The Kun Lun Moutain range is shrouded in mist and mystery. In the worlds of Martial Arts and Taoism it is seen as a sacred place with a deep history. Much of the historical evidence is legendary, hearsay. For instance there is an old story that one of Taoism’s ancestors, Hong Jun, had three disiciples: Lao Tzu, Yuan Shi and Tong Tian. The third disciple created the style we now call Kung Lun Pai which later divided into two branches: Eastern and Western. This would make the styles almost 1000 years older than Shaolin!
Whether or not there is any truth to the legend the Kung Lun Mountains have hosted many famous practitioners including:
Tie Leng one of the 8 Immortals, during the Jin Dynasty
During the Tang Dynasty Shen Tia Yun was known for his Kun Lun Sword, Tian Feng was known for his Qian Yuan Gong (First Trigram Primorial Exercises) and Tian Lei was known for his Tian Gang Zhang (Big Dipper Handle Palm).
During the Song period Wang Long was reputed for his Ba Gua Long Xing Jian (Eight Trigrams Dragon Shaped Sword).
In the Ming Dynasty there were seven Taoist adepts known as the Kun Lun Qi Jian (Kun Lun Seven Swords). It is also said that Wong Long (of Mantis fame may have hidden out in the Kun Lun for a time)
In its long history there have been 105 generations of practitioners making Kun Lun a difficult to trace but certainly one of the most continuous martial lineages on the planet. From plumpub website.
The origin of Kunlun Kung Fu is on the mountain of Kunlun in Qinghai Province of China. The mountain of Kunlun is Scenic, the flower with glamour, has been a good place since ancient times. The king of Taoism Chongyang Wang with seven disciples of his creates and sets up the Kunlun Kung Fu at here. It is said, the Kunlun Kung Fu gains the name with the mountain of Kunlun.
The Kunlun Kung Fu is famous for vigorous, swift, violent and fast, hand shape changeable, using both hands and feet.
There were ever a lot of remarkable man in history of Kunlun Kung Fu, created Kunlun Kung Fu that was extensively and abstruse, the Kunlun Kung Fu kept ancient Peerless Kung Fu, the Kunlun fist is one of the Kunlun Kung Fu representatives. From mysteriouschina website.
Talk about shrouded in mystery ……
Kun Lun Pai is as mystifying as they come; earliest memories of this system come mainly from wuxia novels and b&w sword fighting movies in the 60s.
Some time in the 70s, there was this Singapore Chinese daily paper that ran a column about martial art systems from the old country and Kun Lun, alongside Hua San and Wudang, were listed as “major” systems but those articles were superficially written targeted at curious readers rather than for academic seekers.
Then articles started to appear in many Hong Kong and Taiwan magazines describing this style but most divergent from one another.
In recent years, mainland articles and books got onto the scene and these are very well-timed for me in my search.
One of my last few conversations with my White Crane teacher before he passed (when I was living in the States), centered on the “internal” elements that was added into Fuzhou Whooping Crane somewhere along the line of transmission.
We were looking at Hsing Yi and Tai Yi and my Sifu brought up Kun Lun.
Knowing very little about this at that time and unable to follow his explanation, the only thing that really got me wound up was when he mentioned that there’s a line of Kun Lun attributed to a female founder.
Okay, a female founder, this is interesting and in one of the Kun Lun books I collected, the author talk about the same – a “female” style kung fu.
“Kun” according to him also sometimes means “female”.
Don’t you just love the world I live in ……
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Many trees - 1 Forest/ 天下武林是一家 