--- title: "The Masters (宗師) — a who's-who of Chinese martial arts" --- This is the **directory of the people** — the generals, monks, patriarchs, reformers and lineage-holders who made and carried the Chinese fighting arts. It gathers every biography on the wiki in one place, arranged by where each figure sits in the larger story. Where a teacher founded or anchored a style, the style page links back here; this page is the human map of the whole tradition. **A note on honesty.** Martial biography is thick with legend — invented birth-years, borrowed teachers, and duels that never happened. Each page below flags what is **documented**, what is **traditional claim**, and what is **legend**. Read the individual pages for the caveats; this index only points the way. ## First to write it down — the Ming generals & scholars The deepest documented roots of the canon are **military**, not monastic: officers who recorded boxing and weapons as part of a soldier's curriculum. - [**Qi Jiguang (戚繼光, 1528–1588)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/qi-jiguang) — the general whose *Boxing Classic* (拳經捷要篇) is the textual ancestor of much that follows, Taijiquan included. - [**Yu Dayou (俞大猷, 1503–1579)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/yu-dayou) — author of the *Sword Classic* (劍經), the oldest surviving Chinese stick/fencing treatise, and the general who is said to have re-taught the staff to Shaolin. - [**Cheng Zongyou (程宗猷, 1561 – after 1636)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/cheng-zongyou) — the soldier-scholar who put the Shaolin staff, the long saber and the spear into print. ## The Xingyi line (形意拳) The straight-line internal art, consolidated in the nineteenth century and carried by a remarkable Hebei–Shanxi generation. - [**Li Luoneng (李洛能, c. 1808–1890)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/li-luoneng) — "Divine Fist Li," who consolidated modern Xingyiquan and taught the whole founding generation. - [**Che Yizhai (車毅齋, 1833–1914)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/che-yizhai) and [**Song Shirong (宋世榮, 1849–1927)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/song-shirong) — the pillars of the **Shanxi** branch. - [**Liu Qilan (劉奇蘭)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/liu-qilan) and [**Guo Yunshen (郭雲深)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/guo-yunshen) — the **Hebei** pillars; Guo of "half-step Bengquan beats all under heaven" fame. - [**Li Cunyi (李存義, 1847–1921)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/li-cunyi) — "Single-Saber Li," the hub who carried Hebei Xingyi into the Republican institutions. ## The Bagua line (八卦掌) The circle-walking art, from one Beijing founder to its two great branches. - [**Dong Haichuan (董海川, c. 1797–1882)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/dong-haichuan) — the founder who taught the first systematic Baguazhang. - [**Yin Fu (尹福)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/yin-fu) and [**Cheng Tinghua (程廷華)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/cheng-tinghua) — the two foremost disciples, founders of the Yin and Cheng branches. - [**Gong Baotian (宮寶田, 1871–1943)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/gong-baotian) — Yin-branch master and imperial bodyguard. ## Synthesizers, reformers & the Guoshu generation The figures who fused the arts, modernized them, and built the Republican institutions. - [**Sun Lutang (孫祿堂, 1860–1933)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/sun-lutang) — the great synthesizer, who treated Taiji, Bagua and Xingyi as one art and established the "three internal arts" idea. - [**Wang Xiangzhai (王薌齋, c. 1885–1963)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wang-xiangzhai) — the radical who threw out fixed forms and founded Yiquan / Dachengquan. - [**Li Jinglin (李景林, 1885–1931)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/li-jinglin) — the "Sword Saint," warlord general and patron who made the jian a living art again. - [**Ma Fengtu & Ma Yingtu (馬鳳圖・馬英圖)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/ma-fengtu) — the Cangzhou brothers who built the 通備 synthesis and the resistance broadsword. - [**Wang Ziping (王子平, 1881–1973)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wang-ziping) — the "Thousand-Pound King," strongman, Shaolin-gate head, and famous bone-setter. ## Baji & the long spear (八極拳) - [**Li Shuwen (李書文, 1864–1934)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/li-shuwen) — "Divine Spear Li," the terrifying Baji master whose students guarded emperors and presidents. - [**Liu Yunqiao (劉雲樵, 1909–1992)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/liu-yunqiao) — Li's student, who carried Baji to Taiwan and founded the Wutan network. ## The Praying Mantis lineage (螳螂拳) From a Shandong legend to a worldwide family of branches. - [**Wang Lang (王朗)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wang-lang) — the *legendary* founder; the origin tale is tradition, not documented history. - [**Fan Xudong (范旭東)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/fan-xudong) — "the Giant," the towering nineteenth-century master at the root of the modern branches. - [**Jiang Hualong (姜化龍)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/jiang-hualong) — "Ghost Hands," a central figure of the Laiyang transmission. - [**Luo Guangyu (羅光玉, 1888–1944)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/luo-guangyu) — who brought Seven Star Mantis to Shanghai's Jingwu and trained the disseminators. - [**Wong Hon Fan (黃漢勛, 1915–1974)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wong-hon-fan) — Luo's disciple, who spread Seven Star worldwide from Hong Kong and published prolifically. - [**Chiu Chi Man (趙志民)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/chiu-chi-man) and [**Lee Kam Wing (李錦榮, b. 1947)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/lee-kam-wing) — Seven Star pillars of the modern international transmission. - [**Wei Xiaotang (衛笑堂, 1901–1981)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wei-xiaotang) — who carried **Eight Step** Mantis to Taiwan. - [**Su Yu-Chang (蘇昱彰, 1940–2019)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/su-yu-chang) — who fused Baji and Six-Harmony Mantis as Pachi Tanglang and took it to the West. ## See also