Kim Shih Wan
Praying Mantis Shifu
The information presented in this chart was collected from different sources -see Bibliography-, therefore the romanizations in Pinyin according to the Mandarin pronunciation of the characters sometimes is not available. If you find any mistakes or inaccuracies please contact me.
His name is also spelled as:
Kim Shihwan.
Born 1941. Being 12 years old (1953) shifu Kim Shih Wan started his Tang Soo Do training, later in 1956 started his Taiji Tang Lang Quan / Mei Hua Tang Lang Quan training under shifu Lin Pin Zhang.
After years of training, shifu Kim Shih Wan became a senior student of shifu Lin Pinzhang, and played a key role in spreading the mantis boxing in Korea, through his many students and demonstrations.
Shifu Kim Shih Wan was the first to openly teach under the mantis banner in the early sixties, previously mantis boxing or tantui had been taught under the name of Chinese boxing or Kuoshu. As of 1987 there were over 5,000 students who had learned under him at one point, spread out in 30 different countries. Even, it is said that the weapons forms of the Hapkido family are based on tang lang quan forms taught by shifu Kim Shih Wan.
Shifu Kim Shih Wan went twice to Taipei (Taiwan) in the 60's and 70's and won second place twice at the sparring section of the Kuoshu Games.
Shifu Kim Shih Wan is a hard qi gong expert. In 1982 he gave a demonstation showing his iron arm gong, where a man with a railroad hammer repeated hit him on the arms, only to have the hammer bounce off. Photos were taken at this demonstration.
Shifu Kim Shih Wan taught tang lang quan for more than forty years, but he does not teach mantis boxing anymore. Instead, after more than fifty years of intense study, shifu Kim Shih Wan developed his own style of meditation and qigong, which he teaches in Seoul (Korea).
Page Updated: 1st February 2006.
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Fernando Blanco Dopazo .