MASTER MICHAEL LEE
My brother John and I attended one of
NSW Chin Woo’s annual Christmas parties in
Sydney’s Chinatown back in the 90s, and we
were fortunate to have sat at the same table
as Ric Lum Sifu. During the party, many fine
masters displayed various styles of martial
arts on stage. When I asked Ric why isn’t he
performing tonight, Ric being very humble
but humorous (with a smile) said that he’s
not up to the high standards and didn’t feel
like performing!!! It was very interesting
and calming to converse with Ric that night.
John and I have kept in close contact with
him ever since.
A few years ago, during a profound and
valuable conversation with the honourable Lum
Sifu in person, being inquisitive (as I started
training martial arts at a very young age, CHI
"internal gung" in my interpretation feels like
a warm sensation that travels through my body at
control of own mind/will), I questioned about
how the sensation of CHI would feel like from a
Tai Chi practitioner’s point of view. Ric didn’t
explain much but led us to a tree near the side
of a street and showed my brother John and I the
starting posture of Tai Chi Stance and
instructed us to relax our shoulders and roll
them forward; what came after was totally
amazing as John and my arms floated up without
effort or muscle contraction and with a 90
degree turn of both palms, my arms would slowly
descend back to the starting position. After
achieving the arm lift for numerous times, I
felt revived and my vision became very bright
and I was able to see objects clearly into the
far distance. It was great feeling CHI for the
first time, but regrettably this experience
wasn’t enough to broaden my mind to learn Tai
Chi Chuan as I devoted most of my free time to
other sports.
My brother John had an accident 6 months ago
and wanted to practise Tai Chi with Ric to aid
his injuries. I volunteered to drive him twice a
week to Ric until he could drive again. My first
Tai Chi lesson came the same day when Ric kindly
invited me to learn with John.
John and I were trying to perfect a Tai Chi
hand movement called the “Tiger’s mouth” at the
office when John unconsciously emitted a strong
cool breeze to my forearm about 10 inches away
as I was trying to show him what I thought was
the correct way. I didn’t tell John what he had
done straight away because I needed to confirm
if it was something else, so I turned off the
air conditioner and closed all the doors and
windows and asked John to try it again, YES, the
cool breeze was so apparent this time it felt
like a small portable fan was blowing from his
palm.
Approximately three months ago, I was in
front of a shop with a group of friends when my
friend’s neighbour was walking her dog (an
Alaskan Malamute “full-grown”). The dog seemed
so friendly when it came to me, so I sat down
and stroked it a few times when to my surprise,
without warning the dog lunged at me. All I
heard next was a vicious growl from the dog,
loud screams from my friends and all I could see
was the dog’s mouth wide open, teeth and two
protruding fangs inches from my face. I was
trapped in a sitting position with a friend
crouched beside me and a glass sliding door
behind me. At that moment I instinctively
protected my face by palming the dog’s neck with
my left hand, but it jerked back sharply and bit
into the index and middle fingers of my left
hand. At this instance time had almost stood
still as I felt the crushing jaw and the
sensation of teeth sinking into my fingers; what
followed next felt like I was practising very
slow Tai Chi with options and plenty of time to
handle this situation. I formed a fist to grip
it’s fang with my injured left hand to prevent
the dog’s teeth from further penetration of my
fingers, pulled it’s head towards me and
simultaneously circled my right hand over my
left and knocked it’s head. It felt like I had
only connected with the dog’s head lightly but
the dog seemed to retreat rapidly. Afterwards a
friend drove me to the nearby medical centre and
I told her how disappointed I was that I
couldn’t hit the dog hard enough as it had moved
too swiftly to teach it a lesson. However, when
we got back to the shop, a group of friends who
saw the whole event couldn’t believe how quickly
I had intercepted, tapped then bounced the dog a
metre away. Funnily enough, I had experienced
the effect of ‘slow motion’ in a couple of
dangerous situations and while training Gung Fu
intensely before; the dog attack only lasted a
split second or two but definitely felt like 30
seconds of Tai Chi to me.
A month ago, I had a sore lower right back
and leg pain from excessive bicycle riding and
Mantis Gung Fu training but after a session of
Tai Chi with Ric, my leg joint had loosened up
and my lower back pain was gone. Strangely these
types of pain usually linger on for nearly a
week.
Ric is a brilliant teacher with such talent
to analyse each individual’s capabilities and
apply the relevant or necessary method to
harness the correct posture for better
understanding of CHI flow in each position of
the Tai Chi form. Learning Tai Chi from him is
so effortless and joyful that every session is
treasured.
18-12-04
Master Michael Lee
Nam Fong Tong Long
|