Song Zi De
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 romanized as:
Sung Tzu Te
Born in 1855.
Shifu Song Zi De and shifu Jian Hua Long were sworn brothers. They studied monkey style together then became disciples of shifu Liang Xue Xiang.
Later, shifu Jiang Hua Long opened two different schools in the Lai Yang area. At one of his school he was sitting in a chair and shifu Song Zi De was the person who was actually teaching.
Some of shifu Song Zi De descendants in PRC mention that shifu Song Zi De beat his gong fu brother Jiang Hua Long in combat and they also say shifu Song Zi De was the better boxer. Shifu Jiang Hua Long's descendants do not agree with this and in fact the majority majority of independent sources agree shifu Jiang Hua Long was the superior boxer. The fact that in the boxing school shifu Jiang Hua Long was sitting in a chair and shifu Song Zi De was the person who was actually teaching would demonstrate it.
Shifu Song Zi De taught praying mantis together with shifu Jiang Hua Long in the Zhao Ge Zhuang Praying Mantis boxing school (wu guan) for many years. Later, when shifu Jiang Hua Long became old, he moved to a different village and continued teaching praying mantis and experimenting new techniques in the Chang Shan Praying Mantis boxing school (wu guan).
Shifu Song Zi De passed away in 1935 (1933/34 according to other sources).
Page Updated: 1st September 2002.
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Fernando Blanco Dopazo .