Notes

The Masters (宗師) — a who's-who of Chinese martial arts

Updated 2026-06-05

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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.

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) — 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) — 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) — 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) — "Divine Fist Li," who consolidated modern Xingyiquan and taught the whole founding generation.
Che Yizhai (車毅齋, 1833–1914) and Song Shirong (宋世榮, 1849–1927) — the pillars of the Shanxi branch.
Liu Qilan (劉奇蘭) and Guo Yunshen (郭雲深) — the Hebei pillars; Guo of "half-step Bengquan beats all under heaven" fame.
Li Cunyi (李存義, 1847–1921) — "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) — the founder who taught the first systematic Baguazhang.
Yin Fu (尹福) and Cheng Tinghua (程廷華) — the two foremost disciples, founders of the Yin and Cheng branches.
Gong Baotian (宮寶田, 1871–1943) — 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) — 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) — the radical who threw out fixed forms and founded Yiquan / Dachengquan.
Li Jinglin (李景林, 1885–1931) — 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) — the Cangzhou brothers who built the 通備 synthesis and the resistance broadsword.
Wang Ziping (王子平, 1881–1973) — 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) — "Divine Spear Li," the terrifying Baji master whose students guarded emperors and presidents.
Liu Yunqiao (劉雲樵, 1909–1992) — 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) — the legendary founder; the origin tale is tradition, not documented history.
Fan Xudong (范旭東) — "the Giant," the towering nineteenth-century master at the root of the modern branches.
Jiang Hualong (姜化龍) — "Ghost Hands," a central figure of the Laiyang transmission.
Luo Guangyu (羅光玉, 1888–1944) — who brought Seven Star Mantis to Shanghai's Jingwu and trained the disseminators.
Wong Hon Fan (黃漢勛, 1915–1974) — Luo's disciple, who spread Seven Star worldwide from Hong Kong and published prolifically.
Chiu Chi Man (趙志民) and Lee Kam Wing (李錦榮, b. 1947) — Seven Star pillars of the modern international transmission.
Wei Xiaotang (衛笑堂, 1901–1981) — who carried Eight Step Mantis to Taiwan.
Su Yu-Chang (蘇昱彰, 1940–2019) — who fused Baji and Six-Harmony Mantis as Pachi Tanglang and took it to the West.