What is a Martial Tradition?

The Preservation of Inherited Practices
Martial traditions occupy a distinctive place within this broader understanding of tradition. Like all living traditions, they involve the preservation of inherited practices and values. However, they also demand an embodied, skill-based transmission in which knowledge is inseparable from practice. Techniques, training methods, and tactical principles cannot be preserved merely through documentation—they must be lived, practiced, and refined over time. Martial traditions are also bound to a moral orientation, social identity, and interpretive framework that gives meaning to their methods. In this way, they link physical skill, ethical formation, and intergenerational continuity into a single, integrated inheritance.

Borrowing from Shils (1981) and Soares (1997), a martial tradition can be defined as a historically rooted set of combative practices, beliefs, customs, and rituals that constitute a distinct martial arts system, with knowledge and skill transmitted intergenerationally through the direct teacher–student relationship. In martial contexts, this transmission is not merely verbal or documentary—it is embodied. Techniques, tactical principles, and training methods must be lived, practiced, and refined for self-preservation. But there is still more.

In their work Luo Guang Yu Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu: A Traditional Chinese Martial Art (2020), my teacher Master Kai Uwe Pel and kung fu brother Andrew Best provide a detailed historical account of Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu and the broader Shaolin tradition. They characterize Shaolin heritage as a confluence of combative skill, yogic health cultivation (Luohan Gong), and Buddhist meditative practice—together forming “a complete system of the body, energy, and mind” that is distinctly a product of imperial-era China. From this perspective, Shaolin Kung Fu is not a single style but a tradition—a living matrix from which many systems evolved, unified by shared philosophical and practical foundations.

Building on this insight, I propose five essential criteria to more precisely define “traditional” Chinese martial systems:

1. 1. Historical Origins – It must have emerged in imperial-era China (pre-1911).
   2. Combative Practices – It must include a coherent body of functional empty-hand and weapons techniques, tactics, strategies and training methods.
   3. Longevity Practices – It must preserve a mind–body health discipline, typically in the form of various qigong and meditation methods.
   4. Philosophical Practices – It must be informed by a philosophical framework drawing from one or more of the Three Teachings-Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.
   5. Lineage Continuity – It must be transmitted intergenerationally through a direct teacher–student relationship sustained for at least three generations.

These criteria not only clarify what is meant by “traditional” in the Chinese martial arts context, but they also safeguard the integration of physical, philosophical, and health-oriented elements that give systems such as Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu their enduring coherence. They also provide a clear and important demarcation for modern developments post 1950’s in China’s national sport competition wushu movement.

If these are the conditions that define a living traditional martial system, then Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu offers a particularly rich case. Its historical formation and survival into the present result from a unique synthesis: rooted in the combative systems of late Ming and early Qing dynasty China, refined through the health practices of the Eighteen Arhat Qigong, and guided by the moral and social philosophy of Ruism (Confucian). These elements are not separate, but form an interdependent framework where each reinforces and gives meaning to the others.

However, none of these can endure without lineage and transmission. Lineage connects the present to the past, ensuring the continuity of both technical knowledge and the values that shape the art. Transmission, as the active process of passing down this knowledge and ethos, preserves the tradition while allowing it to evolve. Together, lineage and transmission form the bridge between past and future, ensuring that Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu remains a living tradition, relevant and vital for generations to come.

Contact us to enquire about training.

 

 

About The Author

Nathan A. Wright
Nathan is the Managing Director and Chief Instructor at Northern Sage Kung Fu Academy, and Chief Representative of Luo Guang Yu Seven Star Praying Mantis in Canada and China. With over 25 years of experience living in China, he is deeply committed to passing on traditional martial arts in its most sincere form. As part of his passion Nathan regularly writes on related topics of self-defense, combat, health, philosophy, ethics, personal cultivation, and leadership. Email Nathan if you have questions on this article, or if you have interest in learning more about studying traditional Seven Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu.

 

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→ Current State of Praying Mantis Kung Fu (Sept. 2025)
→ What Is Tradition?
→ What Is a Martial Tradition?
→ Combat as a Core Element of the Praying Mantis Tradition (Sep. 2025)
→ Longevity as a Core Element of the Praying Mantis Tradition
→ Character Building as a Core Element of the Praying Mantis Tradition
→ The Meaning of Lineage and Transmission
→ The Living Unity of Tradition in Praying Mantis Kung Fu
→ Reflections on Tradition and Return to Meaning in Martial Practice (Aug. 2025)
→ More from our Knowledge Centre