A growing reference library covering Chinese martial arts, Qigong, physical culture, history, people, texts, training methods, traditions, and terminology.
Baji Quan
Baji Quan is a northern Chinese martial art associated with explosive short-range force, decisive entry, elbow and shoulder strikes, forceful stepping, and spear training.
Bak Fu Pai
Bak Fu Pai is a modern Chinese-American martial art taught by Doo Wai beginning in the early 1970s. Its claimed seventeenth-century family lineage lacks independent confirmation, while changing genealogies, an expanding curriculum, and technical similarities to Southern Pak Mei suggest that Doo Wai assembled and developed the system during his own lifetime.
Book of Illusions: Mysticism, Manipulation and the Making of Modern Kung Fu
The Book of Illusions examines how secrecy, mysticism, mistranslation, psychological manipulation, commercial incentives, and modern media shaped popular ideas about Kung Fu. It investigates extraordinary claims while presenting a practical framework for verification, honest internal training, ethical teaching, and responsible preservation.
Bruce Lee 李振藩
Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong American martial artist, actor, filmmaker, and founder of Jeet Kune Do whose work transformed martial arts and action cinema.
Buddhism
Buddhism originated in South Asia and became a major part of Chinese religious and intellectual life. Its ethics, institutions, meditation practices, and legends have influenced Chinese martial culture.
Chan Wah-Shun 陳華順
Chan Wah-shun was the late Qing Wing Chun teacher of Ip Man. This entry explores his Foshan school, lineage under Leung Jan, influential students, and disputed historical details.
Cheung Lai Chuen Pak Mei
Cheung Lai Chuen Pak Mei is a Southern Chinese martial art organized in Guangdong during the early twentieth century. Cheung combined four core forms attributed to the monk Juk Faat Wan with methods learned from several East River boxing teachers. The resulting system emphasizes close-range combat, aggressive bridge control, compact stepping, sudden whole-body power, and the body transformations known as swallow, spit, float, and sink.
Cheung Lai-Cheun 張禮泉
Cheung Lai-cheun was the central founder of modern Pak Mei, or White Eyebrow Boxing, whose teaching shaped one of southern China’s most influential martial arts.
Chinese Martial Arts
Chinese martial arts encompass the combat, weapons, conditioning, health, performance, and physical-culture traditions developed throughout China and Chinese communities.
Chu Shong-Tin 徐尚田
Chu Shong-tin was an early Ip Man Wing Chun teacher known as the “King of Siu Nim Tao.” Explore his Hong Kong school, teaching approach, students, and legacy.
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese tradition of ethical cultivation, education, ritual conduct, responsible relationships, and humane government. Its concepts have strongly influenced martial ethics and teacher-student relationships.
Daoism
Daoism includes Chinese philosophical, religious, ritual, and self-cultivation traditions centered on the Dao, or Way. Its ideas have influenced meditation, medicine, qigong, and portions of Chinese martial culture.
Dustin Shane Bunnell
Dustin Shane Bunnell is an American martial artist, teacher, author, and researcher whose work focuses on Chinese martial arts, Qigong, martial ethics, history, and critical investigation. Beginning martial arts in childhood, he has studied a wide range of systems including Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do, Filipino martial arts, Pak Mei, Taijiquan, Xingyiquan, Baguazhang, and Emei methods. He began teaching in 2000 and founded Agniyana in 2024 as a platform for martial arts education, research, publishing, preservation, and translation. His books explore Wude, Qigong history, Jianghu culture, martial arts misinformation, lineage, authority, mysticism, and the responsibility to examine traditional claims through both practice and evidence.
Eddie Chong
Eddie Chong is a longtime California instructor who transmitted Leung Sheung lineage Wing Chun, Pan Nam Foshan Wing Chun, and Foshan Pak Mei through decades of teaching, research, and publication.
Emei Iron Leopard Hard Qigong
Emei Iron Leopard Hard Qigong is a 1995 hard-qigong system that combines standing practice, dantian work, palm training, body conditioning, acupoint massage, and controlled striking.
