The History of Long Shen is both a recent and an ancient one. Long Shen literally translates to English as "Dragon God" or "God of Dragons." Stemming from Chinese mythology, Long Shen is a spiritual dragon who controlled the winds and the rains. Chinese people took great care to avoid offending them for if they grew angry or felt neglected, the result was bad weather, drought, flood or thunderstorms.
The present history of Long Shen is slightly less mystical and far more recent.
Long Shen has always had an interest in Martial Arts since a young age. It wasn't until his Marine Corps career that he began enduring formal training in the Marine Martial Arts Program initiated in 2003 Corps. wide. A few years after being discharge he found a great interest in the spirituality of the Shaolin Monks of the northern moutnains of China. In 2007, he seeked out a local Kung Fu school and immediately began formal training in Northern Shaolin Gong Fu. In 3 short years, Long Shen has accellerated to the top ranks in his school bringing honor upon himself, the school and his Shifu, Sean Marshall. In early 2009, he took a haitus from Kung Fu to study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA which helped to round out his combat technique and physical abilities.
In 2009, he began to take tribal dance lessons from the renowned Naimah, who coached and guided him in adding traditional dance movements into his Kung Fu and helping to put Kung Fu into dance movements to create very unique and stunning choreographies.
In short, Kung Fu can be defined as "hard work over time to achieve skill." In China, the term Kung Fu is synonymous with "hard work" and doesn't necessarily mean to them what it means to us as we know it from movies and television.
An in-depth history and definition can be found on wikipedia.org
If you're interested in taking Kung Fu or Tai Chi classes, please get in contact with Shifu Billy Greer from the Jing Ying Institute, ranked one of the top 10 Kung Fu schools in the country and where Long Shen currently trains.