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Biography of Sifu Ngu

The First Steps In Canada
How I Brought Kung Fu To Canada:

John Abbot College

I came to Canada to further my studies. I went to John Abbot College near Montreal to complete my pre-university studies. John Abbot College is about 20 kilometers west of downtown Montreal, located in the little town St. Anne de Bellevue. When I first came to Canada, I never dreamt that I was going to become a Kung Fu instructor or a Sifu as it was not my goal at that time. Neither had I ever thought of becoming a movie star or a performer. I practiced Kung Fu primarily because I had and still have a great passion for it. Although in Malaysia while I was studying White Crane Kung Fu, I already have been very actively teaching and assisting other students in the school. At John Abbot College I started teaching solely for the purpose of having buddies to train with.

We started in the basement of the college where there were classrooms. We would simply move all the desks and chairs to the side and we would train in these classrooms. The residence was quite big, anywhere between 200 to 300 students and since it was a closed environment, the word about Kung Fu lessons spread very quickly. Our number grew very fast also thanks to the remnants of the "Bruce Lee Craze" and at times we even had to train outside. As our class size grew, some students asked me permission to request formalized training equipment and gym space from the college. We were able to elevate the class to a course and we obtained funds to buy equipment and the college put me on their payroll. It was quite attractive to me because what they paid was eight times more than what I could have made with a part-time job. So it was great financially speaking and at the same time I felt I was doing something very rewarding. This went on until I finished my studies at John Abbot College. I never counted how many we were in the class, but we were around 30 - 40 in all.

Once the structure of the class was more formalized, the learning curve with regards to how to organize things also grew, e.g. in terms of having uniforms, where to order them. This organizational experience helped me to set up schools in the years to come.

Concordia University

I was accepted to the Faculty of Engineering at Concordia University and some of the students who were with me at John Albert also went to Concordia the same year. Eventually, we all wanted to continue the program there whereas the program at John Albert College basically died when I left. This in itself was a lesson for me in such a way that when I left Concordia, I made a pledge and stipulated as my wish that the club at the University will never stop or diminish even after my departure. I made it a point to give the directions and outline all the steps so that the club at Concordia will never cease to operate and this is one of the reasons why the club is still there today. We went through the same route by approaching the Athletic Department to start the course in Concordia. However, to do so was a much bigger task than before as there were many existing programs at the University: from basketball to dancing, from Tai Chi to Tai-Kwan-Do to Karate, etc., etc. With our perseverance to convince the Department that we desperately needed the space to train, a compromise was finally worked out. We had to prove to the Coordinator that we really had a certain number of students interested otherwise, we would lose the right to use the University space. Everyone wanted a convenient time slot, not one from mid-night to one in the morning, so we had to work hard to start up the course, make ourselves known to the student body and convince the Coordinator. At that time, I was a less experience instructor. I was in my early twenties and even though technically I had no problems, I did not have enough projection of maturity. Notwithstanding all the difficulties, we managed to do all the groundwork and started the club.

The club size was always over 30 people. It wasn't easy because not much Kung Fu was taught at that time and even though people had heard of it they didn't know much about it. This was especially true for White Crane Kung Fu. It had its blessing and its since, nobody knew what it was and because of its rarity, it also became a novelty.

After I had taught Kung Fu at Concordia for a few years, I realized that our training was discontinuous as we relied greatly on the availability of the University facilities. Initially we had to share the gym with two or three other martial arts classes that were held simultaneously. It was like having an imaginary wall between the different classes, but we all managed to get along. Eventually, our number grew so much that we were able to have the whole gym to ourselves. The discontinuity came from the fact that the University was closed on holidays like Christmas in the winter and exams at the end of the academic year or some other special events in the summer. I found that this didn't work well for the Kung Fu school because every time we stopped for a while, people started to lose interest: it was harder to get going, people started to gain weight, to "lose steam", etc. I began to see the necessity of having another place to train.

Old Montreal: 15 Notre Dame Street

I met a Tai Chi instructor by the name of Tom Brown. We got along well and we usually trained together. He was also starting a Tai Chi class and we often discussed about our logistic problems. Together we rented a place in the heart of old Montreal at 15 Notre Dame Street close to the Court House. We started at the fifth floor. It was all we could afford. It was an old building, but the floor was beautiful. There were no washroom facilities and we had to use the portable ones. I always managed to train under simple and crude conditions so when I see people today who complain about class size, weather conditions, whether it's too hot or too cold, I see it as excuses for not training, as a lack of motivation. So in those days, when the students walked all the way up to the fifth floor as there were no elevators, it was already good a warm up exercise. This was the first school in Montreal, and I shared it with Tom Brown for a great number of years.

