My most eminent teacher in China, Liu Hung Chieh, was a Lineage Master in the Internal martial arts of Ba Gua, Hsing-I and Tai Chi, as well as the Water and Fire traditions of Taoist meditation. In addition, Liu was a master calligrapher and a classical Chinese scholar who also had a complete knowledge of traditional Chinese medical theory.

I Couldn’t Move Liu’s Finger

Liu Hung Chieh

On one of my first days with Liu, he asked about my Martial Arts background. Liu said that I looked big and strong, which I was, being over 200 pounds.

As a small test, he got up and put his hand in the ba gua Single Palm Change Posture and asked me to move it. I could not.

This man never weighed more than 110 pounds and I could not move his finger with my entire bulk despite all the skill and power I had developed over twenty years of training

Liu said that having chi was more important than having size, youth, or strength.

The Seeds of Taoism

The day before he died, and many times before that, Liu told me that he had transferred all his knowledge into my consciousness and that practice would cause the seeds to grow into full trees.

Being just an ordinary mortal, the seeds are growing slowly in me, and yet Liu still remains a source of never-ending inspiration about the possibilities of spirit.

Liu’s Last Days

On the last day that he was alive, Liu taught me the internal aspects of the final ba gua palm, as well as the last piece of Wu Style tai chi’s transformational energy work. It was the most intense energetic work I had ever been through.

When I told this to Liu, he said it was even harder on him. He spent much time that day sharing his knowledge and clearing up loose ends with me.

The next day Liu died only an hour before our usual lesson.

Liu’s Life

Born in 1905, Liu came from a wealthy family. He was originally a very studious nonphysical young man who focused on classical Confucian studies.

Liu’s family had produced many generations of Chinese doctors.

Liu began his martial arts training when he was eleven years by studying Shaolin, an external martial art system. At fourteen, Liu was admitted to the original ba gua school in Beijing, China.

In 1928, China held its first modern national martial arts tournament. Liu Hung Chieh was the representative of the Beijing school at this tournament.

Liu won all his matches.

It was primarily because of Liu’s performance in this tournament that he became the head instructor of the Hunan province Central Government Martial Arts Academy in Changsha from 1932 to 1934.

Liu Learns Wu Style Tai Chi

During this period, Wu Jien Chuan’s two sons, Wu Gong I and Wu Gong Zao, were junior instructors under Liu.

Wu Jien Chuan and his father, Chuan You, co-founded the Wu style of Tai chi chuan. This connection ultimately led to Liu living and studying in Wu Jien Chuan’s house in Hong Kong, and becoming his disciple.

Liu Learns Buddhism

Liu then became interested in Buddhism and its spiritual way of life and entered a monastery to learn.

After a relatively short time, Liu’s teacher, an eminent Buddhist monk, recognized that Liu had realized the Nature of Emptiness, the major objective of Buddhist Mahayana spiritual practice, which in the West is often called enlightenment.

Liu’s Training in Taoism

Liu spent the next ten years in the mountains of Western China, training with several Taoist masters from whom he learned the methods of Taoist internal Alchemy.

It was with these Taoist adepts that Liu said he completed his studies about chi. In this period, Liu shifted his primary work away from the efforts and responsibilities of martial arts to Taoism, which included the totality of ba gua and the I Ching.

Over the next 37 years in Beijing, Liu worked primarily for the spiritual benefit of humankind, as the head of a Northern Taoist lineage.