My First Day at Malcolm Sue Kung Fu School: My Introduction to Ging Mo Kune
- Alan Figueroa
- Sep 20
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 22
By Alan Figueroa
First Impressions
Back in 1996, at the age of 16, I walked into the Malcolm Sue Kung Fu School with no clear expectations—just a desire to train. I didn’t know what Ging Mo Kune was; I didn't know that it had derived from Chow Gar Tong Long Pai (Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu). Nor would it have mattered because I didn’t even know what I was looking for. But something caused me to stay.
The atmosphere that first day was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The school felt disciplined and structured, yet somehow mysterious. There were at least a hundred students in the hall and when they all performed the school’s hand drill in unison, it was like I had stepped into the Shaolin temple. I just stood there watching, half in awe, half in disbelief.
That moment didn’t just impress me—it pulled me in. I sensed that beneath the surface there was a philosophy at work. Something worth uncovering.
Training and Survival
That first day planted a seed, but it would take years before I truly grasped the power of Ging Mo Kune’s core philosophy. “Use attack as defense, allow no obstruction” wasn’t just a concept—it was a survival strategy. I didn’t like confrontation. The idea of striking first felt unnatural.
But the training was clear: if you sensed danger, you moved first. We drilled attack combinations relentlessly, not to retaliate, but to eliminate hesitation. Partnered exercises taught us to trust our instincts and act without delay.
I understood the logic early on, but the deeper impact didn’t land until much later. Life has a way of testing you. And when it did, I realized that Ging Mo Kune had been preparing me—not to fight, but to survive.
Sart Sau Gung: The First Form
The first form everyone learns is called Sart Sau Ging—Killing Hand Skill. It is simple, direct, and forward-moving, containing only attacks. There are no blocks, no evasions—just pure forward pressure. The applications were immediately clear: each movement was designed to strike first and keep moving forward.
After learning it, I was thrilled to join the hundred or so students performing it together. That experience was unforgettable. The simplicity of Sart Sau Gung concealed a profound strategic logic that echoed throughout the entire syllabus.
From Form to Philosophy
Sart Sau Gung wasn’t just a technical introduction—it was a preview of Ging Mo Kune’s deeper structure. Its emphasis on forward pressure and decisive action reflected a broader worldview. That worldview was embedded in the system’s core philosophies, which shaped every drill, form, and application.
To understand Ging Mo Kune fully, I had to explore the principles that gave it life. These weren’t abstract ideas—they were tactical, lived, and relentlessly practiced.
Core Philosophies of Ging Mo Kune
The opening stages of the Ging Mo Kune syllabus distill Malcolm Sue’s decades of Chow Gar Tong Long Pai training as well as the knowledge he gained through his training pilgrimage to China where he mastered Chen Style Tai Ji Quan and traditional Chinese medicine, into a concise, high-impact progression defined by three core philosophies:
Use attack as your indestructible spiritual strength.
Awareness is the spirit, attack is the foundation of thought.
Attack like thunder from heaven, retreat like dust of the earth.
From the very first hand drill—Sart Sau Gung’s unbroken forward pressure—to paired applications and relentless conditioning, these principles are both explained explicitly and absorbed through repetition. Over years of training, awareness, decisive offense, and tactical intangibility cease to feel like separate lessons and fuse into a living system. It shapes not only how you fight but how you move through life with proactive intent.
This distilled framework doesn’t just stand alone—it reflects the journey and vision that led to Ging Mo Kune’s creation.
A Modern Interpretation
To grasp the full intent behind these principles, we must look at the man who shaped them. Malcolm Sue’s synthesis of martial wisdom wasn’t theoretical—it was lived, refined, and reimagined through experience.
Malcolm Sue moved to Queensland, Australia, in the 1950s with his family. Malcolm Sue spent his youth working in their late-night food shop. The shop, a regular stop for drunken partygoers, became a flashpoint for racially charged hostility—exposing him to the harsh realities of prejudice of 1950s Australia. To defend himself, he practiced boxing until fate stepped in and he met fellow Hongkonger, Nat Yuen, a medical student who was also a Chow Gar Tong Long practitioner.
Together with his brother and a few other Chinese friends, Malcolm Sue started the first Chow Gar Tong Long training club in Australia. After Nat Yuen graduated and returned to Hong Kong, Malcolm Sue became head of the club. After decades of teaching Chow Gar Tong Long Pai, Malcolm Sue traveled to China in the 1980s. There he mastered Chen-style Tai Ji Quan and trained as a traditional Chinese doctor.
Whether all the details of Ging Mo Kune's origin story were true or not did not matter to me, what mattered to me was its purpose—it framed Ging Mo Kune as a modern interpretation of Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, an interpretation engineered for survival.
Over time, what Malcolm Sue built through experience, and I absorbed through practice, I began to question. The structure he created reflected decades of refinement, but it was through my own cross training with other martial arts that I began to test its substance. Understanding the roots of Ging Mo Kune allowed me to interpret its strengths and limitations with clarity—and ultimately, to evolve beyond them.
Building My Own System
When I founded my own club, DMXMA in 2018, I built a training framework centered on full-contact sparring. From day one, my students learn how to deal with live resistance. This is done in a manner that befits their current technical progression, which instills in them from day one the ability to make decisions under pressure.
Now, 7 years after starting DMXMA, I measure my students’ progress not only by their effectiveness in sparring but by how faithfully they embody the school motto, which reminds us to be kind, considerate, honest, and humble—especially during sparring—because these qualities are the essence of a martial artist. We must be honest in our level of resistance so we’re not giving our training partners a false sense of security. We must be considerate in the level of force we apply, ensuring it’s appropriate to our partner’s experience and ability. And we must be humble enough to acknowledge when our training partner has bested us.
Martial arts can be more than just fighting—they can be a vehicle that prepares people to navigate the real world with clarity and care. At DMXMA, students learn to make decisions under pressure, treat others with respect, and take responsibility for their actions. These habits don’t stay on the mats—they follow them into classrooms, workplaces, and homes. That’s why our training system is more than a curriculum.
As someone who works in the community services sector, I see firsthand how critical it is to invest in people—not just through support, but through skill-building and ethical development. That’s why social reinvestment matters to me. Martial arts, when taught with integrity, can empower individuals to become mentors, role models, and contributors to the wellbeing of others. DMXMA is designed to be more than a martial arts club. It’s a vehicle for cultivating the adaptable, ethical mindset that my students need to become effective citizens in our community.
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