In Hanyuan County, just south of Yaan in the middle of the Tibetan foothills, there was once a great battle between the Taiping rebels and the Qing Imperial Troops. The rebels were routed by the Dadu river and fled into the hills. Many of them were gong fu masters from the eastern provinces. INstead of trekking thousands of miles back home, they married beautiful Sichuan girls and settled in the Hanyuan area.

They passed on what they knew of qi gong and gong fu. Since then, this area has been a hotbed of gong fu untill this very day. A tiny village outside of Hanyuan, Dashu, has produced several national and provincial champions and three grandmasters. There are hundreds of gong fu men in the area now, some practicing, some working in the asbestos mines around Hanyuan and getting into any business they can. Gong fu does not pay in today's China.

One of these masters, Li Cuan, is actually from the far northeast, in Heilongjiang Province. He travelled the country studying gong fu and working in coal mines, concrete factories, as a body guard for gangsters and businessmen and as a gong fu teacher. He went to school and learned English. Now he is working as a security guard on the Torch Relay through China and will be in Beijing for the Olympics, protecting rich guys.

He is the 8th students of Grandmaster Dai, from Dashu and he is the future of gong fu in the area. Skilled, intelligent, worldly and steeped in the traditional gong fu philosophy.

Hanyuan and Yaan also have some of the best green tea in the world, as well as mighty rivers like the Dadu that flow down from Tibet into the lush, steep valleys of western Sichuan.