Master Leong Fu Manuals, 1956 (KUNG-FU KARATO ATADO PAI).
The Grand Master and founder of the base system is a man called LEONG FU LEE, who initially studied Hung Gar and Northern Tong Long. He left China when it became a republic in 1948, moving first to Okinawa in Japan where he studied Okinawan Karate.
He later moved to Penang, Malaysia, where he opened his own school of Martial Arts calling it 'Atado Karato' (Atado was Leong's nickname). It was here he met another master teaching his pupils Wing Chun and Indonesian Silat.
The name of this Master who later became his friend was DI-SUM-SI. Master Leong then amalgamated the two styles and called the new system 'ATADO PAI' (Atado's Way).
In the United Kingdom the style of Atado Pai is little known, taught only to a small number of pupils. A man called Mike James, who was a first Dan in Mushinado Karate, brought it to Wales. He became aware of Atado Pai after a trip to London, where he met an old Chinese gentleman who convinced him that Atado Pai would serve him better in old age than his strength based Karate.
The old man did this not simply by talking, but by defeating him with speed and agility, this art was handed down to five pupils.
In 1983 Mike James retired as Chief Instructor to follow a life in politics, and by 1986 only two of the five original pupils were left.
One of these two men continued to follow traditional Atado Pai. The other, a man named LYN DAVIES, feeling that the traditional system was outdated and inefficient in some areas, had been developing a modified form.
Due to objections raised by other Atado Pai instructors, he changed the name of the new system to 'LEONG GAR' Kung Fu (Leong Family Kung Fu).
This was later changed to its present, more descriptive name of 'HONG LUNG DO', which means 'The Way Of The Red Dragon'.
Great influence in the new style came from a man named Colin Morgan, a Ki-Aikido exponent, weapons expert and tactician, trained in Japan, whose knowledge of Japanese Martial Arts is great, and the style owes much to him for sharing his great knowledge with Lyn.
In 1987 two of Lyn's senior pupils moved to England and began to teach Hong Lung Do outside Wales in London and Bristol. A third instructor moved to Birmingham in 1991 with the hope of spreading 'The Way Of The Red Dragon' throughout the rest of the U.K. and ultimately beyond.
The early life of Edward Leong Lee Fu (1932-1991) is somewhat enigmatic, but it is believed that he learnt Ju Jitsu as a teenager in Malaysia from Japanese officers stationed there following the invasion. By the 1950s, he was a professional wrestler, touring Britain for three months and then travelling to Singapore in 1957 for a much-anticipated showdown with Emile Czaja, better known as "King Kong", with the match ending in a no contest.
Shortly after the Singapore bout, Leong Fu released this set of training cards for his patented Karato style to tap into a growing Western fascination with Asian martial arts - a trend reflected in sports but also in cinema and literature. In the United Kingdom, the British Judo Association was founded in 1948, with the British Karate Association following in 1964. Several years later, Hollywood's "Kung fu wave" began to gather momentum with the films of Bruce Lee. For Leong Fu, the West represented an expansive market. His adverts appear in the 1960s in a wide range of American and British periodicals, such as Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and, more unusually, British Homing World, the official magazine of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association. These adverts, signed "Asia's Greatest Karato Master: Leong Fu", promised readers a chance to "learn direct from the Orient" a technique that "paralyzes aggressors within seconds". For an enthusiast dreaming of karate mastery, the present cards were ideal.
In one final twist in the tale of Leong Fu, following retirement, he opened a restaurant in Malaysia and grew it into a national franchise.