Liu and the Praying Mantis Master

During one of my visits to Jinan to train with Master Liu ChengDe, I witnessed an encounter that fundamentally changed my understanding of authentic martial skill.

The Challenge

The day before I arrived, a Praying Mantis master had come to Liu’s training area and challenged him. Master Liu had thoroughly defeated him.

My first exposure to Praying Mantis came through a high school friend, Frank Chan. He invited me to his house to watch what he and his friend were practicing. Frank was a nice guy—more artist than martial artist—but it was wonderful seeing him explore his gong fu.

My next exposure came watching The Green Hornet, where Kato fights a Praying Mantis master. Eye-opening, but nothing extraordinary.

Then came San Francisco. My training partner and I had travelled there to study with the renowned Master Kuo Lien-Ying. While wandering the Embarcadero, we spotted two men in traditional clothing practising two-person drills.

We were both impressed—genuinely impressed, which wasn’t easy to achieve. Their strength was obvious. Their gong fu was legitimate. We stopped to talk martial arts with them for quite a while. It was a revelation: in China, real gong fu training was serious business.

But what I was about to see with Master Liu was on an entirely different level.

“Some Parts Are Useless”

The Praying Mantis master returned the next day.

“I acknowledge that you defeated me yesterday,” he said, “but there are still parts of your form that appear useless. Can you demonstrate applications that actually work? Because they look ineffective to me.”

One of his objections concerned the form’s opening movement. In Hong Chuan Chen Shi Taijiquan, this is executed quite differently—and far more effectively—than in other styles.

When our hands and arms first rise in the opening posture, the fingers lead and the elbows remain sunken. Liu simply closed his hands and performed the exact movement from the form—with the Praying Mantis master on the receiving end.

Physics in Motion

The man flew backward. Not head-first. Not feet-first. His entire body moved as a single unit, launched backward through space.

Liu repeated the movement. Same result.

He did it a third time. This time, the Praying Mantis master flew backward with such force he was in danger of going off the edge of the mountain where Liu trained.

“Alright,” the man conceded. “I stand corrected. That movement definitely has power.”

“I Will Break Your Arm”

But he wasn’t finished.

“However,” he continued, “your extended arm position—palm facing upward, elbow pointing down—is fundamentally flawed. If you use that against me, I will break your arm.”

Liu’s response was simple: “We should test it.”

They did. The Praying Mantis master locked—or thought he locked—Liu’s arm at the elbow and attempted to break it. Liu allowed this for some time.

Finally, Liu asked quietly, “Are you finished?”

“Yes.”

Liu rotated his arm downward and completely flattened the man into a compressed ball. The pain was evident and severe.

The Aftermath

The Praying Mantis master rose slowly, bowed deeply, and left.

He was a famous master. Powerful. Well-trained.

But not trained enough.