On a somewhat related note, I'd like to hear more about Zhang Dekuei's purported mastery of the qinggong ("light body skill" or "flying skill") which I have seen referenced numerous times. This is particularly interesting to me in the context of two other pieces of information:
1) Ilya Profatilov's article in the JAMA specifically states that Wang Yuanqian related a story to him wherein Li Bingxiao demonstrated the "weightless body skill" to his disciple Zhao Zhu (aka Zhao Qiliu, the teacher of Liang Xuexiang, who in turn taught Jiang Hualong and Song Zide), promised to teach him, but passed away before he did. Thus the flying skill became a lost art of Praying Mantis as long ago as the early 1800s.
2) An article by Tony Yang (disciple of General Liu Yun Qiao), wherein he describes training under a Praying Mantis sifu named Su Li-Chang. Su apparently trained to where he could climb "a nine foot wall very fast" and "would often train his legs by climbing tall posts using no hands". I quote from that article "Often he taught ramp training where you laid a ramp at about forty-five degrees to a wall and ran up it. Gradually you increased the angle of the ramp until its removal. You then could run literally straight up a wall!" This kind of training seems like it would be logically connected to the qinggong.
I bring this up because I am under the impression that the "Su Li-Chang" referenced in Tony's article is the same person generally known as "Su Yu-Chang", a former student of both Liu Yun Qiao and Zhang Dekuei. Not only are the names similar, but Tony's artical speaks of studying with Su Li-Chang as a matrix through which one had to pass in order to merit studying with Liu Yun Qiao. The question then becomes: if this is so, has some of the qinggong skill for which Zhang Dekuei was famous been preserved in his students, particularly Su Yu-Chang?
I'd also be particularly interested to hear from students of Shi Zheng Zhong in this regard given his study under Zhang.
-Grady
Tony's article can be found here:
http://www.wutangcenter.com/wt/articles.html, under the title "Yang Shu-ton on TANG LANG HAND (Praying Mantis)".
Su Yu-Chang's website can be found here:
http://www.pachitanglang.com/