HISTORY OF PRESIDENT & FOUNDER MIVCKFF

Chan Xian Wu (traditional Chinese: simplify Chinese: pinyin: Cantonese: Chan Zhen Wu); also known as Brandon Chan was born in Kuala Lumpur.

My love for martial arts came at an early tender age when I was 9 years old. I began watching lots of movies which features kung fu or any other styles of martial arts. I was beginning to be obsessed and it became a hobby at first.

During my early days, I was always being bullied by others because of my skinny body structure and had a weaker body too. Because of this, I told myself that I wanted to learn kung fu and to fight them back. I always thought of becoming a hero, saving people from all this villains and bullies.

One fine day, my father’s cousin recommended kung fu to build up my strength because of my weak body. At that time, I was suffering from asthma too as a young boy. At first, I took up Tai Chi in order to revive my energy and strength. Later, I went and took up another form of martial art from my uncle who was at that time, teaching the Southern Art Chinese Kung Fu.

During my younger years, I happen to watch a movie about a kung fu fighter who was so quick with his hands and legs, and at that time, I didn’t know who he was until later when I found out, he was the legendary Bruce Lee (mandarin; Lee Xiao Long). Because of the influence of Bruce Lee, I began to learn Nunchaku by myself without an instructor.

I was working hard daily on perfecting my martial art skills and techniques. Although, I thought that I was pretty good and fast at that time but something else was still missing. So, during my secondary years in school, there was a Tae Kwon Do class being held. I obviously wanted to learn more and I took up this new art in school. During my training and sparring session, I never spoke to anyone about my previous experience in learning other forms of martial arts. During sparring classes, some student got curious on how I happen to hit them with some fast moves without them seeing it coming. I was able to achieve this because of the hard training when I was learning the Southern Art Chinese Kung Fu.

When I took up Tae Kwon Do in school, I was practicing everyday to improve my kicking techniques. I then participated in world competition trying to prove to myself and also to find out how far I had progress. I managed to win the light-weight category in free sparring and was also the 1^st Runner-Up for displaying patterns. That got me boosted up and I began to train harder on my kicks. One day during a sparring session, I managed to knock down my opponent who was left motionless for hours and that shook me up a bit. From then on, I was pretty uptight of using my kicks during sparring sessions.

Occasionally, we had a neighbor who visits my family quite often. I befriended him because both of us have something in common which is kung fu. At that time, I wasn’t aware that he was a Sifu (Master) in Hung Sing Choy Lay Fut another form of Chinese martial arts. All I know he was learning it. While still pursuing in Tae Kwon Do, I wanted to see how far I had progressed so I ask him for a try out and that try out change my life forever about high kicking. This is how the story goes, at first, I decided to give him a taste of my different types of kicking techniques which I have been training for many years and thought I could get him to feel the power of my kick. Before I even landed one of my kick, he managed to jump in a split of time and got whole of me and the last thing I remember, I was laying on the ground. To my surprise, I was thrown a few feet away. I never thought this could happen after so much training and effort I put into my daily routine. I realized that what I have learnt previously, I was not satisfied at all and hunger for more answers. So I decided to ask this great man to be his disciples. After that incident, he proudly spill out the beans by telling me that he is a Sifu in Hung Sing Choy Lay Fut.

That began another new journey in my life. I started to learn everything from the beginning by polishing my skills and techniques towards my inner qi, the wooden dummy techniques, other different types of weapons, toughening my arms and legs and mostly everything, including the empty handed forms. I started to train harder and harder by hitting tree trunks, lifting more than 70kg with my wrist and arm, strengthen all my fingers and many more ways that I could think of, to improving my skills, techniques, strength and fitness.

At a point, I even built my own wooden dummy made from raw cement. It was built in a square shape instead of the original round shape. At that time, it was known as the Ching Jong. During my daily training routine, I was hitting it day and night to strengthen the core muscles around my arm. It took me several tough months to endure the pain and during one of my daily training, I accidently broke the whole body with my arm. I was so motivated and began to train in other aspect to strengthen my body. I would place heavy bricks on my body while lying down and to toughen my fingers, I began to thrust my fingers through metal tins. I told myself that within the period of 3 months, I had to penetrate the metal tins surface using only my fingers and I managed to do so. That didn’t stop me from training and improving further on my skills and techniques.

