Denis Decker (November 15, 1942 - December 20, 1997) was a martial artist who taught Chi Lin in the United States.

Decker was born in Somerville, New Jersey. He started martial arts training with his father who learned Judo when he was in the military. While in High School, from 1958-1962 at Bridgewater Raritan High, he continued to study Judo and attained his first black belt rank. Then he studied Kempo at a local Tracy Kempo School.

He joined the military after High School and continued to study the marital arts intensely. Master Decker experimented with the fighting skills he was learning. He concentrated on what he was doing and he would try many different variations to the movements. He found that the most deceptive methods using the bodies natural motions had a prominent effect. This is how Chi Lin developed.

He learned these things by fighting. Not by kickboxing without using the skills he was learning, but by fighting with his Kung Fu and Kempo techniques. This involved vigorous training accompanied by much trial and error.

During his life he studied with many teachers. Grandmaster Daniel Pai was one of those teachers. Dr. Pai taught his family style of Kung Fu as well as some Kempo to Master Decker. Eventually, Master Decker became one of his top instructors, at that time. He studied with people like Grandmaster John Weninger and Grandmaster Thomas St. Charles. He taught people like Master Bob Schoolnick, Master David Smith and Master Mike Kaylor. Great Masters and Grandmasters in Pai Lum Kung Fu.

In the mid-1970s he started teaching the style of Chi Lin Tao ( or Chi Lin Kempo) throughout West Virginia and Virginia. People like Noah West, Mike Snider, Sam Boyd, Charles Brown, Ron Wilkerson, Jim Goode and David Wolfe trained and studied with him during this time. To this day, most of these Masters are teaching students and keeping the art alive.

As time went on in West VA, he called his art Chi Lin Chuan Fa. It was all his understanding of movement and fighting at the time. He was teaching forms like Black Ape, Long Monkey Fist, Eagle Claw, Long Dragons Fist, Stalking Tiger, and White Tiger were among these techniques.

He was also traveling in the Pittsburgh area teaching his art. He would spend time with Goshin Jutsu Grandmaster G. Durant, trading techniques and ideas from their arts. He would train with Grandmaster John Hamilton, Soke Matthew Durant Master Stephen Capela, and countless other students and instructors from that area of Pennsylvania.

While on a visit to his parents home (now in Point Pleasant, NJ) he met Bob Burger and Vic Marini. Both of them were studying Karate at the time. They also became Decker's students. Later, both would attain Master level in his art of Chi Lin Kempo. For years Master Burger and Master Marini had schools at the Jersey Shore.

While living for a time in Pittsburgh, PA, Master Decker met and taught Dan Pauly. After years of training and practice, Dan was awarded a Masters Level in Chi Ling Pai Gung Fu. He eventually moved to the Chicago area and began teaching at a school in Westmont, Ill. He taught there with Master Roland Romier, who studied Kosho Shorei Kempo Ryu and Modern Arnis with Bruce Juchnik Hanshi. It was at this time that Hanshi Juchnik and Grandmaster Decker would train together. During the mid-1980s Dan created the school symbol that encompassed all the arts that were taught at the Westmont Academy; Chi Ling Pai Gung Fu, Kosho Shorei Ryu Kempo and Modern Arnis. This symbol was later used in New Jersey and Florida for Master Decker's schools and my own. To this day, I still use it as the symbol for Chi Ling Pai Gung Fu. Roland and Dan taught for a number of years during the 1980s.

Master Decker began teaching full time in New Jersey in 1978. During this time, he was still teaching Master Bob Burger and Master Vic Marini as well as Sifu Paul Ziegler, Master Dale Biles and Scott Felsen. He would still make long trips to West Virginia, Illinois, California, Pittsburgh and other areas of the country to teach.

He had a few different schools during this time. He taught out of Ceril Cousin's Judo school in Wannamasa, NJ. Then, for years, at his apartment and the grass field next to it, in Ocean Township NJ. Later he taught at his school, The Jersey Shore Academy of Self Defense in Red Bank, NJ.

During this time he taught forms like Seven Setting Suns, Tiger and Crane, Fist of the Five Ancestors, White Lion, Snow Bear, Flowing Motion, The Goddess Fist Set, Fist of the Eight Drunken Immortals, Five Animals Fighting Forms, and others.

In 1993, Master Decker moved to Mays Landing, New Jersey to study cooking. After becoming a certified chef(a lifelong ambition), he moved to Geneva, Florida and lived in the middle of a jungle swamp in the tiny Volusia County town. About a year later, he moved to Edgewater, Florida and then, one town away, to New Symrna Beach, Florida. These towns are on the east coast just south of Daytona.

As Master Decker got older, his understanding of mass and movement developed and grew. His art had changed into one that stressed movements from Pa Kua Chang. "The Eight Circles". Within these eight circles, was the Chi Lin of his past. The techniques and knowledge that defined his art a decade before, was now used with the Pa Kua footwork.

The Kung Fu Animal basics was how he attacked. However, his blocks became his whole body moving as one by coiling and then expanding with explosive internal strength that "resembled a spinning top."

At this time, Master Decker taught at a Karate school in Edgewater, where he instructed local martial artists. He would travel all over Florida during the mid-1990s teaching.

In January 1996, Master Decker was inducted into the Goshin Jutsu Black Belt Hall of Fame in Erie, Pennsylvania. They honored Master Decker for his contributions to the Martial Arts and the friendship he had years before with Goshin Jutsu Founder Soke G. Durant. Many of Master Decker's students from New Jersey and Florida attended as did many of the Martial Arts Grandmasters and Masters from Pennsylvania and Canada.

Denis Decker died of a heart attack in the morning at about 8am. He was cremated in his white satin kung fu uniform, according to his wishes. His ashes were flown to New Jersey where a memorial service was held. His ashes were then spread on the ground at his parents grave site in Somerville, New Jersey.

Chi Lin is still practiced by students around the United States.