History

Mi Zong History

As with most styles, there are many colorful stories about the legendary creation of Mi Zong. One of these traces the origin back to one day in the Tong dynasty when a Shaolin monk chanced upon a troop of apes chasing each other in the mountains. He noticed that the attitude and movements of one of the dominant apes coincided with the spirit and techniques of kung fu. Enlightened by what he saw, the monk went back to the monastery and integrated his new insights with Shaolin kung fu to create Mi Zong.

Another legend begins in the northern Sung dynasty when a famous and wealthy kung fu master named Loo Tsun Yzo learned Mi Zong from the shaolin priests and then taught it to his student, Yin Ching. Yin Ching's mastery of Mi Zong earned him fame and he joined the Water Margin (a Robin Hood style band which robbed the rich and helped the poor), which consisted of 108 legendary martial arts heroes who revolted against the emperor. Everyone knew of Yin Ching's prowess, but none could discover what style he practiced, so they called it Mi Zong meaning 'lost track'. A variation of the tale has him fleeing in a snow storm from the emperor's warriors. To cover his tracks, he moved backwards with his feet and spread the snow over his tracks with his hands, thus prompting the name lost track. Even to this day, practitioners in Shantung province call their art Yin Ching Quan to honor him. 

The pursuit of historical facts concerning the origin of Mi Zong has traced the roots of many different branches of the style from several regions. The results all point to one man, master Sung Tung from Shangtung province, as the founder of the style in the time of Emperor Yuan Jean of the Ching dynasty. In his early years, he studied kung fu under master Cheng of Shangtung and learned all he could in a few years. Tung left Shangtung province in quest of more kung fu and began his search for friends and a teacher. Eventually he met a Shaolin priest who had been a noble during the Ming dynasty but became a monk to avoid the ruling yoke of the Manchu and then became a master of Mi Zong Kung Fu. Master Sung followed the Shaolin priest in the temple for more than a decade before completing his mastery of the style. He was sent down the mountain by the priests and then returned to Shangtung only to find that the daughter of his former teacher, master Cheng, was not pleased with him. Wishing to avoid a challenge from his sifu's daughter, he first moved to Ching Zhou and then settled in Chuong Zhou in Hobei province and started his teaching of Mi Zong. Tales of his prowess and mastery of Mi Zong became widespread as he gained numerous followers in the northern provinces. They gave him the nicknames Almighty Hand and Iron Feet Sung Tung. Today's Mi Zong students from all different branches and places are the result of his teaching.