Grandmaster Jason Lau grew up in Hong Kong in a martial arts family. Both
his mother and father were performers and martial artists in the famous
Chinese Opera. Grandmaster Lau’s mother trained him in the Northern Shaolin
style from the time he could walk, and drilled him constantly.
When he was about twelve years old, a fellow classmate at LaSalle Academy
helped him in a fight against several English boys. It was during this fight
that Grandmaster Lau first saw Wing Chun in action. He was so impressed, he
immediately found a school to learn the system. Master Jiu Wan accepted him
as a student, and he began to train in secret, fearful that his mother would
discover that he was training in another style.
Grandmaster Lau trained with Jiu Wan until age nineteen, when he left
Hong Kong to come to America. He soon settled in an area of Brooklyn known
as Flatbush. As Grandmaster Lau opened his school and got to know the
local merchants, he discovered that crime in his neighborhood was
widespread. He decided to use his Wing Chun skills to defend his
neighborhood. He soon became well known and appreciated as a vigilante, both
by the shopkeepers and the police.
As his reputation spread, he came to the attention of retired General
Mitchell WerBell III, who was scouting for instructors for his
counter-terrorist training camp, SIONICS. General WerBell recruited
Grandmaster Lau to teach hand to hand combat at the camp in Powder Springs,
Georgia. Grandmaster Lau so impressed the General with his abilities that he
soon became the camp’s chief instructor and the General’s personal
bodyguard.
Shortly after General WerBell’s death in 1983, Grandmaster Lau again opened
a Wing Chun academy, this time in Smyrna, Georgia. His school and his
reputation grew in the Atlanta area, and he was often featured in news
specials and magazine and newspaper articles.
In the early 1990s, Grandmaster Lau was finally able to realize his dream of
designing and building a Wing Chun temple. He and his students labored for
two years to build the academy, nestled in a wooded Atlanta suburb.
Grandmaster Lau formed his school into a family. He treats his students as
if they were his sons and daughters, and the students treat each other as
brothers and sisters. The school that he designed and built is their home.
Grandmaster Lau is currently finishing an instructional Wing Chun video tape
for the branches of his family in New York and Tampa as well as for other
serious Wing Chun students.