knees and elbows were acceptable, as were throws and take-downs, but they restarted the fight once you went to the ground. There weren't any ropes, just a raised platform about thirty feet square. I tried to find out if groin-kicking was allowed. I asked the referee and he said, 'You'll be okay,' which didn't tell me much." Mick then had to race back to his hotel room for gloves, after the four-ounce gloves, designed for the smaller, Asian hands, wouldn't fit his fists.

"The bout started, and being from a martial arts background with competition regulations…and being a lot different – I certainly wasn't a thai-fighter – I punched him to the head a few times and kicked him to the legs, but that didn't seem to really have an effect on the guy. He was a hard boy and didn't appear bothered at all. When he came on to me, I went straight under his arm and gave him a really big hip-throw, and landed right on top of him with my whole bodyweight. I did this a few times and it took him by surprise, which gave me a points advantage," says Spinks.

The Thai corner men became worried that too many points were being scored against their fighter and began calling advice to him. Payat Penchai then kicked Spinks to the groin, dropping him to the ground. Seeing that the referee had put the count on Mick, Cheuk-Fai's brother and team manager, Chan Cheuk-Ming, jumped into the ring and argued with the referee that groin-kicks were not allowed, which gave Spinks time to get back on his feet. "I wouldn't have been able to continue otherwise. And in the later rounds, due to the circumstances, he was able to punish me. But I held my own, and scored with punches and take-downs." Cheuk-Fai remembers how the Thai inflicted damaging punishment to Spinks with shin-kicks.

"Mick's defence was very good and Payat was attacking Mick's right triceps with shin kicks, in an attempt to get Mick to lower his guard. By the end of the fight, Mick's right arm was swollen to twice the size of his left arm," says Cheuk-Fai.

"In the final round, he caught me with a high kick to the neck and I was bleeding from the ear. I looked up at the clock and there were about twenty seconds to go, and I thought, 'You're not going to beat me this way,' so I got back up and moved around. Once the bell rang the fight was declared a draw and we hugged each other. It was just good sportsmanship," says Spinks.

The battle proved to be a lifetime experience for Mick. And his future opponents didn't seem powerful after that, because Payat Penchai had an exceptional strength, which Mick was never to feel from another fighter again. Even when he went on to win the World Kung Fu Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Spinks didn't find the bouts to be as challenging.

Today, Chan and Spinks are annoyed by the 'do-gooders' of the world, who want sports such as boxing banned, because some boxers have been hurt in the ring. They are both quick to point out that there are a lot more people killed or seriously injured from participating in rock fishing, football, motor racing and other sports.

"There are many sports that are potentially dangerous. And martial arts can be potentially dangerous. But people know this when they get involved, as with a lot of other sports. And many of these young guys have a lot of energy in them and they want to box or compete in some other art. I'd rather see them channel their energy into martial arts than taking drugs or bashing people on the streets," says Spinks. They believe people who train hard in martial arts are not likely to go out and pick fights, because these people have already worked the excess energy out of their systems and have nothing to prove. "There could be a higher incidence of serious injuries and fatalities if people were not able to direct their energies into martial arts, and the fact that there are so many people out there who can defend themselves acts as a deterrent to would-be thugs," adds Chan.

Both Cheuk-Fai and Mick agree that they have had the odd visitor come to their gyms with the intention of causing trouble outside the gym. But they also agree these individuals are a minority, and both men let these potential students know such behaviour will not be tolerated in their dojos. "Most people who train at our gyms are there for self-defence purposes. They are not the kind of people to attack others. They are there to avoid becoming victims, and to improve their levels of health and fitness. The kind of person who gets involved in street gangs doesn't want to bother with self-defence classes," says Cheuk-Fai.

Today, Mick Spinks holds his own classes at Sutherland, while Cheuk-Fai continues to operate his dojo in Chinatown, but both men have remained close friends and Kung Fu Masters in their own right. "Looking back, I know I couldn't have achieved all that I have in martial arts without the guidance of Sifu Chan Cheuk-Fai, who remains my Master, or the continued support of my family. They have made my life wonderful," says Spinks. "Before, Mick was the student and I was the Master. Now we bow as equals before sparring and treat the bout as more of a chess match," says Sifu Cheuk-Fai.

 

Sydney's Chinatown

Article originally from www.knucklepit.com