The Tong Long (Southern Praying Mantis) style of Kung Fu is a deadly fighting art. To the inexperienced eye, it may appear that practitioners merely wave their arms in the air, giving an impression of weak and ineffective hits. This is far from reality. Anyone who has been unlucky enough to find themselves at the end of an arm 'waved' by an experienced Tong Long member can attest to this.
Here is a style that is ideally suited to people of any age and size. It does not rely on shear physical strength for its damaging effects but, as we shall see, students are able to develop tremendous attacking power from within themselves. At this point I must warn potential students of imposters opening clubs under the Tong Long banner.
The only clubs that can claim to be practicing authentic Tong Long in Australia at this time are those affiliated with Grand Master Henry Sue. This warning would be echoed by true exponents of many other martial arts who are tired of the burgeoning number of new styles or clubs started by unscrupulous people with far too little knowledge to offer a style with any significant depth.
Grand Master Henry Sue has been nominated as the Australian Tong Long representative by the (late) head of the style, Grand Master Ip Shui. This article was written so that readers can begin to understand the power behind the 'waving arms'. It will outline the stages which Tong Long students go through as they train in their first levels up to the rank of blue belt. Readers will recognise that Tong Long is different in its philosophy and methods from many of the more popular martial arts styles. When we talk about the most basic aspects of fighting, we must first mention footwork, because without proper footwork we cannot generate enough energy to produce a good hit.
The footwork of Tong Long is the foundation of a stance which is higher than other martial arts such as many karate styles and some hard styles of kung fu. Monkey and white crane styles are two kung fu systems which share this high stance. One feature of the stance unique to Tong Long is that the feet are placed parallel to each other with a width equal to the width of your shoulders. The stance is made strong by gripping the floor with the whole foot and bending the knee slightly in and concentrating the energy flow from feet to hip to hand. The energy flow to the point of the strike depends on the correct use of chi.
Chi and its application form one of the key components of fighting in the Tong Long system. It is proper breathing and the energy source of the dan tien that will give energy to your palm or your fist when you execute a strike.
Strikes in the Praying Mantis system use this energy to hit with at least the power of those who train in arts with low stance. It is just that the energy is generated in a different way. The advantage of having a high stance is that you are able to move with more agility. Martial artists who use low stances give the impression that a lot of power is being generated from the hip and the solid base. However, this base could become a big problem in a fighting situation because it is so solidly rooted to the ground. The Praying Mantis stylists use their higher stance to cover more distance and to change direction more rapidly in response to an opponent's actions. With the feet moving so fast and the hands moving in unison with the footwork, breath and body movement, the Tong Long style becomes one of the fastest, deadliest and most powerful styles in the East.
Balance is critical for Tong Long players since they rely on executing a continuous barrage of explosive, heavy hits on an opponent until the confrontation is over.
Another key aspect of the stance which students must learn in the early part of their training involves the positioning of the back and shoulders. As a practitioner of this style, one's thought patterns must emulate those of a Praying mantis, in essence fighting in the same manner as the mantis. The positioning of the hands to strike means that the shoulders must hang out from the rest of the body, a position called yune diul soc. Sou gay boi is a term which describes the back as slightly rounded across the shoulders and shaped like the Chinese bamboo dish used to wash rice. The spine itself is like a straight steel rod which remains vertical.
After footwork and balance the next thing we should discuss is the strength in your hand. Strength in your hand in Praying mantis is referred to as the kiul. Just as we normally envisage a bridge spanning two points, in Tong Long 'bridge' means the supporting of energy between two points. The supporting of this energy is the kiul. When we have the framework together we want to transfer the energy to the hands. Often people talk about the bridge of energy between the shoulder and fist but in Tong Long kiul is the whole body linked together from foot to fingertip. The strength in your hand is based on the strength of the kiul which is developed by coordinating chi with body movement.
Chinese like to refer to energy as being live or dead, internal or external. Moving your body forward to produce a hit will produce dead energy unless you can drive out internal energy or ging. Without ging the hit will be only an impact from the momentum of your body (sai). Of course you can move your mass forward and hit very hard with external energy alone.
