Recap of the 2022 Richmond Moy Yat Kung Fu Anniversary
The weekend of May 13-15, the Richmond Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy celebrated its 36th anniversary. The past couple years have been difficult for everyone, but this year, the in-person attendance and hands training recalled a prior era, and offered a sense of bigger and better things to come.
As usual, a significant number of Sifus and students arrived early and stayed after the official events, for informal and regular class training, and for Kung Fu life, private lessons and projects with Grandmaster Moy Tung.
The Friday, Sunday and Monday classes filled the Main Street school and overflowed into the back alley. Close to 70 people, from 18 different Moy Yat Kung Fu family branches, with four generations in Grandmaster Moy Tung’s lineage, participated in the main events on Saturday. Training went on all day at the Eastern Henrico Recreation Center gym, followed by the traditional banquet dinner at Full Kee restaurant in the West End, followed by the traditional late night Chi Sao.
Something remarked on by a number of those present; just getting together to train and hang out with the extended Kung Fu family is an amazing experience. The inter-generational and inter-school training that comes out of this yields a lot of Kung Fu. Everyone helps to sharpen everyone else.
The Ving Tsun system is rich and deep, and we’re all students of it. The Moy Tung Athletic Association is a federation of independently owned and operated branch schools. Every Sifu has their own perspective on life and the system, and every branch school has its own culture, but we’re one lineage and one Kung Fu family from Grandmaster Moy Tung, disciple of Moy Yat, disciple of Yip Man (Ip Man).
During the long weekend, sometimes senior students worked with juniors, and juniors got to touch senior hands. Mostly, however, people trained in groups according to their level of experience, working on exercises and details at the direction of Grandmaster Moy Tung and Sifus under him.
On top of this, Grandmaster Moy Tung and the Sifus in his lineage shared Kung Fu verbally and with demonstrations on many occasions and in different contexts. So much Kung Fu happened that students may not remember everything they were exposed to, but they got the Kung Fu.
These anniversary seminars are always special, but this one was marked by a couple of very significant events.
On Saturday, in a first, the top five MY3 Sifus under Grandmaster Moy Tung – Moy Yat Tung, Moy Yee Tung, Moy Lung, Jan Tung and Moy Sup Tung – were in the same room at the same time, and together they managed a getaway for a private Chi Sao session.
Grandmaster Moy Tung with the five senior MY3 Sifus in his Kung Fu lineage
Sunday evening, there was another historic event. The video of Grandmaster Moy Yat’s last seminar before he passed – the year 2000 Bil Gee certification in Richmond – was screened for the first time, to a group of about 40 people.
Kept private for over two decades, Grandmaster Moy Tung, Moy Yat SSA disciple and founder of the Richmond Moy Yat Kung Fu Academy in 1986, has decided this video will be made public in the near future.
Soon, the world will have opportunity to see and hear his Sifu Moy Yat’s final word on the Ving Tsun system – what it means to have a certificate of Bil Gee from Moy Yat, and to be a Sifu in his lineage.
There’s also video of the 2022 events, from multiple camera angles – an edited collection will be available soon. If you’re a Moy Tung Kung Fu student and didn’t purchase the video in advance, you can do so at KungFuRichmond.com/shop.