The Kung Fu fighting style, Five Pattern Hung Kuen, is a traditional southern Chinese martial art dating back to the Siu Lam Shaolin Monastery and was developed by the famous nun Ng Mui and her counterpart monk Miu Hin.

Five Pattern Hung Kuen is based on the fighting styles of the Dragon, Crane, Tiger, Leopard and Snake. Whereby the characteristics of each animal have been honed into their own set. Each animal set can be considered as a fighting system in its own right, however, each will be lacking in one aspect or another. Consequently, only after studying the whole system of all 5 animals can a student consider that they have a complete martial art.

As stated above, Five Pattern Hung Kuen was developed by Ng Mui and Miu Hin, the knowledge of the system was then passed down through various masters until during the earlier part of the last century, Yeung Shut Fu taught it to Yuen Yik Kai, who was to become one of the most respected Kung Fu Grandmasters in Hong Kong. Sadly, Yuen Yik Kai passed away in 1984 but not before teaching the extremely rigorous training to Master Vic Gnash at Yuen Yik Kai’s school in Kowloon.

Following many years of study under the Grandmaster, Vic returned to London where he opened a school and in 1971, Mike Jolliff started learning the system from Master Gnash. Mike attained the level of Master himself in 1982 having travelled to China to meet and train with Yuen Yik Kai. Mike had the privilege of training with the Grandmaster a number of times after the visit to China and has now trained two other Master's of Five-Pattern Hung Kuen since Vic’s untimely death in 1996.