---
title: "Bak Mei (白眉) — \"White Eyebrow,\" the explosive short-power art"
---

**Bak Mei (白眉, *****Báiméi*****, "White Eyebrow")** is one of the most distinctive of the [Hakka short-bridge arts](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/hakka-arts) — a close-range system famous for **explosive, whole-body short power** issued through a compact, sophisticated structure. It is named for a legendary monk, but its real history is the work of one documented twentieth-century master, [**Cheung Lai-chuen (張禮泉)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/cheung-lai-chuen).

## How it moves

Bak Mei concentrates everything into a small space. Its hallmarks:

- **The phoenix-eye fist (鳳眼捶)** — the protruding-knuckle fist for driving force into small, vulnerable targets;
- **The four energies — swallow, spit, float, sink (吞吐浮沉)** — the characteristic way Bak Mei gathers and releases force, drawing in and issuing out, rising and dropping;
- **Whole-body short power (寸勁)** — power generated by the coordinated body and waist and released over inches, not feet, often with the breath snapping audibly;
- **A compact, defensible frame** — upright posture, short bridges, hands working at and inside contact range.

The feel is sudden and percussive: little wind-up, enormous close-range effect.

## Founder — legend and record

<Callout type="warning">
  **The monk is legend — and a villain at that.** Bak Mei is named for **白眉道人 (the "White Eyebrow" Daoist)**, traditionally counted among the [Five Elders](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/southern-shaolin) — and, strikingly, in Cantonese folklore and film he is usually cast as the **traitor**, the renegade who helped the Qing destroy Shaolin and killed the folk-hero Fong Sai-yuk. As history this is **legend**; the art is named after a figure of myth (and a disreputable one).
</Callout>

The art's documented history begins with **Cheung Lai-chuen (張禮泉, 1882–1964)**, a Hakka master who learned from several teachers in the Hakka short-bridge tradition, synthesized the system now known as Bak Mei, and spread it through Guangzhou and Hong Kong in the early-to-mid twentieth century. Essentially all living Bak Mei traces to him. His page tells that story:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="cheung-lai-chuen" text="Cheung Lai-chuen (張禮泉) — the documented founder of modern Bak Mei" />

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="hakka-arts" text="The Hakka Short-Bridge Arts — the family Bak Mei belongs to" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="southern-dragon" text="Southern Dragon (龍形) — its closest technical cousin" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="southern-shaolin" text="Southern Shaolin &amp; the Five Elders — the legend behind the name" />

## Sources

**[1]** *Bak Mei*, English Wikipedia ([en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bak\_Mei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bak_Mei)) — the art, the short-power method, the legendary founder, and the Cheung Lai-chuen lineage.

**[2]** Benjamin Judkins, *"Cheung Lai Chuen: Creator of Pak Mei (White Eyebrow),"* Kung Fu Tea ([chinesemartialstudies.com](https://chinesemartialstudies.com/2014/04/17/cheung-lai-chuen-creator-of-pak-mei-white-eyebrow/)) — the documented history of the modern art.