The Chinese believe you can go one step better and produce a more significant hit using internal energy. This uses energy you cannot see which generates from your dan tien, the focus of your chi. Here we are talking about the dan tien just below your navel. This area is expanded with air and then expelled without any blockages in the body which may result from things such as stiffness in your arm, shoulder, body or movement which can stop your energy output, can stop the uninterrupted flow of ging. Without any internal force the hit cannot reach its full power potential. It will only be an external hit causing external damage. This will result in superficial wounds such as black eye, split lip, broken rib. A hit containing ging is one that can actually kill people; the force is so great. The Tong Long system trains students to focus all power at the one time at the one point without any energy being stopped by technique. A 100% hit is delivered and 100% of your energy is exploded into an opponent.
Ging can only be driven out if you develop your chi flow. When we are talking about breathing during fighting we are not talking about air which is breathed in through the nose into the lungs and out through the nose. The breath is taken much deeper than that and we are describing the air stored in your dan tien. This air is expelled at the right time, with the right rhythm and the right body movement to produce a hit unhindered by any of the internal stoppages mentioned above.
Remembering that we are talking only of the basic stages, a student must also begin to develop accuracy, another skill intrinsic to the Mantis stylist. Once you have power and force and can begin to focus these on the place you want to hit, then without accuracy the concentration of the power is minimized. Just like a pin can penetrate easily because of the small area of its point, Tong Long practitioners, with accuracy, can concentrate their force into a small area. Penetrating force must be accurate. You must be able to find the place where you want to hit and concentrate all your force into one point, either at your finger or your fist area. In Tong Long this area is often reduced to one knuckle.
The average person thinks that the longer the distance a hit travels before impact, the greater the power in the hit will be. This comes from familiar natural examples, for instance if a coconut falls from a tree it may seriously hurt you, although it is only light. If you drop the same coconut from a small height it will only just bruise. This difference in damage is due to gravitational acceleration. People tend to associate distance with greater terminal speed and therefore a more powerful hit. In the beginning stages of Tong Long people are taught to make their hit over a long distance. Gradually this distance is reduced. It will be reduced by circular movement, cutting the straight line distance from point A to point B. Tong Long goes one better than this again. Instead of using a circular distance measured by vision, distance is linked to your ging. The distance is calculated from dan tien to point of impact. So compressed air stored in the dan tien drives the hand like an explosion drives a bullet from a gun to its target. The compressed air is channeled through to your arm and into your fist just like a bullet is driven along the barrel. Your compressed ging is exploded from the dan tien to the point of contact. This happens without any visible physical movement and adds a great deal of energy to your arm and body movement. Further increase in distance is then achieved with the ging, being driven by thought. So physical distance in Tong Long is not vital, making it an excellent in-fighting system. Even if you are already touching an opponent, you can still knock them out. The striking force in a hit also relies on the speed of the hand. It is here that students are given some inkling of the importance of the mind in an attack. Body movement and regular training can produce the acceleration necessary to make your hands faster and blows more powerful. This can be enhanced by the acceleration which results from correct focus of thought and training the body to react to this. Speed and acceleration are then controlled by the strength of the driving force which is your mind power.
Body movement in Tong Long is referred to as sai. The framework must be carried forward so that the whole body moves as one coordinated unit. If your hand or leg or body movement are separated, then your energy becomes separated and your impact will barely reach one third of that intended power in the strike.
To add even more power a twist of the hip is introduced. The only way to achieve ultimate ging, and therefore a full strength, killing blow, is to coordinate chi, sai, footwork and hip movement. All these elements are totally interrelated, cross linked one to the other.
Basic training as described above need to be understood before you can even start training to be a real fighter. In this stage it is important that the hands become strong enough to train in the later stages where Tong Long emphasizes the power of the brain to drive the attack. If these basics have not been correctly trained and developed, then the full power of the style will not be realised. You may break your hand or your stance may not be strong enough to support the extra power which can be generated using the strength of your mind, so careful development under the expert eye of an experienced teacher is absolutely necessary.
To know all the above does not mean you will be a great fighter. This is the foundation and theory needed for basic fighting. To start learning to be a better fighter you need to know more. Sensitivity must be introduced. No longer do you rely on encountering a hit reactions become reflex. Using visual contact for information about an attack may lead to errors which give advantages to your opponent. Sensitivity gives faster, more direct and more accurate information, allowing for more unpredictable attacks, leading to a result which is more likely to be in favor of the Tong Long practitioner.
At later stages students learn the rhythm of a fight, methods of linking the energy together, energy control, energy borrowing. These form the next stage a fighter must go through.
In the final stages, students progress to learn the importance of psychology in fighting. This involves manipulation of an opponent's energy, replacement of energy and mind control. Achievement at this level means that a fighter has reached the ultimate ability.