What places Wang Lang in the Ming Dynasty as opposed to the Song Dynasty as proposed by the Luohan Xing gong Duan Da?
Is there any connection between the Wang Lang of Mantis fame and Wang Lang from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Maybe somebody liked the character and used the name as the legendary founder of mantis?
Are any of the 18 masters verifiable?
I want to write a history of mantis that presents what is fact, what is probable, and what is myth.
I don’t want to pass on the same old oral histories as if they were fact.
Here is a first draft
The origins of Praying Mantis kung fu are impossible to verify. The oral history of the style is completely infused with legend, and no reliable historical documents have been found. What follows is an interpretation of those myths set against the back drop of history.
Praying Mantis Gong Fu is wide spread in the Shandong providence of Northern China which gives credence to the theory that it originated there, possibly at one of the Taoist temples located on Lao Shan “mountain”. The Temple of Supreme Purity (built 960-1279), The Temple of Supreme Peace (built 960-1279), The Temple of Great Purity (built 1297-1307) and the Buddhist Temple of Huayan Si (built mid 17th century) are each located on Lao Shan, and each could have been the birth place of Mantis Gong Fu during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Though, it is possible that the Mantis style has no connection to any temple outside of its creation myth.
Wang Lang was said to be the creator of the style, though his existence has never been credibly verified. He is most often credited with creating the style during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) or the earlier Song Dynasty (960-1279). The legend of Wang Lang as the creator of the style is probably a fabrication, a possible reference to the historical and legendary Wang Lang (3rd Century) from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, though this is pure conjecture.
The next person in the Mantis lineage is Shen Xiao who is claimed to have learned the style from “temple monks”. Shen Xiao wrote or received a book called Luohan Xínggong Duan Da, published in 1794, it claims the mantis style was created or refined in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) as collaboration between Wang Lang and the legendary personas of a Shaolin martial monk Fu-Ju and masters from 17 other styles at the Shaolin Temple in located in Henan province. Fu-Ju is often mistaken for the Abbot Fu Yu who headed up a Shaolin branch temple in Mongolia. To further confuse the temple connection Shen Xian was also said to be Abbot of a Yun Hua Temple and a met his disciple Li San Jian at a Green Dragon Temple.
