Commando Close Combat

Major Chang Yen Ying (閰英 少校) was born in1915 in Hunan, China – a province noted for its top tier martial artists. She hailed from a martial arts family. Her family included a brother, whose specialty was the three section steel whip (三節鞭) and who was a Hunan Provincial Champion – fighting and beating 10 challengers in a row.

Major Chang was a senior student of the famous martial artist, national hero and bodyguard of Sun Yat-Sen, Du Xinwu (杜心五, 1869-1953). A female military academy graduate, she was sent, in 1939, to teach close combat, empty-hand, dagger, polearms, dadao, and rifle and bayonet to male and female ‘commando units’ (i.e., 遊擊隊 lit. ‘mobile strike teams’) at the Nanyue Guerilla Cadre Training Class (Hengshan, Nanyue, Hunan).

From her, I learned Liu He Tam Tui (六合潭腿), the armed and unarmed commando version of lián bù quan (連步拳) and other long fist routines, as well as dàdāo (大刀)

For more information on Chinese Commando Training, visit here for DVDs or here for our Monograph #1.