It was while studying medicine in Chongqing that Liu learned boxing, wrestling, karate do and Chinese-style free sparring, winning several provincial and national-level kungfu competitions.

He also traveled to remote mountains to participate in informal kungfu contests known as biwu, which were very popular among kungfu addicts.

There were no cash prizes or certificates for these fights. Nor were there media reports or even photos.

"I got hurt during these fights, but loved the thrill of it. I imagined myself as a kungfu movie hero," says Liu, adding that he took part in some 700 fights. He won most of them, defeating practitioners of various martial arts from home and abroad.

With such victories, Liu thought that traditional Chinese wushu - a modern term for kungfu - was useless and easy to deal with.

He learned the powers of traditional kungfu the hard way.

In 1990, he visited Song Dezhao, an 81-year-old master. Liu had thought Song was a frail old man, but he just couldn't hit Song. Instead, Song closed in on him at breakneck speed.

In 1991, he met another master, Peng Yuanzhi, 80, known as the "fastest fist" in Sichuan.

The master invited him for a fight in Peng's bedroom. "Within a fraction of a second, I found myself flung against a cupboard," Liu recalls.

The first thing Liu did after recovering from that assault was to kneel down and ask Peng to accept him as a disciple.

"My views about traditional wushu changed forever," Liu says.

He spent the following years learning from more than 100 masters different kungfu styles in Sichuan. His pursuits gradually steered him to the Qingcheng branch.

In 1995, Liu quit his job as an anesthetist in the Dujiangyan People's Hospital, and set up the nation's first Qingcheng Kungfu training center at the foot of Mt Qingcheng.

The center suffered serious damage in the earthquake in 2008 and had to be pulled down. "When the quake struck, I was practicing kungfu with my students," Liu recalls.

He rallied 500 of his students to go to the epicenter Wenchuan as volunteers. They taught quake victims the Qingcheng Taoist healthcare regimen.

"Kungfu is not just for those who like to show punches and kicks in action movies," Liu says.

However, he admits that many people today are ill-informed of the value of traditional Chinese kungfu and have instead embraced taekwondo, judo and karate do.

Liu says less than 20 young people were practicing Qingcheng kungfu in Sichuan in the early 1980s. Thanks to his efforts, Qingcheng kungfu is seeing a revival. So far, Liu has trained about 60,000 students from 23 countries and regions.

But while young enthusiasts from home and abroad flock to Henan province for Shaolin kungfu, Liu finds it difficult to recruit local students to learn Qingcheng kungfu.