A true story about Jackie Chan's time at an unorthodox boarding school explains how he developed the martial arts skills he's known for today.
Like many of the kung fu heroes Jackie Chan played on the big screen, the actor went through a rigorous and intense training process that dominated a large period of his life. The action star’s autobiography, Never Grow Up, provided a great deal of insight into the experiences that turned him into the martial artist he is today. Arguably the most important among them was the kung fu training he received in his youth.
Chan has a reputation as one of the biggest martial arts stars of all time. Much of that is built on his cinematic image, dangerous stunts in his movies, and comedic approach to fighting, but a large part of it is Jackie Chan's real fighting skills. Chan is a practitioner of multiple different forms of kung fu. The actor is proficient in Wing Chun, Northern Shaolin, and Southern Shaolin kung fu. He’s also knowledgeable in fighting styles outside of Chinese martial arts, such as hapkido, karate, and Western boxing. Years of practice in so many different martial arts disciplines has allowed Chan to develop his own unique fighting style that sets him apart from kung fu actors like Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Gordon Liu, and Donnie Yen.
Chan’s early life explains where the foundation for his fighting skills came from. In Never Grow Up, Chan explained that when he was a child, he was enrolled in a boarding school called the China Drama Academy where he became a student of martial artist Master Yu Jim-Yuen. According to Chan, the curriculum was centered around singing, dancing, and martial arts, rather than literature, math, history, and writing, which were all areas that were ultimately ignored. Chan convinced his father to sign a contract that would leave him there for ten years. However, didn’t realize at the time that entering the school would effectively “end” his childhood due to the constant training that he was forced to endure throughout the next decade.
Jackie Chan’s Martial Arts Training Explained
To turn his students into talented fighters, Yu made Chan go through grueling exercises that lasted most of the day and only allowed for six hours of sleep each night. For ten years, Chan and his classmates followed a strict and intense training regimen. During this time, bullying by his fellow students wasn’t discouraged, which only made his experience worse. Plus, Chan said that he and the students constantly trained without breaks and were often punished with beatings in order to make them work harder. Getting sick “wasn’t allowed” either, as Chan was forced to push through it the one time he did come down with a sickness at the boarding school.
The Seven Little Fortunes Explained
As Chan’s training continued into his teenage years, there came a point where it came time for him to become a member of the Seven Little Fortunes, a group of Yu’s best students whose jobs were to put on public shows where they had to showcase their martial arts skills in front of crowds. As a result, Chan and classmates such as Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao would put on singing, dancing, and kung fu performances while still undergoing their training under Yu in the 1960s.
What Happened To The Seven Little Fortunes?
While Chan and the various members of the Seven Little Fortunes at the academy admittedly faced several rough years at the academy, many of them – not the least of which being Chan himself – found great success in the martial arts movie industry. As he said in his book, these years were what really made him “Jackie Chan”. Also, the fact that it wasn’t just Chan who was morphed into a kung fu movie star by the academy speaks volumes about how much their training – brutal as it was – paid off for the Seven Little Fortunes. In fact, quite a few became big names in Hong Kong. Yuen Tak made several movies with Shaw Brothers Studios, and Yuen Wah was cast in dozens of villain roles in Hong Kong action films, including Jackie Chan’sDragons Forever. Biao and Hung partnered with Chan on several of his movies and formed a trio known as the Three Dragons. Hung, for his part, became an accomplished movie director and a huge star in his own right. Yuen Qui, Yuen Mo, and Yuen Tai all led notable movie careers as well.
Related Topics About The AuthorRecommended Articles
ncG1vNJzZmirk6eyprrRmqWtZpOkunC2wJyiop1dmLWiuoykrKefXZvCbsDRmqCnoZ6cerSx1Z6lZqSZqcGtsYyfpquspaOytHs%3D