Between 1979 and 1982, Master James started to train Wu Chu intensively, and study traditional Chinese medicine from his father, Grandmaster Chee Kim Thong. The training undertaken during these four years was ea

Wu Chu Chuan in Australia started off with a very humble beginning in the garage of a house. Class numbers were small back then, with only eight students, but did not take long to grow.

To understand the development of International Shaolin Wu Chu Chuan, Australia, we must first follow the history and story of our “Shifu”, Master James Chee. Born 1959 in Malaysia, Master James is the sixth child in his family. Master James Chee started his kung fu training at the age of 10 in the art of Wu Chu. During the early years, Master James admitted training was not taken too seriously until the death of his fourth brother who was the most outstanding student amongst all of his father’s disciples.

Master James’ fourth brother passed away in a traffic accident at the age of only 21, when Master James was 16. Seeing the great grief of his father for the loss of his brother, Master James committed to putting a more serious effort towards his martial arts training.

xtremely intensive, with a minimum of ten hours dedicated to martial arts each day. Each morning, Grandmaster Chee would wake Master James up early, where he would then follow his father until late into the night.

While still training under his father’s guidance , Master James was encouraged to instruct and grade other students, not only in Malaysia, but also whilst accompanying his father on overseas trips (such as to the United Kingdom). Grandmaster Chee would constantly stress to Master James to closely follow each of his moves, and to keep the style in its original form, as one day Master James would be following his footsteps and become his successor of the Wu Chu art.

During this period of intensive training, a fellow disciple was sent by Grandmaster Chee to ask Master James to become a disciple of his father. Initially Master James was confused and did not understand why a father would want his son to become his disciple. Master James did not understand why the current father-son relationship should hinder the usual training of kung fu. Eventually Grandmaster Chee explained, “It does not matter that I am your father, and you are my son, but you must “Bai Si” (become a disciple) to be become part of the lineage of Shaolin kung fu, and you will also discover something later”. Master James was the first of Grandmaster Chee Kim Thong’s sons to “Bai Si”. In the later years Master James then started to understand the real reason of Bye See. As a disciple he was better able to be taught, and understand and absorb the kung fu, and as part of the lineage, was able to become the Master and preserve the art.

Master James migrated to Australia in 1981 when he just turned 22. Initially, he taught Wu Chu and Wu Ji styles together to a small class of 8 students. As the class numbers grew, the class moved to the Ashfield Asian Centre and a second class was opened at Auburn a few years later.

During the early 80s, it was not uncommon to have outsiders enter the school wanting to test and question the art. Many challenges were accepted and won, often resulting in the challengers becoming our students.

Wu Chu students were also coached closely by Master James to enter into tournaments, and numerous trophies and titles were won. Whilst Australia’s Wu Chu school started to build its base and reputation locally, Grandmaster Chee would visit Master James. With each visit a lot of inner kung fu knowledge and skills were secretly passed down to Master James.

In year 2000, Grandmaster Chee instructed Master James to adopt the name “International Shaolin Wu Chu Chuan” for the school, as he intended for the school in Australia to serve as a future base where international students would be attracted to train.