Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy, Hong Kong

Wu's Tai Chi Chuan Academy, Hong Kong was founded in 1937 by Grand Master Wu Kung Yi. It is the headquarters of the Wu family schools and one of the oldest Tai Chi Chuan academies in continuous operation. The Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan taught at the Academy is inscribed on the Hong Kong Intangible Cultural Heritage inventory.

Founding and the War Years (1937-1948)

Grand Master Wu Kung Yi opened the Academy on Hennessy Road, Hong Kong Island, in 1937, after his father Grand Master Wu Chien Chuan had established the first Chien Chuan Tai Chi Chuan Association in Shanghai in 1935. When Hong Kong fell in 1943, Wu Kung Yi returned to Shanghai and served as president of the Shanghai association. He came back to Hong Kong in 1948 and rebuilt the Academy at 387 Lockhart Road in Wan Chai. Although the war had scattered teachers and students, overseas disciples soon grew more numerous than before, and many senior officers, several of them former disciples, invited Wu Kung Yi to teach in Canton as well.

The 1954 Macau Charity Contest

In 1954, at the invitation of Macau community leaders, Grand Master Wu Kung Yi fought a public charity contest in Macau to raise funds for Kiang Wu Hospital and the victims of the Shek Kip Mei fire in Hong Kong. The opponent was Chen Ke Fu, a White Crane boxer who had singled out Wu Kung Yi's name, and the venue was the poolside garden of the Sin Wah Amusement Park in Macau, since public contests were prohibited in Hong Kong. Head judge Ho Hsien presided over a panel that included famous martial artists Tung Ying Chieh, Liu Fa Meng, Li Ching Chin, and Ta Yin Kuang, with ticket proceeds donated to charity. He was fifty-three years old, nearly twenty years older than his opponent.

The contest ran as six rounds of five minutes each. In the first round Chen Ke Fu opened with the Leopard Links Hands of his Lohan set and forced Wu Kung Yi toward the ropes, but in his haste exposed an opening; Wu Kung Yi shifted, blocked, and struck, drawing blood from Chen's nose and staining his white outfit. In the second round Chen attacked with the White Crane Wrapping Silk step toward the kidney region; Wu Kung Yi turned, feinted left, and landed the Fist Under Elbow punch, destroying the use of Chen's right arm. When Chen lifted a leg in violation of the rules, Wu Kung Yi answered with the Left Separate Leg kick. Fearing a mishap as both men fired up, the judges stopped the contest a minute into the second round and declared it settled. As the event was a charity fundraiser, no victor was named: both camps held banquets that evening, each inviting the other side to celebrate the success of the fund-raising effort.

The contest made Wu Style famous throughout Southeast Asia. Community leaders wrote to request branches, and Grand Master Wu Kung Yi sent his second son Wu Ta Chi and his nephew Wu Ta Hsin to open academies in Singapore and Malaysia. He sent his eldest son, Grand Master Wu Ta K'uei, to open a branch in Kowloon.

The Jordan Road Headquarters (1956)

Growing enrolment soon outgrew both premises. In 1956 the Academy purchased two adjoining flats on the top floor of Po Man Building, 37U Jordan Road, in Kowloon, and this became the permanent headquarters. The original Lockhart Road school was renamed the Hong Kong branch under Grand Master Wu Kung Yi's daughter Wu Yen Hsia and her husband Kuo Shao Ching, while Wu Kung Yi and his sons Wu Ta K'uei and Wu Ta Chi took turns teaching in the two premises and also visited the Singapore branch. The rooftop and top-floor studio remain in use today, and visitors can find directions and contact details on our location page.

The Fourth and Fifth Generations

Grand Master Wu Kung Yi died in 1970, and Grand Master Wu Ta K'uei became the fourth-generation head and president of the headquarters. Leadership later passed in turn to Grand Masters Wu Ta Hsin, Wu Yen Hsia, and Wu Ta Hsin again. After Grand Master Wu Ta Hsin passed away in early 2005, Grand Master Eddie Wu Kwong Yu, eldest son of Wu Ta K'uei, became the fifth-generation Gate Keeper and took charge of the worldwide schools.

Under the fifth generation the Academy has hosted major celebrations, including the seventy-fifth anniversary events in Hong Kong and Singapore in 2012, and it continues to teach the full traditional curriculum. The story of how the brothers turned the 1954 contest into a golden age is told in Wu Kung Yi and Wu Kung Cho: Stepping Out of Yang’s Shadow. The lineage of the five generations is described on the Head of the Family page, and the art itself is introduced on the Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan page.