Not every martial art earns its reputation in a training hall. Some earn it in the street, in challenge matches, some earn it on battlefields. And some earn it in encounters where the difference between a good technique and a great one is the difference between walking away, and not. Choy Lay Fut is one of those arts. A system built for real combat, tested under real pressure, refined over nearly two centuries, and still taught today in a lineage that connects directly to the masters who forged it.
The name itself tells part of the story. Choy Lay Fut honours three sources: the Choy family system, the Lay family system, and the Buddhist influences of the Shaolin Temple, represented by “Fut,” the Cantonese word for Buddha. Its founder, Chan Heung, synthesised these three streams into a single, cohesive fighting art in 1836 in the village of King Mui in Guangdong Province. Chan Heung was not improvising. He had studied under three separate masters across decades of dedicated training, and Choy Lay Fut was the considered result of everything he had learned.
A system built for fighting, not performance
From the beginning, Choy Lay Fut distinguished itself from other southern Chinese systems by its emphasis on offensive power and long-range striking. Where many southern styles favoured close-range combat and compact footwork, Choy Lay Fut developed sweeping, full-body techniques that generated enormous force. The wide horse stance, known as Dy Ma, gave practitioners a stable base from which to launch attacks. The long hand movements, Cheung Kiu, extended the fighter’s reach far beyond what most opponents expected. The sideways stance, Peen Sun, allowed for simultaneous attack and evasion, making it particularly effective against multiple attackers.
This was not theory. Choy Lay Fut practitioners tested their system constantly against other styles, and the results built a reputation that spread across Guangdong and beyond. The art became known in Chinese martial arts circles as one of the most effective combat systems produced in southern China, a reputation it earned match by match, not by reputation alone.
Tarm Sarm and the birth of Buk Sing
Within the Choy Lay Fut family, one branch stands apart for its fighting pedigree: Buk Sing. Its founder, Master Tarm Sarm (1873 to 1942), was one of the most formidable fighters of his era. Tarm Sarm was expelled from his original school after defeating three senior classmates in a confrontation, a story that says as much about his ability as it does about his temperament. He eventually completed his training through a fellow student, and what emerged was a version of Choy Lay Fut stripped to its fighting essentials.
Tarm Sarm was less interested in forms than in function. He and his students were known for fighting technique and strategy rather than the choreographed sets that many martial arts schools prioritised. He settled in an area called Sui Buk, in the north, and named his school the Buk Sing Kwoon, giving the branch its name. Buk Sing Choy Lay Fut became renowned for producing fighters of exceptional practical ability, people who could handle themselves against practitioners of other styles and who rarely lost when the stakes were real.
A pivotal moment in Buk Sing’s development came when Tarm Sarm encountered Ku Yu Cheung, one of the greatest Northern Shaolin practitioners of the 20th century. The two masters tested each other over three days of sparring and could not separate. Out of mutual respect, they agreed to exchange students. The exposure to Northern Shaolin, a long-range system that used the full reach of the body, transformed how Tarm Sarm thought about his own art. He incorporated the principle of maximum reach into Choy Lay Fut techniques, producing a fighting system that remained undefeated for fifty years.
Kong On, Kong Hing, and the guarded lineage
Tarm Sarm’s most important student was Kong On, who became one of his six top disciples. Kong On trained with Tarm Sarm after being humbled in a sparring encounter with the master, an experience common enough among those who came seeking to test Tarm’s reputation. He later served as a martial arts instructor in the Chinese army during the Japanese invasion, where he met Ku Yu Cheung directly. Kong On went on to pass the Buk Sing system to his son, Kong Hing, who became one of the highest-ranking Choy Lay Fut masters of his generation.
Kong Hing’s reputation was fierce. A strict adherent to the code of ethics of Chinese martial arts, he was known for accepting challenges from masters of other styles and never failing to impress. He was also, by his father’s instruction, deeply protective of the lineage. The knowledge was not meant to leave China. It was certainly not meant to reach Western practitioners.
Kong Hing defied that instruction when he took on two students who were only half Chinese, the Lacey brothers, Vince and Dave, who had grown up in Hong Kong and trained alongside Bruce Lee in their youth before discovering Choy Lay Fut. Taking on the Lacey brothers was an act of defiance against his father’s express wishes, and it changed the course of the lineage entirely. Through the Lacey brothers, Buk Sing Choy Lay Fut travelled to Australia, and through Australia, to the wider world.
How the art reached Perth, and why it matters
Masters Vince and Dave Lacey founded the Australian Buk Sing Gwoon in Perth in 1966, the first school of its kind in the country. The training they brought with them was uncompromising. It was the same system Kong Hing had drilled into them: punches, kicks, fighting techniques, conditioning, iron palm. No bags, no dummies, no mirrors in the early days. Just the techniques, the discipline, and the standard that Kong Hing had set.
It was in that school that a young George Michielsen began his training, eventually earning a place standing alongside the masters. What Sifu George carries today is not a diluted version of Choy Lay Fut, adapted for comfort or convenience. It is the same lineage, traced directly from Chan Heung through Tarm Sarm, Kong On, Kong Hing, the Lacey brothers, and into the present. A living connection to one of the most formidable fighting traditions China has ever produced.
Choy Lay Fut survived suppression, war, displacement, and the death of masters who nearly took it with them. It survived because the people who carried it understood that they were custodians of something larger than themselves. That understanding has not changed. The system being taught today is the same system that earned its reputation across Guangdong more than a century and a half ago. The names have changed. The obligation has not.
Choy Lay Fut was built to last. Every generation that carries it forward proves that the founders were right to believe it would.