Emei Iron Leopard Hard Qigong: Twenty-Day Rapid-Mastery Intermediate Textbook
Emei Iron Leopard Hard Qigong is a 1995 internal manual by Jiang Hao. It documents a hard-qigong system of standing work, breath training, body conditioning, demonstrations, and correspondence teaching.
Foshan Pak Mei
Foshan Pak Mei is the localized Foshan transmission of White Eyebrow Boxing. It developed during the twentieth century through teachers such as Yau Tai Sang and Lau Siu Leung, whose instruction made the art one of Foshan’s prominent Southern boxing traditions during the 1960s and 1970s. Although it descends substantially from the martial tradition organized by Cheung Lai Chuen, Foshan transmission developed its own teaching networks, technical emphases, curricula, and later institutional identity.
Guo Lin 郭林
Guo Lin was a Chinese painter, educator, cancer survivor, and creator of New Qigong Therapy. Beginning in 1971, she taught coordinated walking, specialized breathing, mental regulation, self-massage, and group practice in Beijing’s public parks. Her method became one of China’s most influential cancer-rehabilitation qigong systems and helped create a patient-led social model that later spread throughout China and internationally.
Ip Ching 葉正
Ip Ching was the younger son of Ip Man, a Wing Chun teacher, and a major representative of the Ip family branch of the art.
Ip Chun 葉準
Ip Chun is the eldest son of Ip Man, a Wing Chun teacher, author, and key representative of the Ip family branch of the art.
Ip Man 葉問
Ip Man was the Foshan Wing Chun teacher whose Hong Kong students made his branch globally influential. Explore his teachers, career, methods, students, controversies, and legacy.
Jiang Hao 蒋浩
Jiang Hao, also listed as Jiang Mengchun, compiled a 1995 hard-qigong manual and was identified there as the founder of Emei Iron Leopard Hard Qigong and a student of Yang Guozhong.
Jianghu
Jianghu, literally “rivers and lakes,” describes the informal social world of wanderers, martial artists, performers, healers, secret societies, outlaws, and other people operating beyond conventional institutions.
Kung Fu / Gongfu
Gongfu means skill developed through sustained time and effort. Although “kung fu” commonly means Chinese martial arts in English, the Chinese term can describe mastery in almost any discipline.
Leung Jan 梁贊
Leung Jan was the influential nineteenth-century Foshan physician and Wing Chun teacher who linked Red Boat tradition to later lineages. Explore his life, teachings, students, and disputed history.
Leung Sheung 梁相
Leung Sheung was one of Ip Man’s earliest Hong Kong students and a key figure in the Restaurant Workers’ Union class that helped establish modern Wing Chun.
Leung Yee-Tai 梁二娣
Leung Yee-tai is a traditional Red Boat Wing Chun figure linked with the Six-and-a-Half-Point Pole and Leung Jan. This entry explores his lineage role, alternative accounts, and disputed historical record.
Li Fuyan (李復言)
Li Fuyan (李復言) was a Tang-dynasty writer and official best known for Xu Xuanguai Lu (續玄怪錄), or Continuation of the Records of Mysterious Anomalies. His work helped preserve the Tang tradition of supernatural narratives involving strange encounters, religious figures, fate, transformation, and the extraordinary. Li is also closely associated with The Tale of Du Zichun (杜子春傳) through its textual transmission, although competing traditions attribute the tale to Zheng Huangu (鄭還古).
Liu Guizhen 劉貴珍
Liu Guizhen was one of the principal founders of modern medical qigong in the People’s Republic of China. During the 1950s, he transformed a privately transmitted rural practice called Neiyanggong into a standardized clinical method taught through hospitals, books, and national training programs. His work helped establish “qigong” as the modern umbrella term for Chinese breathing, posture, movement, and mental-regulation practices.
