Shifu John Chang has taken an interest in some of the topics discussed in this forum and wanted to add some information. As some of you may already know, Shifu Chang studied 8 Step under GM Wei and continues to participate actively in the 8 Step community today. He only had one Kung Fu teacher, GM Wei, and has studied 8 Step exclusively for the past 30 years. Here are some of his experiences and thoughts about topics brought up recently:
Regarding James Shyun, many of GM Wei’s students knew James Shyun in Taiwan 30 years ago. Shifu Chang helped James Shyun get established and find a location for his first 8 Step classes when he came to the U.S. in 1983, and continued to keep in touch with him after that. Shifu Chang considers James Shyun to be a very good martial artist, and valuable to the 8 Step community through his efforts to make 8 Step a better known style. When James Shyun started claiming to be the sole inheritor of 8 Step for marketing purposes, most of the other students of GM Wei chose to turn a blind eye for three reasons: (1) 8 Step is a somewhat rare style and James Shyun was helping to broaden its popularity, (2) Although James Shyun has only visited GM Wei’s tomb once in the last 20 years as far as Shifu Chang knows, and has never contributed to its maintenance, James Shyun did show respect for GM Wei by attributing the style he teaches to GM Wei, and (3) it’s always nice to see someone you know from long ago build a successful business, especially when it’s based on spreading an art form you love. A few years ago, some of GM Wei’s former students chose not to turn that blind eye anymore when James Shyun decided to trademark “8 Step Praying Mantis” and require payments to teach 8 Step. As some of you are aware, this conflict led to lawsuits and many personal attacks over the Internet. Shifu Chang feels that these personal attacks only hurt the 8 Step community. Shifu Chang’s approach to combatting any untruths about 8 Step or GM Wei has always been to spread truths that can compete on their merits to counteract those untruths, rather than resorting to personal attacks.
In that spirit, Shifu Chang would like to lend his perspective on the recent topic of GM Wei’s knowledge of Chinese medicine: To Shifu Chang’s knowledge, GM Wei did not know any Chinese medicine. If he did, he never talked about it with any of his students. Even when Shifu Chang and several others stayed with GM Wei in the hospital while he recovered from a potentially lethal skin illness, GM Wei never mentioned wanting any Chinese medicines or treatments, and never asked anyone to buy any special herbs for him. Shifu Chang believes that, if GM Wei had known how to prepare Chinese medicines or had taken any significant interest in them, he would have used them when he was most in need of them himself.
Also, Shifu Chang wanted to let people know about several other former students of GM Wei who continue to teach 8 Step, since many people may not be aware of the greater 8 Step community:
Mr. Wu Er Li teaches 8 Step in Texas, including sections 1 through 6, continuing palm set, and sword set.
Mr. Lin Chun Fu, who was Shifu Chang’s high school P. E. teacher, continues to teach the complete 8 Step system, including Taichi, in Los Angeles.
Mr. Zuo Xian Fu is the only full-time 8 Step teacher who has taught in Taipei for the last 10 plus years. He teaches the complete hand forms, taichi, and several weapon forms. He is also the person who organizes the yearly sweeping of GM Wei’s tomb every April and ensures it is always well maintained. In recent years, Shifu Zuo has dedicated much time to standardizing the 8 Step forms based on GM Wei’s teachings with the consensus of a number of others who studied under GM Wei.
Hopefully this information will raise awareness of the greater 8 Step community, which may be a good deal smaller than the number of James Shyun’s students, and perhaps less outspoken, but still has much to offer in the way of knowledge about GM Wei’s teachings.
