History and Symbolism 历史和象征

This form actually comes from Kongtong Mountain 崆峒山, part of a mountain range way out west in the borderlands between China and Tibet. In 2011 I traveled to Kongtong Mountain with my kung fu brothers Jeff 资和 and Louis 资探 as part of grand master Zhong’s entourage for the Great Meeting of the Martial Forest 武林大会, a conference of the five main mountain styles of martial arts: Wudang 武当, Shaolin 少林, Emei 峨眉, Kongtong 崆峒, and Kunlun 昆仑.

There, representatives of the different styles gave martial performances. I did some northern longfist, while my brother Jeff did the Eight Immortals Sword. One of the main Kongtong mountain disciples performed this fan form, but a much longer, more complex version of it. At Kongtong mountain they call it the Defiantly Hissing Heaven and Earth Flowing Wind Fan 啸傲乾坤风流扇, and it has seventy two steps in eight sections! Our uncle Jiang Fei 蒋飞 (师清), the main guy who lugged sacks of potatoes up to Five Dragons Cave for grand master Zhong during his five-year retreat, explained to us that this fan form was brought to Wudang in the 1990’s, and shortened both in name and in number of steps. So what we do is really just a simplified form of this longer Kongtong mountain style.

Kongtong Sect 崆峒派 has a really cool lineage though. This fan form came from Yan Feixia 燕飞霞 (1940-2005), the tenth generation grand master, who was kind of a martial arts prodigy who relocated to Japan during the cultural revolution to prevent his lineage from being wiped out. He came back to China a number of times after cooler heads prevailed to take on disciples and drum up the martial arts culture of Kongtong mountain again, so he was one of those high-profile martial artists teaching stuff really openly during the 80’s and 90’s, re-seeding the Kongtong martial arts and spreading them to places like Wudang.

And look at us now, teaching this in Canada! In the words of grandmaster Yan, “This form of martial fan is characterized by unique movements, a light and nimble structure, and strong applications. In it we find methods of training the body, footwork, and power.”