Liu Seong Kuntao

The Liu Seong System is one of the many styles of Kuntao, which are hybrid martial arts systems derived from the cultures of Chinese Indonesia. The Liu Seong system was brought to America, from Indonesia, by Willem A. Reeders (1917-1990).

Willem Reeders was of mixed heritage, being of Dutch and Chinese background, but raised in Indonesia. He received training in a variety of martial arts, no one knows how many exactly. His primary teacher was his great uncle Liu Seong, whose title he bore. His uncle taught him his family's Kuntao system, a sophisticated form of fighting which focuses on close range technique. Reeders also studied many silat systems, having over ten silat teachers. His silat styles included Tjikalong (Cikalong), Tjimande (Cimande), Harimau, and Serak, among others. Reeders was an extremely accomplished martial artist who was able to tie many focal elements of various arts together into a cohesive whole. The result is an art that although bearing many similarities to many well known arts still retains a distinctive identity with its own signature movements, strategies, and tactics. It is based firmly in an objective approach, based on the principles of physics, anatomy, and psychology. The patterns of movement are designed to be extremely effective and one hallmark is the ability to throw a large volume of attacks very rapidly.

Today, Reeder's Kuntao / Liu Seong Gung Fu is thinly spread throughout the United States, with instructors offering variations of the art in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Tennessee, Toronto, and Virginia.

Many styles that are the result of combining different methods are often termed "eclectic" and often are lacking a core, instead relying upon the continual addition of new strategies, tactics, and techniques. The Liu Seong system although hybridized is not at all "eclectic", and the basic movements are also the advanced. Understandings and applications change, but the essential system does not. This allows for a much greater depth in the development of skill owing to the continual refinement of a base that does not inherently change, but instead becomes more advanced.

There are various view points espoused by martial artists about the nature of systems and their development. One view is that although a style may be a hybrid or combination, eventually it develops its own identity and is no longer considered to be 'mixed'. Another view is that all martial arts are indeed hybrids and are the result of a continual process of synthesis and refinement, and any given art in a generational span is, in fact, a 'phase' of its development.

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