Brief Biography of Mr. Huang Sheng Shyan

Mr. Huang Sheng Shyan was born on 15th February,1910 in the Ling Seng District of Fukien Province, China. Encouraged by his parents he began to study Chinese Martial Art at an early age. Being highly-gifted he soon mastered several styles but excelled in particular in the White Crane system. In 1932, when he was only 22, he took part in the Fukien Provincial Boxing Contests and won acclaim by defeating all other contestants to become the provincial champion.
He studied Chinese medicine as a profession and became a physician of no mean repute. Eventually he left his home in Fukien and traveled as far as Shanghai. While he healed and relieved suffering he was ever on the look out for opportunities to widen his knowledge of Chinese Martial Arts. His search ended in his early thirties when he was introduced to Professor Cheng Man Ching, an internationally known exponent of Taiji chuan. After following Professor Cheng for some years and being personally taught by him, Mr. Huang returned to Fukien, In 1949, he left with his family for Taiwan and there he practiced as a physician as well as taught Taiji in Taipei. In 1955, in a series of open contests in Taiji Chuan held in Taipei, Mr. Huang was the winner of the heavy weight class, while two of his pupils became champions respectively of medium and light weight classes. The triple champion ships going to the same Taiji family ( Yang Style ) aroused much interest and admiration. As his fame spread to Southeast Asia, enthusiasts in Singapore wrote to him and invited him to teach Taiji there. And so it was that he came to Singapore in 1956 and conducted Taiji classes in the Chinese Y.M.C.A., the Yung Kiaw Physical Culture Association and the Singapore Youth. Sports Centre. In October, 1959, on the invitation of the Huang Clan Association, he came to Sarawak and soon had classes going in the Association’s premises. The following year, on the expiry of his contract, he co-founded the Kuching Taiji Physical Culture School with a number of his prominent students. This school, which was later registered with the Education Department, was to be the forerunner of five more other schools established in the intervening years in the Third and Fourth Divisions of Sarawak and in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. In the past decade of Taiji’s existence in East Malaysia, thousands of students have learn the art at one or another of these schools. It is gratifying to record that through the boundless energy, enthusiasm and dedication of Mr. Huang and his trained instructors, Taiji has continued to flourish and become a popular form of exercise. The art indeed has much to recommend it, whether the object of the learner is to take the exercise to keep fit or whether his quest goes deeper, to acquire a subtle but effective form of self -defence which has been vindicated by time. In 1970 Mr. Huang, in his 60th year, met the challenge of Mr. Liaw Kong Seng, well-known wrestler from Singapore, in a friendly contest to raise fund for charity. He won without difficulty by applying the principle of Taiji alone. This fact speaks eloquently not only for his expertise but also for the Yang School of Taiji of which Mr. Huang is doubtless an exponent of the first order.