IS IMPERIAL COMBAT ARTS ASSOCIATED?
WHO'S THE LEADER? LINEAGE?
- Imperial Combat Arts is not directly associated with any other school, federation, society, or teacher outside of our own school. We cannot speak to the teachings of other arts or schools and hold a general respect for most all arts. We recognize there are martial artists of great skill and dedication in many martial arts.
- Our headquarters school is owned by Mang Taan, he is currently the Head Master of Imperial Combat Arts, and teaches alongside several other Masters and Instructors. One of these Masters, Kang Hu, began the study of the 8 Animals and Wu Tang Arts the exact same day as Mang Taan, in 1999, sharing the same Teachers.
- Because we have trained with other instructors or schools in the past does not mean we share the same approach to martial arts, or are affiliated. Some of these Instructors have taken their arts into the direction of "no touch chi attacks", "magic shields", and believe they "confer with past Masters" on martial arts techniques. These things were not taught to us by our shared teachers, and are counter to Imperial Combat Arts very real approach to martial arts.
- Sometimes people have a hard time understanding the fact we don’t belong to the same societies that one of our past Teachers did. These things don’t automatically transfer with martial study, were also not members of the French Judo Federation, Jujitsu Instructors, Vietnam Vets, or any other experiences of our Teachers, even if we have references to these on our school wall as general history.
- “Societies” and martial arts are not the same thing. Just like a specific Karate Federation isn’t Karate itself. The arts we teach are classic, some very old and spread around the entire world, Eagle, Snake, Tiger etc.
"You don't just decide to be a part of federation or society, you have to be go through the process of applying or being invited and then being accepted."
ARE WE THE ONLY ONE'S WHO TEACH THESE ARTS?
Claiming we're last members of a Teachers arts or the only ones teaching them is nothing we've ever stated. One of our Teachers trained several Grandmasters, many before our current Teachers were even born, and he taught an unknown 100’s of other people over his 60 year teaching career. Mang Taan is but a single one of these people, who happened to be the last of this Teachers life. Mang Taan has continued to further his specialized study in Animal Kung Fu Styles to this day.
We know very little about most of these other people, how they teach, the directions they have taken their arts, their current students, or schools.
We know very little about most of these other people, how they teach, the directions they have taken their arts, their current students, or schools.
Mang Taan is not some ultimate lineage holder. He is only the “leader” of Imperial Combat Arts, where he teaches alongside several other Masters and Instructors.
WHO OWNS THE ARTS?
The Arts we teach are nothing new, we teach 8 well established Animal Kung Fu Styles (Tiger, Crane, Snake etc.) and the Wu Tang Arts. Schools teaching these arts in various respects can be found the world over today.
The only "newish" thing about our styles is that we teach them together surrounding a Bagua. This also is not that uncommon in Chinese Martial Arts, there are other 8 animal systems, with different animals from our own to represent the 8 Trigrams.
The Animal Arts themselves are very old and there are many, many, many different schools, each with their own approach to teaching these styles today. There is no governing body or ultimate authority that oversees Animal Style Kung Fu or Wu Tang, no one truly owns the arts.
This would be like saying someone owns boxing... people make their name in boxing.
Just like as in boxing, each boxer has their own unique strengths, their own style. Mike Tyson fights like himself.
Traditionally Kung Fu has always been this way. For example, the legend of the woman who is sometimes accredited with the development of Crane Kung Fu, had 4 disciples, each one developing their own style of Crane. Her individual style could not be replicated exactly for even one generation, but the overall concepts of her "Art" are still practiced today.
The same can be said about Pakua and H'sing-I Masters and how their style changed each generation, and each style of the art had its own name after the new Master himself.
One of the last Dog Kung Fu Masters named "Iron Leg", who had over 300 students, was also a Muay Thai champion, and now to this day extensive shin toughening has been integrated in our styles. One Masters influence changed the arts.
Today puritans try to limit Kung Fu to a series of moves, one past Master, or one schools authority. This is not the way of true Kung Fu, styles evolve or perish. Many arts have long since been dumbed down to make them accessible to more people.
The only "newish" thing about our styles is that we teach them together surrounding a Bagua. This also is not that uncommon in Chinese Martial Arts, there are other 8 animal systems, with different animals from our own to represent the 8 Trigrams.
The Animal Arts themselves are very old and there are many, many, many different schools, each with their own approach to teaching these styles today. There is no governing body or ultimate authority that oversees Animal Style Kung Fu or Wu Tang, no one truly owns the arts.
This would be like saying someone owns boxing... people make their name in boxing.
Just like as in boxing, each boxer has their own unique strengths, their own style. Mike Tyson fights like himself.
