Grandmaster Chen Rong En and the Knife

Some of my students will remember this story if they were around 7 or 8 years ago. Back at that time Grandmaster Chen Rong En still had his own school and I brought my students there once a week to practice and get direct exposure to my Sifu. I thought it was important for the students to get as much time as possible with Sifu since he was always happy to help me by correcting techniques and explaining theories. In exchange for his help, I allowed any of his students that were interested to join our class without paying an extra fee. This was before I formed The National Fut Gar Kung Fu Training Centre as it exists today.

One night I was teaching a regular class at Sifu's school. There was a group of people that had asked Sifu to borrow the back room of his school to get together to play cards. Sifu was talking to me as the students trained when suddenly we heard yelling coming from the back room. We looked over and one older gentleman came running out and said someone pulled out a knife due to an argument. We all knew that there was no back door so everyone could only come through us. Sifu told me to close the door behind him...when I tried to argue, he told me not to worry and just to make sure that my students were OK. I quickly asked the younger students and female student (I believe there was only one present at that class) to go in the change room and close the door until we told them it was OK. Sifu had already gone into the back room and closed the door. I instinctively grabbed my sword and my senior students grabbed their staves. Here is the funny part....we looked over and the older gentleman that had come out of the back room was holding a mop!!! We all waited....silence. We continued to wait.....still nothing. Finally Sifu came out of the back room and said don't worry, everything is OK. We watched the guy that was holding the knife leave...without his knife. Once everything seemed OK we got the students back and finished the class.

I later asked Grandmaster Chen if he had to fight the guy. He said no. I clarified...so he just put down his knife? Yes. Finally Sifu explained to me what happened. He walked in and the guy was very angry. He had pulled his knife because he had gotten into a dispute with one of the people in the room. Apparently he was not a person that knew them very well but was brought by one of them. When he walked in the room and closed the door, he asked the guy if he realized where he was. He said "you are pulling a weapon on my friends inside my Kung Fu school. You are giving me no choice but to kill you." The guy put down his knife and apologized. Sifu told him he should leave. That was the end of the conflict and we never saw the guy again.