09/02/2026
This one hits really hard…
Heard the news that on September 2, we lost Chen Kuan Tai. For those of you that don’t know, he was a very popular kung fu movie star from Hong Kong in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
As a young boy growing up really poor and in a one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood, watching kung fu movies was one of my favorite things to do.
I would dream of one day being able to learn real Chinese kung fu and would also wish that I could train with these incredible people. I was watching them in the movies. Little did I know my dreams would become reality.
Much later in the year 2000, at the age of around 26, I met my current kung fu teacher, master Chow Keung, and in his school, Chen Kuan Tai was the most senior kung fu brother.
So a few years after meeting my teacher, I got to meet the legendary Chen Kuan Tai. This was a dream come true. The only other person that could impact me the same would be to meet Bruce Lee, lol.
Chen Kuan Tai would tell me that he started as a firefighter in Hong Kong and worked for around three years.
He claimed that the job was too dangerous and told me some of the stories. One story is that a bomb went off in a subway due to a terrorist attack while he was driving the engine. The engine flipped over onto its side.
The other incident was that he was in a building that collapsed, and he had to jump out the window into the next building…
So he decided to do something much safer, full-contact fighting, lol. He joined under the famous kung fu teacher Chan Sau Chung of the Tai Shing Pek Kwar style.
At the time, the Hong Kong kung fu fighters were competing against a lot of Thai boxers and not doing quite so well. Chen Kuan Tai was the first champion from his school. This gave him some fame and held him and his movie career.
He became very famous working at the Shaw Brothers studio and even got into writing and directing his own movies.
I became very close with Chen Kuan Tai, and he really enjoyed sharing stories and talking to me about a great many things.
I met him several times in the early 2000s, and I know he was very fond of me also.
Later, I had made a very difficult decision to branch off on my own and open my own kung fu school. Many people that I thought close to me cut off their friendships with me.
Chen Kuan Tai believed in me and stood by me when many wouldn’t. He wasn’t the kind of person that believed what other people said. He would go directly to the source to find out all sides of the stories before he made a decision.
He was a very wise man. He could predict things before they would happen. Around this time, he would consult me and explain things, and I was really amazed that everything he said was true.
We all have difficulties in life, but all of my experiences with Chen Kuan Tai, I saw him always charming, always in a good mood, always positive, and ready to enjoy the day.
When I opened my school, he came here to America to help me, and he really did help me. Not just with advice and training, he helped build our weapon racks and was constantly cleaning the school, even vacuuming lol. I have pictures to prove that lol.
He always believed in me and treated me like a son. In fact, I would call him my third father because of his generosity and constant communication through social media to check up on me.
I actually just spoke with him a few weeks ago. He seemed very happy. He would normally send me voice messages, so now I will have to save those forever.
I will never forget all of our conversations and all the things I learned from him. It was an amazing experience to truly call him my friend and even call him family.
To actually be able to meet one of my childhood heroes, and he is still one of my heroes to this day.
Chen Kuan Tai (BaBaSahm), I love you and miss you dearly. Thank you so much for everything you gave me. I will never forget you. I hope you can rest easy and keep a spot open for me at the kung fu school in heaven.
I will always keep your name alive, your teachings, and all of your great advice.