Traditionally Kung Fu has always been this way. For example, the legend of the woman who is sometimes accredited with the development of Crane Kung Fu, had 4 disciples, each one developing their own style of Crane. Her individual style could not be replicated exactly for even one generation, but the overall concepts of her "Art" are still practiced today.
The same can be said about Pakua and H'sing-I Masters and how their style changed each generation, and each style of the art had its own name after the new Master himself.
One of the last Dog Kung Fu Masters named "Iron Leg", who had over 300 students, was also a Muay Thai champion, and now to this day extensive shin toughening has been integrated in our styles. One Masters influence changed the arts.
Today puritans try to limit Kung Fu to a series of moves, one past Master, or one schools authority. This is not the way of true Kung Fu, styles evolve or perish. Many arts have long since been dumbed down to make them accessible to more people.
WHATS THE LINEAGE OF THE ARTS?
Each Art we teach technically has it's own unique lineage, some very old arts like Snake are so old that many centuries of generations have trained and expanded the style into numerous directions, for example we teach 5 Snake Styles. No scholar knows the origins of an art like Snake, its origins have long since been lost to time.
Even a younger art like H'sing-I or Eagle, both being close to a thousand years old now, have disseminated to all corners of the globe, and are taught in all types of ways, from sport fighting like full contact H'sing-I, to combat training like our arts, and even to simply forms like most Wushu.
We can't really speak much to the histories of most Animal Arts, but we can speak to when they came together as the 8 Animal System we teach today, back at least to Tong Sing of Macau in the mid 1900's.
This is the farthest our internal records and our archived kung fu promotions date to, for The Taoist 8 Animal System. There are legends in the school of its dating as much as 200 years prior, but with no physical records.
As another example, the newest of the Wu Tang Arts, Pakua, is the easiest of our lineages to trace.
Even a younger art like H'sing-I or Eagle, both being close to a thousand years old now, have disseminated to all corners of the globe, and are taught in all types of ways, from sport fighting like full contact H'sing-I, to combat training like our arts, and even to simply forms like most Wushu.
We can't really speak much to the histories of most Animal Arts, but we can speak to when they came together as the 8 Animal System we teach today, back at least to Tong Sing of Macau in the mid 1900's.
This is the farthest our internal records and our archived kung fu promotions date to, for The Taoist 8 Animal System. There are legends in the school of its dating as much as 200 years prior, but with no physical records.
As another example, the newest of the Wu Tang Arts, Pakua, is the easiest of our lineages to trace.
Pakua Chang
Tung Haichuan
Yin Fu
Fu Chen Sung
Sung Wei I
Li Chinglin
Ku Yu Cheung
Grandmaster Lee
Grandmaster Long
Mang Taan
Tung Haichuan
Yin Fu
Fu Chen Sung
Sung Wei I
Li Chinglin
Ku Yu Cheung
Grandmaster Lee
Grandmaster Long
Mang Taan
There are numerous lineages today that spring from these Masters, more the further back you go. Today there are enough Pakua lineages descending from Tung Haichuan to fill this entire page. Some of these schools are famous and well known, many, many, others are not famous at all.
Students at Imperial Combat Arts are taught the lineages for each art we teach, at least back as far as they are verifiable, and some lecture on various legends after that. Legend is taught of course as legend.
We have Masters of several styles on the school walls alongside news articles and promotions from our past, and also people of interest, such as one of our Instructors past Jujitsu Masters, whos arts he carried on as well as teaching ours.
Many pictures on the wall are the only known picture or painting of some of these Masters in existence, and are shared with numerous other schools. We have however through considerable expense had all of these past pictures enlarged and enhanced to be likely the best pictures of theirs in existence today.
Overall this helps students see kind of the big picture of our complex histories over multiple styles.
Ultimately people today join Imperial Combat Arts because of our demonstrations and the skill level of our Instructors, not because we promote our lineages. We as Instructors focus more on the present and future than the past. We care most about the achievable skill of the living and training high level combat fighters.
We have Masters of several styles on the school walls alongside news articles and promotions from our past, and also people of interest, such as one of our Instructors past Jujitsu Masters, whos arts he carried on as well as teaching ours.
Many pictures on the wall are the only known picture or painting of some of these Masters in existence, and are shared with numerous other schools. We have however through considerable expense had all of these past pictures enlarged and enhanced to be likely the best pictures of theirs in existence today.
Overall this helps students see kind of the big picture of our complex histories over multiple styles.
Ultimately people today join Imperial Combat Arts because of our demonstrations and the skill level of our Instructors, not because we promote our lineages. We as Instructors focus more on the present and future than the past. We care most about the achievable skill of the living and training high level combat fighters.
"Past Masters aren't going to come down off that wall and fight for you!"- Mang Taan