Tung Hu-ling was a master of t'ai chi ch'uan, known for teaching Yang style and Tung style. Born in Ren County, Hebei, China, his father Tung Ying-chieh was a top disciple of Yang Chengfu and famous for his fighting skills. Tung Hu-ling taught in Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, then emigrated to Hawaii, founding a school in Honolulu, teaching workshops around the world, and continuing the Tung family legacy.
Early Life
Tung trained under his father Tung Ying-chieh, Yang-style Grandmaster Yang Chengfu, and several other well-known teachers, practicing the slow set for eight years, learning the sword after ten years, and the saber after fourteen, then moving on to advanced study. As an adult he taught t'ai chi ch'uan in Hebei, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other cities in China.
In 1947 he moved to Hong Kong with his brothers, to help his father run the Dong Ying Kit Tai Chi Chuan Gymnasium. The words "Ying Kit" were based on the Cantonese pronunciation of his father's name, in which "chieh" became "kit". Similarly, from that time Tung Hu-ling's name was often written as "Tung Fu Ling", in which "hu" became the Cantonese "fu". He assisted his father in producing the 1948 book, 太極拳釋義, posing for photographs of the Ying Jie Fast Form. Beginning in 1954, he established branches of the Tung Ying Kit school in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, and in 1956 he published his own book on t'ai chi, 太極拳使用法, in which his brother Tung Jun-ling posed with him in photographs.
After his father's death in 1961, he continued leading classes at the Tung Ying Kit schools across the region, with his sister Jasmine Mood-lay Tung and his son Tung Kai Ying. Then in 1965 he was invited to tour North America to promote t'ai chi in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Hawaii. During that tour he was interviewed by the editor of Black Belt magazine, resulting in an extensive cover story that introduced t'ai chi ch'uan to a wider American audience. The writer marveled at Tung's ability to neutralize an attack by a larger man, who was "stopped suddenly in his tracks, bounced back into the air, and sent crashing into a wall", while Tung "seemed hardly to have exerted himself". In 1966 he immigrated to Honolulu to establish a new school and home base in the USA. His son Tung Kai Ying joined him there in 1970, then in 1971 established his own school in Los Angeles. He continued to travel, including visits to China where he helped train his younger son Dong Zheng Chen and grandson Alex Dong, who joined him in Hawaii in 1983 and took over the school there as he retired. Alex Dong later established a school in New York, in 2003, while Tung Kai Ying's son Tung Chen-Wei David is a master instructor based at the LA location. The family continues to travel and teach in the US, Europe, and Asia.
In Memory of a Modest Man
Tung Hu-ling passed away in Honolulu on November 29, 1992. A T'ai Chi magazine cover story paid tribute early the following year with articles on the man, his art, and his life, in which his disciple Wu Ta-yeh noted, "Despite Master Tung’s superb accomplishment, he was very modest and never talked about his own achievements. Because of this attitude of his, his students also did not publicize him or create an image for him. This is the reason why he has been little known in the United States as compared to other Taijiquan teachers. He never criticized other styles or other teachers. In fact, he never said, 'Wrong,' to his students, but just made the correction. This attitude perhaps reflects his mature training in Taijiquan."
