Shen Lung
Shen Lung is a school of
Chinese Kung Fu of generally
Southern Taoist description. It is very small and rather unassuming. Its fighting style is very soft, but quick and technical.
Shen Lung Kung Fu began as
Tien Lung, a
Chinese style at least
300 years old and possibly pre-dating the
Ming. A tenant of
Tien Lung held it could only be taught to
Taoists.
In 1948,
Master Fu Tsi Wen saw which way the wind was blowing, and got out of
China a year before the
Communists came in. Considering himself a
Taoist missionary – he liked to say that he wasn’t out to convert the world to
Taoism, just out to convert the world – he began to walk the earth. By the mid- 1960s, he ended up in
Montgomery, Alabama.
One day, he met
John Lewis and several of his friends playing basketball. After schooling the teenagers with his
feet, he asked them if they would like to learn. In the process of teaching these boys to fight,
Master Fu devised
Shen Lung Kung Fu. He dropped the requirement of
Taoist belief. While the school still studies the
Tao, all that is required is belief in something. Because these students had a background in
boxing and
wrestling and came from a western cultural background, the system integrated these skills and adapted to make an all-inclusive set of tools available to the practitioner.
Eventually,
Master Fu continued his journey.
Sifu John Lewis continues his master’s tradition, teaching a school of students in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with students in
Birmingham and
Atlanta.
Shen Lung is my school.
We don’t jump around. We don’t compete. We don’t break bricks.
We study the human body. We learn the follow its rhythm, flow with it, and break it.
We seek to bring together in a single person the body of a warrior, the mind of a scholar, and the spirit of a priest.