GRAND MASTER DENNIS "JEW TIEN LOONG" SALVATERA
(1945-PRESENT)
HEAD MASTER OF THE U.S.A. HUNG SING BRANCH
鸿胜 蔡李佛
2ND SUCCESSOR
4TH GENERATION MASTER OF THE
HUNG SING CHOY LEE FUT SYSTEM
Grand Master Dennis "Dino" Salvatera is the current head master of the Yuen Hai/Lau Bun lineage of the Fut San Hung Sing Kwoon.
This lineage is responsible for being the very first gung fu school to
be established on American soil (circa 1921), specifically teaching the
Hung Sing Choy Lee Fut system. Today its the oldest existing school of
chinese gung fu in the United States.
GM Salvatera was born in San Francisco's Chintatown
at the Chinese Hospital. He was born in 1945, and raised during a very
racially turbulent period in America's history. Westerners didn't take
too kindly to Asians, and often mistreated them. And since GM
Salvatera was of a racially mixed background, and physically smaller
than most his own age, he often had to defend himself from bullies of
all walks of life.
Due to the circumstances, GM Salvatera had to become
a fighter from a very young age. Many of his friends were already in
street gangs, which was very common within the inner city. It was in
1958 in fact that through one of his friends who was a student of
Professor Lau Bun that GM Salvatera received his first exposure to the
Hung Sing Choy Lee Fut system. Professor Jew Leong was the 1st inheritor of
Professor Lau Bun's Hung Sing Kwoon. And after the passing of Master
Bing Chan, GM Salvatera and a group of his classmates decided they
wanted to continue their gung fu training, and chose Professor Jew as
their new sifu. This way they never went outside the family to keep up
with their learning.
After shaking off the after effects of his former
life, GM Salvatera chose to delve into learning gung fu full time.
Under Professor Jew, he trained every day for at least 4-5 hours a day,
even if no one else showed up. It was appearant that gung fu began to
take on a positive role in his life. Instead of going out and getting
into trouble, he would focus on refining and perfecting his gung fu
religiously.
Over time, GM Salvatera was becoming the main
attraction in Hung Sing street peformances held all over the San
Francisco bay area. Some of his more notable peformances were when he
demonstrated the Kwan Do, Double Hatchets, or even his 5 animal
internal form.
In
1970, at the age of 25, Salvatera began to privately teaching with his
first student (Yusef Hannibal). But his reputation as a good teacher
grew, and many wanted to come and learn from GM Salvatera. Over
time, the demand was so great GM Salvatera decided he would need a
bigger place to teach. So, at the advice of his first student, he
began teaching members of the Black Muslims, the Black Panthers, and
other youths and adults at the Famous Glyde Memorial Church. At the
same time, he was teaching San Francisco’s version of the "Red Guard"
at the old historical Hungry I.
Approximately
1975, with the encouragement of his students and friends, Salvatera
opened his own school in the Sunset District in San Francisco, calling
it the "Tien Loong Gung Fu Club". Although he had his own
group of student now Salvatera continued to make it a point to keep
returning to Professor Jew to study at the Hung Sing Studio as often
as he could and regularly returned to assist his Sifu in supervising
all the lion dance performances. A
milestone in GM Salvatera's martial arts career happened at the turn of
the century when he and a small group of students travelled to China to
uncover their roots by visting the birthplace of Hung Sing Choy Lee
Fut. Not knowing what to expect, GM Salvatera and his students
intended to make a good impression on the members of the Fut San Hung
Sing Kwoon, and set up a little demonstration where the elders of the
Fut San HSK instantly recognized Professor Lau Bun's Gung Fu as true
and authentic, directly coming from Fut San.
The
very next year in October of 2001, GM Salvatera and his school was
invited back to participate in the Fut San Hung Sing Kwoon's 150'th
anniversary celebration where he and a couple of his students were
directly involved in the opening ceremonies at one of the original Hung
SIng Kwoon's which was owned by Tong Sek. At the same time he and his
students were presented with a rare opportunity of taking new sifu's
from the birthplace itself.
In
October of 2001 Grand Master Salvatera was instrumental in
re-introducing Professor Lau Bun and the long forgotten son (Yuen Hai)
to the Fut San Hung Sing Kwoon who in turn welcomed Grand Master
Salvatera back into the family with open arms re-installing Lau Bun to
his rightful place in the family tree of the original Fut San Hung Sing
Kwoon. Since then he (GM Salvatera) continously returns to Fut San to
train under his sifu Ho Cheuk Wah. Gm Salvatera not only teaches Hung
Sing Choy Lee Fut from the Lau Bun and Chan Ngau Sing lines, outside of
China he is the only person teaching Choy Lee Fut from the Wong Sei
lineage in the United States.
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