Liu Yafei 劉亞非
Liu Yafei is a Chinese physician and medical qigong specialist who continued and substantially expanded the Neiyanggong system associated with her father, Liu Guizhen. She transformed a practice centered largely on quiet breathing and meditation into a progressive system containing static exercises, moving forms, therapeutic adaptations, and international teacher training. Her work made Neiyanggong one of the most developed surviving systems of institutional medical qigong.
Living Wude: The Modern Path of Martial Virtue
Living Wude: The Modern Path of Martial Virtue is a 2025 book by Dustin Shane Bunnell that applies the ethical principles of Chinese martial arts to contemporary life. The second volume of The Martial Virtue Series examines how Wude can guide relationships, work, leadership, digital conduct, conflict, emotional discipline, service, and personal development.
Martial Ethics 武德
Martial Ethics, or 武德, wǔdé, refers to the virtues and behavioral standards associated with the responsible use of martial skill. The concept includes discipline, humility, loyalty, self-control, respect, and restraint. Although modern martial arts schools often present 武德 as an ancient and universal code, the term has a longer and more varied history in Chinese military, political, literary, religious, and educational contexts. Its meaning has changed across time and differs among martial traditions.
Martial Virtue Series
The Martial Virtue Series by Dustin Shane Bunnell examines Wude as a practical ethical tradition. Across its volumes, the series connects martial skill with character, responsibility, restraint, leadership, investigation, and conduct in modern life.
Moy Yat 梅逸
Moy Yat was an Ip Man Wing Chun student, Ving Tsun teacher, artist, author, and influential transmitter of the art in New York and beyond.
Ng Mui 五枚
Ng Mui, or Wu Mei, is the legendary figure associated with the Wing Chun origin story. This entry separates the enduring lineage tradition of Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun from the limited historical evidence for her life.
Ng Yiu 吳耀
Ng Yiu was a senior disciple of Cheung Lai-chuen, an early Pak Mei instructor in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, an herbal practitioner, and author of the 1977 weapons manual Pak Mei Tiger Fork.
Pan Nam 彭南
Pan Nam, also known as Peng Nan, was a Foshan Wing Chun teacher whose independent branch combined Wing Chun close-range methods with Hung Kuen-influenced power training.
Qigong and the Politics of Breath: From Marxism to Mysticism
Qigong and the Politics of Breath examines how ancient Chinese breath, movement, meditation, and health practices were reconstructed under Marxism, transformed during Qigong Fever, and remystified in the West. It presents Qigong as a living practice shaped by politics, science, culture, and human need.
Sacred Cows and Broken Noses: Confronting Martial Arts Misinformation
Sacred Cows and Broken Noses examines thirty common myths, assumptions, and reasoning errors found throughout martial arts culture. It evaluates Qi, forms, Chi Sao, sparring, lineage, conditioning, self-defense, and combat through clear definitions, functional training, resistance, and pressure testing.
Seven-Star Hard-Conditioning Practice
Seven-Star Hard-Conditioning Practice is a 1992 Chinese qigong method that combines standing work, breath regulation, seven core routines, traditional theory, and martial-conditioning aims.
Seven-Star Horizontal-Chain Qigong
Seven-Star Horizontal-Chain Qigong is a 1992 Chinese manual that records a seven-part conditioning method, its Daoist lineage story, traditional theory, safety guidance, and external-qi claims.
Simon Lui 雷龍春
Master Simon Lui is a Hong Kong-born Pak Mei instructor and herbal practitioner who carried the Lum Hung branch of Pak Mei from Toronto into a wider North American teaching network.
Sum Nung 岑能
Sum Nung was the Guangzhou Wing Chun teacher who preserved and expanded the Yuen Kay-shan branch through trauma medicine, teaching, and association work.
The Tale of Du Zichun (杜子春傳)
The Tale of Du Zichun (杜子春傳) is a Tang-dynasty tale of wealth, moral transformation, Daoist alchemy, and the limits of spiritual detachment. After repeatedly squandering extraordinary fortunes given to him by a mysterious old man, Du Zichun finally reforms and uses his wealth to fulfill his obligations to others. His benefactor then reveals himself as a Daoist adept and leads Du to Mount Hua, where he faces a severe test of silence. Du withstands terror, torture, death, hell, and rebirth without speaking, but ultimately breaks his vow when confronted with the death of his child. The tale explores a difficult question at the heart of cultivation: what remains when fear, desire, suffering, and even death have been overcome, but love cannot be abandoned?
