Master Chu Shong Tin was born in 1933 at Kwong-tung Province of Mainland China. In November 1949, he left China and settled in Hong Kong. During September 1950, he started work as a secretary for the Association of Restaurant Workers of Hong Kong at 159 Tai Nan Street, corner Wong Chuk Street, Shum Shui Po, Kowloon. It was at that time that he first met the Grandmaster Ip Man who had just started teaching Wing Chun for about four months at that Union. As Ip and himself both came to Hong Kong alone gave them a feeling of being very close to each other. After several months' observation and urging by Sihing Leung Sheung and Lok Yiu, he asked Ip to accept him as his student and on 1st January 1951, thus starting his life in Wing Chun. He lived with Ip Man from 1951 through much of 1955.

As he had been observing for several months, he could show the whole Siu Nim Tau form to Ip on the first day of his lesson. Besides working hard on his own training, he also paid attention to what Ip was teaching to the other students. After about a year, Ip started to ask him to practice pivoting. When practicing this pivoting, he insisted  practicing several hours each day. It was about half year later before Ip asked him to learn the Chum Kiu. And it was just like Siu Nim Tau; he knew the movements of the whole form already without Ip showing him.

Roughly after one year, he started to learn the Wooden Dummy. Every year, he learnt about twenty to thirty movements until the whole form was finished. It was about two years after he had learnt the Chum Kiu that he started to learn the Biu Gee form. Around 1955 was the first time he started to practice the long pole. As he learnt roughly one movement of the pole each year, it took him nearly seven years to finish the Six-and-a-half Point Pole.

It was many years later after he finished all the hand forms that he started to learn the Butterfly Knives. The first part of the Butterfly Knives was learned in 1963.  In the summer of 1964, he established his own school & learnt the second part of the Butterfly Knives. In 1965 he finished the whole Butterfly Knives form.