When we were more established, we moved to the second floor. The studio space was much nicer. It was previously a dance studio with nice mirrors, bars for stretching, good size change rooms and washrooms, a room for weight training and conditioning. When the lease was up and Tom Brown stopped teaching, we moved to the third floor which was smaller. All in all the school had been at this address for a number of years.

The name of the school was Shao Lin White Crane Kung Fu Society (and not All Masters) mainly because only White Crane Kung Fu was taught. I was introduced to the Northern Shao Lin and Wing Chun in the early Eighties. I began teaching both the Northern Shao Lin and Wing Chun after I moved to Toronto.

From Montreal to Toronto

I moved from Montreal to Toronto because of my engineering career and to join my family who had come to Toronto a year before me. I did not have a school in Toronto for a number of years because when I first moved from Montreal, there was no committed and qualified instructor at the club there. For example, Lorne Bernard who was my student in Montreal only had a couple of years of experience in Kung Fu. Therefore, I made a commitment to go to teach in Montreal every weekend with the main intention of "grooming" the two or three assistants who ran the classes, and to have my presence there so that the student population would not drop. I didn't want to see the club at Concordia and old Montreal to cease operation because of one simple reason: once the sign of the school is taken down, it is a hundred times harder to put it up again. Once the people are dispersed, it is a hundred times harder to gather them together again. Therefore, I just bit the bullet and for four years drove thousands upon thousands of kilometers to go there and make sure that the school in Montreal never ceased to operate. I remember many times as I was driving alone in these numerous trips, I would practice Chi-Shao on the steering wheel or something else. On two occasions I had a "brush with death". Once I fell asleep and the car skidded across the other side of the highway just like in the James Bond movies. Luckily no car was and I didn't get hurt. Another time, it was a terrible snowstorm and I hit the guardrail. I kept on driving and then skidded into a field. Some student from Queens University helped me get out of the rut, but I still continued driving. It took me twelve hours that time to go to Montreal. Looking back, I would not know if it was stupidity or determination that kept me going in the snowstorm. One thing for certain was the fact that it had taken a lot of sweat, blood, and pride to set up the school and I wasn't going to let it die. Eventually, Lorne was interested and committed enough to look after the school. There are four schools now in Montreal and the club is well established.

In 1982, I met Sifu Niu Wei-Lu who was specialized in Northern Shaolin Kung Fu from China. He was in Montreal for a cultural exchange. I had been teaching for a while already, but I found I had some difficulty retaining children in the school. After years of experience, I found that certain curriculum like that of Wing Chun and White Crane is not suitable for children because of the nature of the curriculum. They found them boring or not impressive. As I met Sifu Niu Wei-Lu and discussed this problem with him, he suggested that I use Northern Shao Lin and said he would teach me. So I studied under him for a couple of years before he returned to China.

From 1989, I became more involved with the Canadian Chinese Martial Arts Federation and met Master Xu Gong-Wei (originally from Nan Jin). He is also a Sifu of Tai Chi and Northern Shao Lin and I furthered my study of Northern Shao Lin with him. From 1994, I have always invited Master Shu to come over to our school and stay with me from Vancouver every summer. I also furthered my study of Wing Chun with Sifu Tang Wa (Sunny Tang). In the latter part of my studies with Sifu Tang, I did a lot of teaching duties and particularly assisted him in setting up Northern Shao Lin classes for children. When I left, there were 50 - 60 students.

It was not until 1991 that I began to set up the first school in Ontario, here in Mississauga. The first school was on Lakeshore and Dixie. I subleased the studio there. Afterwards, I moved to Cawthra and Queensway area and subleased another studio. Eventually, in 1994, I moved to the present studio at Dixie and Matheson and that was when we had the whole school to ourselves. In 1998, we expanded to double units with three studios. Therefore, the school in Ontario really started here in Mississauga since 1991. Today, we have three affiliated clubs: the Buddhist Temple, the Tai Pei Cultural Center and the Sudbury club.

From Shao Lin White Crane Kung Fu Club to All Masters:

The first reason we changed the name of Shao Lin White Crane Kung Fu was because I was not teaching Shao Lin White Crane only. I also taught Wing Chun and Northern Shao Lin. Secondly, I felt it was not fair to use the name of any one particular kind of the three kinds of Kung Fu as the name of the studio as the name of one cannot represent adequately the curriculum of the other two. Therefore after a lot of debate with myself, the name All Masters emerged to represent all the masters under whom I had studied. I feel that in calling the school All Masters I have paid my respect to all my Sifus. In terms of the Chinese name, I decided to put my own name as I could not put all the masters' names.

©2007 All Masters Martial Arts Center