Wing Chun 詠春拳
Wing Chun is a Southern Chinese martial art associated with Foshan, Hong Kong, and the wider Pearl River Delta. It specializes in close-range striking, positional control, tactile-response training, economical movement, and the coordinated use of structure and timing. Although traditional accounts trace the system to the nun Ng Mui and a woman named Yim Wing Chun, its verifiable history emerges from the martial culture of nineteenth-century Guangdong.
Wong Shun-Leung 黃淳樑
Wong Shun-leung was an Ip Man Wing Chun teacher known for practical training, direct application, challenge-fight lore, and his role as a senior instructor to Bruce Lee.
Wong Wah-Bo 黃華寶
Wong Wah-bo is a traditional Wing Chun figure associated with the nineteenth-century Red Boat opera community. This entry examines his lineage role, exchange with Leung Yee-tai, and place in early Wing Chun history.
Wude
Wude is the ethical tradition of the Chinese martial arts. It asks how martial skill should shape a practitioner’s character, relationships, decisions, and use of force.
Wude: The Ethics of Kung Fu
Wude: The Ethics of Kung Fu examines the meaning, history, and practical application of Wude (武德), or martial virtue, within Chinese martial arts. Drawing from Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, and martial traditions, the book explores how ethical principles developed alongside martial practice and how they continue to shape the responsibilities of practitioners today. Its central virtues include respect, humility, loyalty, integrity, righteousness, self-discipline, trustworthiness, benevolence, courage, and perseverance. Moving from historical foundations to modern application, the work argues that martial skill and ethical development should remain inseparable, and that Wude must ultimately be demonstrated through conduct rather than claimed through rank, lineage, or tradition.
Wulin
Wulin, literally “martial forest,” refers to the community and social world of martial artists. It includes the relationships, schools, reputations, customs, and rivalries that connect martial practitioners.
Xu Yousheng 许有声
Xu Yousheng was the author and publicizer of Seven-Star Horizontal-Chain Qigong, a 1992 manual that records a seven-part qigong and conditioning practice, its training theory, cautions, and claimed effects.
Yan Xin 嚴新
Yan Xin is a Chinese physician and qigong teacher who became one of the most celebrated and controversial figures of China’s Qigong Fever. During the 1980s and 1990s, his enormous “qi-emitting lectures,” reported healings, and collaborations with university researchers helped transform qigong into a mass cultural phenomenon. Supporters presented him as evidence of a revolutionary science of human potential, while critics regarded his extraordinary claims and external-qi experiments as prominent examples of pseudoscience.
Yim Wing Chun 嚴詠春
Yim Wing Chun is the legendary woman named as the founder of Wing Chun in Ip Man’s lineage narrative. This entry separates her enduring martial tradition from the limited evidence for her historical life.
Yiu Choi 姚才
Yiu Choi was a Foshan Wing Chun teacher and one of the “Three Heroes of Wing Chun.” Explore his lineage, Yiu family branch, teachers, successor Yiu Kay, and legacy.
Yuen Kay-Shan 阮奇山
Yuen Kay-shan was a Foshan Wing Chun teacher and one of the “Three Heroes of Wing Chun.” Explore his disputed lineage, distinctive branch, student Sum Nung, and legacy.
Zheng Huangu (鄭還古)
Zheng Huangu (鄭還古) was a Tang-dynasty scholar, official, and writer associated with supernatural literature and the collection Boyi Zhi (博異志). Remembered for his literary talent and interest in extraordinary narratives, Zheng occupies an important place in the development of Tang chuanqi. He is also one of the historically attested authors to whom The Tale of Du Zichun (杜子春傳) has been attributed, although the work’s authorship remains disputed.