GRAND MASTER DINO SALVATERA

History

  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.