Dean Chin took up the martial arts at the age of seven. His first instructors were uncles who taught him from the systems they knew: the White Eyebrow system, the White Crane system and the Hung Gar system. By the age of nine, when it became clear he was a prodigy of kung fu, he began the formal study of the Jow Ga system of kung fu. At thirteen he was invited into the Eagle Claw system at the school of the King of Eagles, Sifu Fu Liu, who taught him both Northern Shaolin and Eagle boxing forms. In spite of his youth, he mastered all of these kung fu methods, and excelled in grappling and Dim Mark (striking at pulse points).
It is not surprising that at the age of fourteen, the Jow Ga system recognized his genius and requested him to teach. From that time on, throughout the many years he taught Jow Ga, he never stopped learning from other kung fu masters with whom he exchanged system techniques. Some of these systems he learned from were: Wing Chung, Choy Li Fut, Jow Ga Praying Mantis, as well as Thai Boxing.
Master Dean Chin arrived in the United States in 1966. Shortly thereafter, he established the Jow Ga Kung Fu Association and opened the first Jow Ga kung fu academy in the Western hemisphere. In the ensuing years until his death in 1985, Master Dean Chin held many and diverse professional titles: the Overseas Coach for the Jow Biu branch of the Jow Ga Kung Fu Association; Eastern United States representative of the Hong Kong Chinese Martial Arts Association; member and qualified Sifu of Liu Fat Man’s (King of Eagles) Fan Tzi Eagle Claw School (a Northern Shaolin system); Advisor for the Presidents Cup (held annually in Taiwan-the worlds largest kung Fu tournament); and Vice Chairman of the Eastern United States Kung Fu Federation.
In the summer of 1999 at a dinner meeting in Hong Kong, Grand Master Chan Man Cheung, Master Dean Chins’ teacher and a direct disciple of Jow Biu (one of the founders and “Five Tigers” of Jow Ga), stated that Dean Chin was his most famous student. He went further to say that he only taught a few teachers here in the United States for any length of time. Those individuals were Master Dean Chin (founder of Jow Ga in the US), Master Hon Lee who resided in Hong Kong for several years and now teaches in Mclean, Virginia and the Chin brothers who live in New York.
Dean Chin's Jow Ga Kung Fu Federation 