Cailifu Boxing
01 · Historical Records
Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut appeared later than Chen He's founding of Choy Li Fut; it is a branch gradually established by Tan San and his disciples on the basis of Choy Li Fut, drawing on Northern-school fist techniques and orthopedic medicine and combining combat experience with personal innovation. Its formation and spread were concentrated in Guangzhou during the late Qing and early Republican period, where it was taught mainly in martial arts halls, trade-union associations, and neighborhood boxing grounds in districts such as Baiyun, Yuexiu, Liwan, and Huadu. After the mid-20th century it spread with Cantonese migrants to Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas Chinese communities, becoming one of the more influential Southern Fist schools native to Guangzhou.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut is a traditional cultural expression developed by Tan San and his disciples on the basis of Choy Li Fut, drawing on the essence of medicine and Northern-school boxing and fusing combat experience with personal innovation. Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut has a great variety of routines and rich content: 16 fist routines, 25 weapon sets, 6 paired practice sets, 2 basic-skill sets, and 5 internal power sets, with stance practice centered on the "scale stance" (chengzhuang). It has inherited Choy Li Fut's "ginger-finger fist" (jiangzhi quan) and its emphasis on thrusting (chuan), hooking (rao), hanging (gua), sweeping (sao), and inserting (cha); in technique it has innovated more than twenty moves, including lianhuan chacui (linked inserting punches), toulou shou (stealing-through hands), zouma guasao (riding-horse hanging sweeps), gao zhuangma (high-stance horse), and chubo (shoulder strikes). Its fist techniques center on the small cross-shaped fist, the large cross-shaped fist, the hooked-strike fist, and the level fist. It carries on Choy Li Fut's typical features of open and generous movements, imposing momentum in the routines, emphasis on coordinating attack and defense, agile yet steady footwork, power that is hard yet softened, and attention to vocalizations that support momentum. On this basis, Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut strengthens basic power training and has created a unique strength-training method, achieving footwork that advances, retreats, and dodges freely, with rapid changes and fluid, connected attacks. Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut strikes long and far with imposing momentum, forming its own style. It stresses practical combat value, requires no complex equipment or special venue for practice, and is easy to promote. It integrates the principles of Confucianism, the methods of Chan, and the arts of Daoism, embodying rich martial learning. It emphasizes the union of form and spirit, requiring the close combination of physical movement with the "heart" and "intent"; through training it cultivates the three elements of the human body — essence (jing), vital energy (qi), and spirit (shen) — and can build fitness, cure illness, and prolong life. It is now practiced across five continents in more than forty countries and regions, and is of great significance for enhancing people-to-people exchange and promoting traditional martial arts culture and national culture.
The four main routines
Four routines head a set of sixteen, alongside twenty-five weapon sets, six two-person drills and five inner-work sets.
The steelyard post
The steelyard post anchors the school's power training, producing free advance and retreat and flowing combinations.
Twenty-odd innovative techniques
Inheriting the ginger-finger fist and its piercing, clawing and sweeping, the school added more than twenty techniques of its own.
Long reach, sweeping momentum
Broad, forceful, practical and easy to teach anywhere, the boxing extends its reach while keeping the parent art's habits.
Tan San and the name Beisheng
Tan San and his successors fused the parent art with northern boxing and medicine, naming their Guangzhou branch Beisheng.
Confucian, Chan and Daoist threads
The school unites Confucian, Chan and Daoist ideas, joining form and spirit to cultivate essence, breath and spirit.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
It originated in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, and is mainly distributed in the Baiyun, Yuexiu, Liwan, and Huadu districts of Guangzhou, Guangdong, gradually radiating to the surrounding areas; it has now spread to more than 40 countries and regions overseas.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Cailifu Boxing.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The style is transmitted through the master-disciple method, with students flourishing in great numbers and techniques refined in both the northern and southern styles. At present, Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut is in relatively good condition, with more than one million practitioners at home and abroad. Guangzhou Beisheng Choy Li Fut is one of the important schools of Chinese Southern Fist, with a long history and profound cultural depth; it is of great value for the study of Southern Fist, Chinese martial arts, the history of Guangzhou, and Lingnan culture.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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