(From third left) Function organising chairman Loi Kwong Lee, Lau, Thai-Chi Physical Culture Society, Sibu chairman Bong Gwo Gang and others proposing a toast.
SIBU: Chinese paramount community leader Datuk Vincent Lau paid tribute to late grandmaster Huang Sheng Shyan for sowing the seed of ‘tai chi’ – an ancient Chinese martial art – in Singapore and Malaysia.
“Huang trained countless students over the decades, his influence growing as huang tai chi spread through the world,” Lau said at a Chinese New Year dinner held by Thai-Chi Physical Culture Society, Sibu in a restaurant on Tuesday.
Among the programmes at the dinner were tai chi demonstrations, video presentation on tai chi art and activities of the Society in 2015.
Lau said Thai-Chi Physical Society was practising the tai chi inherited from grandmaster Huang that had become a popular form of exercise.
“Although grandmaster Huang Sheng Shyan has passed on, his disciples are carrying his torch today. His legacy lives on in Thai-Chi Physical Culture Society in Sibu and huang tai chi organisations worldwide.”
Lau said the huang tai chi style had continued to grow in Sibu with the society actively promoting it, conducting training classes and excelling in the sports arena.
He encouraged locals to take up tai chi as perfecting the martial art, which focused on the flow of the body’s inner energy, brought health benefits like aiding the digestive, nervous and immune systems.
He said the ancient art was a scientifically proven natural therapy. Degenerative diseases had become common today and “exercising is a way to overcome sickness and build a healthy lifestyle”.
Lau said one should begin the Chinese New Year with refreshed hopes and plan ahead. Among one’s New Year resolutions should be giving priority to a healthy lifestyle, and taking up tai chi would help.
Born in 1910, Huang learned Chinese martial art at 14 years of age.
He started with the white crane style and the Taoist healing or nei gong (healing using the body’s inner energy flow).
The kungfu master from Minhou village in Fuzhou, China moved to Taiwan after World War II and started learning tai chi in 1949.
Huang came to Singapore in 1956 and later Malaysia where he started a string of tai chi schools. He set up tai chi schools in Kuching in 1959, Sibu 1961, Bintangor 1962, Sarikei 1963, Miri 1966, Kota Kinabalu 1968 and Beaufort, Keningau and Tenom 1975.
Huang died in 1992.
Today there are many schools dedicated to grandmaster Huang’s art in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shenzen (China), Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand.