Ren Ji Bai
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.
Born in 1858 in San Xi province in mainland China.
Shifu Ren Ji Bai was from an educated family and was talented in scholastic and martial subjects and he was educated in traditional Chinese medicine.
At the age of 15 he became a student of Jiao Long monk and started learning Mantis gong fu. He showed a natural talent and an enthusiastic attitude towards his training and quickly rose to become the best student the monks had taught.
After mastering mantis boxing he returned to his home village where he met Gong Zhr Xi and Chen Chiang who were famous masters in their respective gong fu styles (Tai Ji Quan, Xing Yi and Ba Gua).
They became good friends and started to learn from each other and started creating a new style with the best aspects of each of their styles and with mantis as the core. After developing this new style Master Ren returned to his former school to test his new mantis style in a challenge match which he won easily.
Spectators who saw him in challenge matches said he moved so quickly and powerfully that they gave him the "Crazy Ren" nickname.
Due to shifu Ren reputation Shan Xi Seven Star Mantis is well known in Shan Xi Province and surrounding areas in China.
Shifu Ren only started teaching in the 1930's after a lifetime of refining the style and only accepted a few students to pass his knowledge on to.
Page Updated: 1st November 2000.
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Fernando Blanco Dopazo .