During my training routine, I underwent a pretty tough training system as I had to wake up early as 6 in the morning for school. After that, I will try to complete my homework and start training again until the late hours. As a teenager, I often wanted to try out my skills with other martial artist just for the sake of wanting to know how good I was at that time. With the amount of training I put in, I was confident and had the courage to fight and manage to win every time. That even brought further up my spirit in challenging fights and tournaments, and I was truly a happy man.

From then onwards, I began to increase my knowledge and skills in learn stick fighting from one of my elder brother. He apparently took this art in France under Dan Inosanto. I was so fortunate at that time, having to learn another new form of martial art. While I was pursuing it, I was also giving Tae Kwon Do lessons. Throughout the years of teaching TKD, I managed to promote 50 students to the category of black belt. That was a great achievement for me and I even set up classes to teach Chinese Kung Fu.

At that time, my Choy Lay Fut Sifu introduced me to Grandmaster Wong Yum Sun. He was the 2^nd generation of Ving Chun Kung Fu in Malaysia taught under the late Grandmaster Yip Kin from Guangdong, China. Grandmaster Wong was not keen to teach me at first. I had to go through hard times in getting him to accept me as his disciples because during the older days, Ving Chun was not taught openly and only to a few selected students in Malaysia. It took me 3 grueling months to finally be able to be accepted as his last disciple. I was on top of the moon. I was never hesitating in finding out more answers and even hunger for more knowledge, skills and techniques.

At the beginning, I did my research and suggested certain ideas to my Sifu; unfortunately, he was reluctant to accept any ideas. He decline most of it because it was not the appropriate way to learn as my Sifu was saying. The idea was not just to promote Ving Chun but to develop it nationwide. At first, I help to develop the Malaysia Martial Art Council then I tried to gather some Masters from various martial art centers to participate. Overall, it turn out to be a big disappointment as some of the Master wanted more than responsibility, instead they crave for power.

That didn’t stop me from going further, so I went on and founded a federation under the Malaysia International Ving Chun Kung Fu. I was able to make my mark and became the President of this Federation that was supported by the Malaysian Government and this programme was also approved by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. I had achieved what I dreamt of and was awarded the Mandate Honorary Certificate in Martial Arts Programme from the Prime Minister of Malaysia. It was truly a proud moment.

The Federation was also included in several TV appearance, newspaper and magazines. We even organized an event to promote other martial arts such as Ving Chun, Aikido, Muay Thai, Shaolin Kung Fu and Silat. It was called the 5 Master Seminars and about 300 participants took part in this martial arts cultural exchanging event. I later went on to introduce Ving Chun to the Police Academy and the Army. It was known as the 36 Steps Ving Chun Combat Fighting.

After appearing in various magazines, jealousy occurs. There were other Sifu or Masters who wanted to challenge me and I never declined their offers. At one time, a Chinese newspaper accidently wrote something wrong in one of their article saying that I was the Ving Chun “Person-in-Charge” for Malaysia. That created a misunderstanding and many people in the martial arts society was not happy and wanted me to leave the Ving Chun Association. Apparently, my Sifu managed to quickly sort things out.

Over the years, I began to fulfill my dreams on promoting Ving Chun, solely on Ving Chun but nothing else in mind.

I met up with Grandmaster Ip Chun in Hong Kong. He was delighted that I have contributed so much within a span of 16 years and promoting Ving Chun and indeed, it was very successful. At the same time, Grandmaster Ip Chun ask me whether I would be interested in spreading the Ving Chun martial art and I was honored to do so and decide to be his disciple. Even at that time when I was accepted by Grandmaster Ip Chun, I didn’t break the news to other people until recently in year 2009.

Listed here are some of my achievements:

· Founder & President of Malaysia International Ving Chun Kung Fu Federation.

·Mandate Honorary Certificate in Martial Arts Programme from the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

·Awarded for Outstanding Young Malaysia Awards 2007

· Founder & President of Malaysia Zhen Wu Ving Chun Martial Arts Association.

· Founder & President of Malaysia Ving Chun Kung Fu Instructors Council.

· Founder & President of Malaysia Ving Chun Combat Fighting Association.

·Former Secretary of Malaysia Master of Martial Arts Council.

· Martial Arts Choreographer & Actor.

· Founder of Zong Zi Do.

· Advisor & Editor for Malaysia Martial Arts Magazine.

· Regional Coordinator of Far East Asia World Wing Chun Union.