[2] Chan was 13 when, after the death of his father, he was sent by his family to the Clear Cloud Temple where he began training in kung fu and Buddhism and was mostly a student of Jyu Jik Chuyhn (朱亦傳).

[2][3][4] Chan was also taught by the monk Gaai Si Wu Song and trained mostly in the Choy Lay Fut style.

[5] At 17, Chan left the monastery to fight against the Imperial Japanese Army, enlisting in a peasant division which also had some of the most skilled traditional martial arts fighters in China.

In his 40s, Chan went back to the Clear Cloud Temple and learned Lama Pai (喇嘛派) from Jyu Jik Chuyhn.

Devoting himself to mastering the Tibetan lion's roar system, he trained with various sifu of related lineages such as Deng Gum Tao (鄧錦濤) of Hop Ga, Gung Yuet Gei (孔乙己) of Tibetan White Crane, and Mai Yi Po of the Manchurian Lama Pai lineage.