Lai 癞

Lai is one of the two semi-mythical monks who first taught Bajiquan to Wu Zhong, and is generally considered the 1st generation.

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Name

Lai 癞 is likely a nickname and means "leprosy".

Biography

Lai is said to be one of two wandering monks who taught Bajiquan to Wu Zhong. They are sometimes specified to be Daoist monks.

Depending on the source, Lai is sometimes considered to be the master of Pi.

Debate surrounding identity.

Little is known about Lai and Pi, indeed, there is some debate as to whether they even existed at all.

Due to renewed interest in martial arts, particularly during the 1980s, there has been renewed interest in trying to trace the origins and many have attempted to uncover their identities, but to no avail. Some authors have tried to link the origin of BajiQuan either to the famous Shaolin temple in Songshan, to the YueShan temple of BoHai county in Henan province, to the daoist temples of WuDang mountains of HuBei province, or even to Ding FaXiang from MengCun village. There is still, however, no solid evidence beyond oral information and no written information supporting any of these hypotheses that predate the 1950s. Many believe that these attempts may be financially motivated.

A common consensus is that Wu Zhong likely did not want to identify the sources of his martial arts and it is likely that they are simply names meant to symbolise the skills that he acquired during his lifetime and were not specific people.