---
title: "Wang Lang (王朗) — the Mantis Founder-Legend & the Eighteen Schools"
---

**Wang Lang** (**王朗**, also written **王郎**) is the **legendary founder of Northern Praying Mantis boxing (螳螂拳)** — the figure to whom tradition credits the creation of the art after he watched a praying mantis defeat a larger insect, and synthesized the techniques of **"eighteen schools" (十八家)** of boxing into a new system. Like **Bodhidharma** for Shaolin or **Zhang Sanfeng** for the internal arts, Wang Lang is best understood as the tradition's **mythic founder** — a story that organizes the art's identity — rather than a documented historical individual.

## The legend

By the most common telling, Wang Lang was a martial artist of **Shandong** in the **late Ming / early Qing** who, after **losing a duel** (to a Shaolin monk or a senior, depending on the version), sat dejected in a courtyard and watched a **praying mantis seize and overpower a much larger cicada**. Struck by the insect's hooking, trapping, and relentless forward pressure, he studied its movements and built them into a fighting method — grafting the **mantis arms** onto **monkey (猴) footwork** for mobility, and fusing in what he had gathered from many earlier boxing styles. The result was 螳螂拳.

<Callout type="warning">
  **Hometown and dating vary, and the figure is legendary.** Sources place his birthplace at **即墨 (Jimo)** or **萊陽 (Laiyang)** in Shandong; the period is usually given as **late Ming / early Qing**, though some tellings push him back to the Song. No contemporaneous record documents him. Modern scholarship treats the historical art as **crystallizing in 19th-century Shandong** out of *Luohan* short-striking (羅漢短打) material plus local boxing, with **Wang Lang as the tradition's founder-myth** — exactly as Bodhidharma and Zhang Sanfeng function for their traditions. *(Note: this legendary Wang Lang is unrelated to the historical Three-Kingdoms official ****王朗 (Wang Lang, courtesy Jingxing 景興, d. 228)**** — a coincidence of names.)*
</Callout>

## The Eighteen Schools (十八家)

The signature of the legend is that Wang Lang did not invent from nothing but **gathered the best of eighteen earlier boxing masters** — preserved in mantis lore as the **十八家拳歌 ("Song of the Eighteen Schools")**, which pairs each master with the technique Wang Lang is said to have taken from him, ending with his own mantis as the eighteenth that "masters them all":

> 太祖的長拳起首，韓通的通背為母；鄭恩的纏封尤妙，溫元的短拳更奇；馬籍的短打最甚，孫恆的猴拳且盛；黃祐的靠身難近，綿盛的面掌飛疾；金相的磕手通拳，懷德的摔捋硬崩；劉興的勾摟採手，譚方的滾漏貫耳；燕青的拈拿跌法，林沖的鴛鴦腳強；孟甦的七勢連拳，崔連的窩裡剖捶；楊滾的棍採直入，王朗的螳螂總敵。

A rendering (the technique-names are compressed Ming fighting-cant, so this is interpretive):

| # | Master | Technique taken |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 太祖 Taizu (Song founder) | Long Fist — *"leads off"* |
| 2 | 韓通 Han Tong | Tongbei — *"the mother"* |
| 3 | 鄭恩 Zheng En | wrapping-and-sealing (纏封) |
| 4 | 溫元 Wen Yuan | short fist (短拳) |
| 5 | 馬籍 Ma Ji | short-striking (短打) |
| 6 | 孫恆 Sun Heng | monkey fist (猴拳) |
| 7 | 黃祐 Huang You | body-leaning (靠身) |
| 8 | 綿盛 Mian Sheng | face-palm (面掌) |
| 9 | 金相 Jin Xiang | knocking-hand through-fist (磕手通拳) |
| 10 | 懷德 Huai De | throw-pull, hard crushing (摔捋硬崩) |
| 11 | 劉興 Liu Xing | hook-draw-and-pluck (勾摟採手) |
| 12 | 譚方 Tan Fang | rolling-leak, ear-blow (滾漏貫耳) |
| 13 | 燕青 Yan Qing | sticking-seizing-throwing (拈拿跌法) |
| 14 | 林沖 Lin Chong | mandarin-duck kicks (鴛鴦腳) |
| 15 | 孟甦 Meng Su | seven-posture linked fist (七勢連拳) |
| 16 | 崔連 Cui Lian | in-the-nest splitting punch (窩裡剖捶) |
| 17 | 楊滾 Yang Gun | staff driving straight in (棍採直入) |
| 18 | **王朗 Wang Lang** | **the Mantis, mastering all (螳螂總敵)** |

<Callout type="info">
  **The list is lore, not a lineage record — and it says so itself.** Two of the "eighteen ancestors," **燕青 Yan Qing** (#13) and **林沖 Lin Chong** (#14), are **fictional heroes of the Ming novel *****Water Margin***** (水滸傳)** — not historical boxers at all. Their presence is the clearest sign that the Eighteen Schools is a **literary and mnemonic device** — a way of claiming that mantis gathers the whole northern tradition into itself — rather than a documentary list of Wang Lang's actual teachers. (It is also why several mantis forms carry Water-Margin names, e.g. *Yan Qing's Single Saber*.)
</Callout>

## The transmission tradition

From the legendary Wang Lang, lineage tradition runs the art through a **Daoist named Shengxiao (升霄道人, "the Ascending-to-Heaven Daoist")** and a set of hand-copied manuscripts — the *羅漢行功短打 (Luohan Conditioning Short-Striking)* and the *少林衣缽真傳 (True Transmission of the Shaolin Robe-and-Bowl)* — before the documented 19th-century Shandong masters take over the record. These manuscripts, not Wang Lang himself, are where the art first becomes textually traceable.

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="praying-mantis" text="Praying Mantis (螳螂拳) — the style this legend founds" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="seven-star-mantis" text="Seven Star Mantis (七星螳螂拳) — the branch with the fullest manuscript record" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="shaolin-kung-fu" text="Shaolin Kung Fu — the temple the legend invokes (and Bodhidharma, the parallel founder-myth)" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="history" text="A Short History of Chinese Martial Arts" />

## Sources

**[1]** *螳螂拳* and *七星螳螂拳*, Chinese Wikipedia ([zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/螳螂拳](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%9E%B3%E8%9E%82%E6%8B%B3)) — the Wang Lang origin tradition, the 十八家 synthesis, and the note that several "ancestors" are *Water Margin* figures.

**[2]** *王朗（螳螂拳始祖）*, Baidu Baike / Factpedia ([baike.baidu.com/item/王朗/10484949](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%8E%8B%E6%9C%97/10484949)) — Jimo/Laiyang origin, late-Ming/early-Qing dating, the founding legend.

**[3]** The **十八家拳歌** as transmitted in the mantis 拳譜 — verbatim verse from the lineage record (e.g. [學德武術館](https://rul520.pixnet.net/blog/post/12421288)). The eighteen masters and their techniques.