Grand Master Pan had Iron Fist, a warm heart
Pan Quin Fu, ‘Grand Master Pan’ of Kitchener Born: China, date unknown Died: June 29, 2017, of a heart attack
Pan Quin Fu’s modest practice space on the upper floor of a 1950s Kitchener house hardly lives up to his legendary status as a Chinese martial arts star, a man known as “Iron Fist.”
Since Pan died, his room filled with memorabilia, hall of fame certificates and martial arts weapons has become a shrine to the extraordinary skills of a man known as Grand Master Pan, a man whose life reads like a movie script
Pan was featured in martial arts movies, competed in and won countless competitions, choreographed new moves, taught the Chinese special forces how to fight, tracked down gangsters under Mao Tse-tung’s Cultural Revolution, judged the highest levels of competition and despite possessing a menacing scowl, Pan had a huge heart.
Student Marlene Ibrahim said Pan worked hard at cultivating relationships. He had never married or had children and his siblings were all in China so he chose his friends carefully, making sure they understood how special they were to him.
“He remembered everyone’s birthday and would call to sing Happy Birthday,” she said. “Then he’d take us out for dinner.”
Among his other skills, Pan possessed a good voice, having sung in Chinese operas.
“He wanted family, he made us his family,” said Dianne Laughton, one of the nine students Pan hand-picked to work with him. You didn’t sign up for a Grand Master Pan class, he had to choose you and the students never really understood his criteria. It wasn’t about martial arts skills, but something deeper.
Pan was born in China the middle child in a family of six children living in a poor, rural area of Shandong Province. He was never really sure of his birth date but likely in the 1940s.
When Pan was only six, the parents died leaving all the siblings to fend for themselves. Pan being small, was often bullied and he would see his siblings also being bullied, a terrifying experience that inspired him to study martial arts.
He once explained to a reporter how neighbourhood thugs regularly terrorized the children and rather than cowering he decided to toughen up, punching at walls to strengthen his fists, never giving his bleeding knuckles a chance to heal before punching another hard surface.
Those grossly calloused fists would eventually earn him the title “Iron Fist” and be featured in every photo of the grand master, a reminder of his determination and fierceness.
As his strength increased, his enemies backed off.
“If fist hard, very useful,” he told a reporter. “One punch, boom, face like a balloon.”
Dianne said Pan began learning martial arts while working in a factory as a boy, after using his older brother’s identification so he would be hired. A window overlooking a back alley where people were practising martial arts gave Pan a glimpse into a world he so desperately wanted to join.
“He would watch the moves then go home and practise,” Dianne said. “He would work all day and train at night and he’d only have a bowl of soup to eat.”
With a steady income from his job, Pan was able to pay for training with some of China’s most revered martial arts masters and stories of his skill and power soon came to the attention of authorities.
By the 1980s, Pan had trained the country’s elite kung fu teams and starred alongside Jet Li in “Shaolin Temple.” After his role in the film “Silk and Iron” his fame began to spread beyond China’s borders.
The 1991 film was based on a memoir written by American author, Mark Salzman, describing his experiences teaching English in China while studying martial arts with Pan, who played himself in the film.
Around the time of the film’s release, Pan immigrated to Canada largely because he wanted to spread the skills and philosophies of Chinese martial arts.
Pan ended up in Kitchener because after living in Toronto he said there were simply “too many Chinese people.” He wasn’t learning English quickly enough.
Pan told a reporter, “I made it difficult for myself but difficult is good for me.”
Kitchener, he discovered, was close to Toronto and in this city he found an audience hungry to learn what he had to teach, lessons beyond the punches and kicks glorified in kung fu movies.
“He was a tiger,” said Dianne, speaking of her teacher’s amazing strength, flexibility and speed that seemed barely human at times.
Pan would sit for hours in the backyard tent-like structure, punching iron plates to toughen his fists, sitting with hundreds of pounds of weights on his knees to flex them backwards.
That particular skill allowed him to lift his leg straight up, bending his knee outward so he could kiss his toes.
“People think that kissing toes is impossible but I’m possible,” he told a reporter, adding mischievously, “My toes are delicious.”
Marlene and her nephew Khaleel Hosein also felt the impact of the master, from the first day he walked into a class they were taking in Waterloo.
“He had that presence, I don’t know what it was,” Marlene said.
Khaleel said Pan had such power, a punch would reverberate on the windows in the room.
“He took the power from the ground up and exploded,” he said. “He was less than 150 pounds but the building shook.”
“It was an honour to be trained by him,” said Marlene. “A lot of what he taught us was life lessons.”
Pan wanted his students to understand that being a good, kind and thoughtful person was important and that no matter what they did in life, it should be done with caring and passion, even menial jobs.
Marlene said their teacher never sought the limelight, didn’t care about money or owning things, hence he didn’t pursue a Hollywood career even though he was in demand. His life was about constant training and gaining new skills.
Dianne concluded “There can never be another Pan.”