Sư phụ Mai Ánh Châu

Bài viết về sư phụ Mai Ánh Châu :

          

                                                               ( sư phụ Mai Ánh Châu)

Mai An Chau – is well known and respected in Hanoi and Saigon. He is a Vin Chun Kuen mentor. He began studying the style led by Master Tan. Tan was a student of Nguyen Te Kong’s student, Tyen. After eight years of study, Mai An Chau learned everything that the mentor Tan could offer him. Seeing his student’s desire to perfect even further, Tan introduced him to the legendary One-eyed Dragon’, Chan Van Fung. Master Fung immediately recognised Chau’s extraordinary nature and took him to be his student. In a short space of exercises with Master Chan Van Fung, Chau vastly improved his achievements. His great technique was complemented by a deep Vin Chun Kuen quality and nature. Working with the wooden dummy, Chau could break its arms with short hand moves only. The dummy, by the way, was made of hard boxwood.
Chau was once visited by a Shaolin Gun Fu Master and a specialist of the Vin Chun Kuen style. This person lived in China for a long time and graduated from the Shaolin Monastery School in the Henan province. Having spoken to Mai An Chau, the guest suggested they try kuai ti zo’ together (i.e., free hands spinning with partners’ hands not losing connection with each other). It is one of the highest levels in Vin Chun Kuen and, visually, does not differ much from sparring.
After practicing with Chau, the guest was concerned by his loss and an unusual variation of Vin Chun. He adopted a harder, pushing style, which didn’t help against Chau. The guest said that if he didn’t know Mai An Chau’s good name and reputation, he would have deduced that he was being tricked and that it wasn’t actually Vin Chun.

                                                
Master Mai An Chau has many friends in and outside Vietnam. He is often invited to other schools for consultation and joint-classes. A video film was recorded in the School of Wing Chun Masters, Saigon, 1992. All the Masters in attendance were followers of Nam An, who now lives and teaches in Canada. Mai An Chan demonstrated the Tu Dao Quen’ form in this film.
Willing to learn Vin Chun Kuen in more depth, Mai An Chau studied the Chi-Kong psycho-energetic system and devoted a lot of time searching for a decent Buddhist mentor. An amazing and well known person, from outside Vietnam, became his teacher. It was the Buddhist monk Tkhyk Tkhan Tyn, who lived for more than 30 years in isolation in the mountains. Having reached the level of Bodhisattva, the monk returned to the people. He settled in a mountain cave on the banks of a lake. There was a village nearby. All Vietnamese Buddhist followers respect the hermit as a saint. Mai An Chau spent many months with his teacher practicing tkhien’ Buddhist contemplation. Whenever the opportunity arises, he visits his mentor, travelling from Hanoi to the mountains.
Despite his vast experience and recognition by other Vin Chun Kuen Masters, Mai An Chau did not open a big school. Like his teacher, Master Chan Van Fung, he holds classes with a small group of students in his own garden, keeping to the old tradition of passing Wing Chun knowledge down through the family. Mai An Chau brought to the Master Chan Van Fung to meet his relative and friend Nguyen Hong Tu. As work was taking up most of Tu’s time, he asked the teacher to tell him how to learn and understand Gun Fu quicker. Fung asked Tu to repeat only one fundamental exercise of Vin Chun Kuen, called spinning on the feet’. Nguyen Hong Tu practiced this exercise over the course of the year, both at home and at lessons. He was trying to achieve a precise yet difficult technique execution, which was based not only on weight transfers but also, to a greater degree, on fast filling in and emptying’ of the whole body in close quarters combat. From time to time Chan Van Fung and Mai An Chau used to correct Tu’s practice. Gradually the teacher Fung began to pay more attention to the junior student but not before he was totally satisfied that Tu was serious and persevering.

                                                   sự phụ Mai Ánh Châu và đệ tử người Nga