Mr. Xu Fanzeng (1921-2004), surname Ai Xinjue Luoshi, a native of Beijing, was born in a martial arts family.
His uncle Xu Yusheng (Zi Longhou) was a famous martial arts educator in modern China, who studied with Liu Dekuan, Yang Jianhou, Liu Fengchun and other famous teachers. In November 1912, Xu Yusheng founded the Beiping Sports Research Society in Beijing, and in 1916, he opened a sports training institute to recruit physical education teachers from large, middle and primary schools to study traditional Chinese arts and modern sports. When Xu Fan was seven years old, he studied Bagua Palm, Taijiquan, LiuheQuan and Yue Shi Shan with his uncle Xu Yusheng. At the age of twelve, he entered the Guoshu Gymnasium for further study, and successively learned shape and meaning with his eldest brother Xu Xiaoyu (Shang Yunxiang's disciple) and the fourth brother Xu Shao, and also received guidance and teaching from many martial artists in the museum.
Xu Fan studied at the Jilin Provincial Higher Agricultural College in his early years and worked in Tianjin after graduation. In 1936, Xu Fan was in Datong Park, Changchun City, Northeast China, when he met Cheng Yougong, the personal bodyguard of the puppet Manchu Foreign Minister at the time (nephew of Cheng Tinghua, the grandmaster of the Bagua Palm Generation), and followed him to learn the Bagua Palm. In 1938, in the Italian Garden of Tianjin Hedong Concession, he met Cheng Youxin, the second son of Cheng Tinghua and the third generation of the heirs of the Bagua Palm, and studied the Bagua Palm under his disciples. Xu Fan also studied Song-style shape-yi boxing with the famous shape-yi boxer Li Xuzhou (a disciple of Song Huchen), and practiced shape-meaning boxing diligently for several years.
Xu Fan taught at the Peking Guoshu Museum in the 1940s. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he worked as a full-time physician in the nursing home of the former Xicheng Regional Transport Company in Beijing, actively participated in martial arts competitions and teaching, and won many awards in Beijing and national martial arts competitions. In the early 1960s, Xu Fan set up a field of apprenticeship in Beijing's Yuetan Park, spreading the formula Bagua Palm and the Song Style Shape Yi Fist.
Xu Fan was once kind and kind, low-key, and not good at publicity. He is one of the initiators of the Beijing Wushu Association Shape Yiquan Research Association, and has successively served as the vice president of the first to fifth (1983-1999) of the Beijing Shape and Yi Quan Research Association, and also served as the vice chairman of the Beijing Xicheng Wushu Association, a martial arts consultant at the Beijing Institute of Posts and Telecommunications and the Central Radio and Television Department, and has taught in Xicheng Wushu Hall, the First TrolleyBus Factory, the North Jiaotong University, the Overseas Chinese Supplementary School, and has been rated as an outstanding martial arts counselor in the country.
