Fang Qiniang: The Forgotten Mother of White Crane Kung Fu

Zoe Jagger-Hinis
20 minutes ago
4 min read

While there is always assumed to be a father of everything, we rarely discuss the mothers of invention.

A brief Google search about Fang Qiniang reveals little, and the best reference point for her comes from The Bubishi as translated by Patrick McCarthy, which is a book about karate rather than kung fu. Given that her story begins hundreds of years ago, and much written martial history has been destroyed since then (thanks in part to the Cultural Revolution from 1966 – 1976 and the fire bombings of Japan in World War 2), it is amazing that we have a story to tell at all. Like many martial arts figures, much of her origin story is shrouded in myth, and while there are several variations in the details, the important parts of the story remain the same.

Fang Qiniang (also sometimes written as Fang Qi Liang (方七娘)) was born in Fujian province, China, sometime in the late 1600s. She was the beloved daughter of Fang Zhong. When her father died as a result of wounds sustained in a fight with thugs from a neighbouring village, in her grief she swore revenge. While she knew she had not adequately mastered the Monk Fist Boxing her father had taught her, she nonetheless longed to vindicate her family name.

The moment of inspiration, the story goes, came one day when she saw two white cranes fighting outside her home. (One version is that they interrupted her while she did laundry at the river bank.) She went out to scare them away, but found that despite her range and her speed, she could not touch them. Their evasive maneuvers and fluid attacks intrigued her, and it was these movements she replicated and refined into the style that would become her own: White Crane Boxing. She came to understand the central principles of hard and soft, and the advantages to be gained in yielding to power in order to overcome it. She committed herself daily to her training for three years, and as she improved and developed her style, word of her strength began to spread.

Back then, as with the internet now, many men came to challenge her strength, but all found themselves beaten, unable to land a blow as she moved around them with grace and devastatingly accurate attacks. One of those men, upon realising the efficacy of her fighting system, begged her to take him as her disciple, and she agreed. Zeng Cishu went on to become her successor, spreading the style wider. That style spread from Fujian to Okinawa, and in part lives on in Goju Ryu, the style I practice. A quan (the Chinese equivalent of kata) she invented is Saam Chien, which we know as Sanchin, the cornerstone kata of Goju Ryu.

She chose, in the end, not to seek revenge: she advised her students that those who truly understand the fighting traditions are never arrogant or unscrupulous. Some of the stories go that she taught a great many students, some of which went on to become great tacticians, generals and warriors. There are many colourful details that are impossible to verify, and there is a tragic paucity of information about her. I wish I could find more that didn't seem like wishful myth-making. As with so much martial history, we have apocryphal tales that we hang on to. In part, I think, as my favourite author Terry Pratchett says, because “everyone else had decided that wisdom can only be found a long way off.”

Her story is short, but one that continues to live on today in the styles she influenced. When we look at dojo histories and lineages, we see a line of men stretching back, but it so rarely includes the woman we owe so much to. Further back than Ryu Ryu Ko (1793-1882), who taught Higaonna Kanryo, who taught Chojun Miyagi, we have so little lasting information. Even Ryu Ryu Ko himself is a highly contested figure, never mind that of a peasant woman living in a small village well over 400 years ago. It is little wonder that Fang Qiniang is not as well known as she should be.

It is tempting to wrap this all up with a neat bow, to say that there is a clear precedent for the modern female martial artist. And in many ways, most of us live in an era of far greater equality than Fang Qiniang experienced in her lifetime. Much Confucian philosophy is shockingly sexist: the preceding philosophies were no better, such as this tidbit from Admonitions for Women, a work by the Han dynasty female intellectual Ban Zhao (written sometime between 202BCE and 220ACE):

“What is womanly virtue? She does not distinguish herself in talent and intelligence. What is womanly speech? She does not sharpen her language and speech. What is womanly manner? She does not seek to be outwardly beautiful or ornamented. What is womanly merit? She does not outperform others in her skills and cleverness.”

The discrimination against women in the teachings in Analects written by Confucius instituted a legacy of isolation of women from culture, politics, education, the workforce and more. Confucianism created a patriarchal society where women were powerless against their husbands and fathers, were not allowed to participate in public life, and could not inherit property nor carry on the family name. And this influence only began to wane around 1911, though it continues to manifest in modern gender discrepancies in east Asia.

Given all these social pressures and dictates, it is even more incredible that Fang Qiniang rose as she did. She remains an inspiration to the modern woman martial artist, as we all continue to contribute to contemporary martial arts, whether it is through instruction, literature, style-building or administration. As the young South African author Olive Schreiner wrote in 1883:

“By the steps that I have cut they will climb; by the stairs that I have built they will mount. They will never know the name of the man who made them. At the clumsy work they will laugh; when the stones roll they will curse me. But they will mount, and on my work; they will climb, and by my stair!”

On her stair, we climb.

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