sorry i was off the forum by a few months. sorry for the delay.

yeah. it was a folk story from the Song dynasty eras i read somewhere--and folk stories are most the times pretty inaccurate--that Han Tong and Wang Lang had a contest fight in the then capital city, Kaifeng, and Wang was defeated. and that after leaving the arena, Wang saw a mantis and so and so.

in Shaolin, i just know that there has been an early style that has been practiced in the Zhou army. among the Zhou generals, Han Tong was most famous master of this style; Zhao Kuangyin also knew this style. this style was imported into Shaolin temple by early Song dynasty generals. in the remnants of the early Shaolin texts this style is called Tong Bi quan. we recently found out that this style is kept in the western courtyard (xi yuan) of Shaolin and there it is called Tong Bei quan (it is different from the famous Daoist Tong Bei quan. nothing in common, just the names). it has much in common with other styles that also come from the early Song dynasty army, which confirms the historical relations. anyway, i didn't know that Han Tong's legacy martial arts are so important in other schools as well. thanks for the info.