In recognition of Master Pel celebrating forty years in Northern Shaolin Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu.
A foreword by Andy Best, student of Master Kai Uwe Pel.
This year Master Kai Uwe Pel celebrates forty years dedicated to the mastery and preservation of Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu. Master Pel of the Seven Star Praying Mantis style came to Shanghai to teach from 2002, first with the surviving Jing Wu organization, then at the Longwu Center and privately in the suburb Xin Zhuang. We identify our schools with the great grandmaster Luo Guang Yu and name our modern clubs Luo Guang Yu Seven Star Praying Mantis. Last year also marked a hundred years since Luo Guang Yu came to teach in the original Shanghai Jing Wu school, bringing the style from Shandong province and ultimately giving it to the world.
Seven Star Praying Mantis originated in the Shaolin Temple and most Mantis schools and styles begin with the legend of Wang Long, a student in the temple who devised the style. The monk Bodhidharma visited Luo Yang and then Mt. Song by the temple around 500 CE and taught the monks yogic techniques known as the Luohan Movements. These were combined with martial arts to form a unique style that Chinese scholarship notes as being nationally acknowledged in the reforms of the emperor Song Taizu in 960 CE. Wang Long existed sometime between then and when the Seven Star style surfaces in modern record keeping, in 1800s Shandong.
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Be kind, train smart, train hard!
DEC
2020