The Secret Transmission of Northern Gong-fu According to the Immortal Santa
《聖誕仙翁北宗功夫秘傳》
In the annals of the jianghu there is a saying: what is seen is never the root, and what is hidden is never small. Thus it is with Santa Claus, whom children know as a giver of gifts, but whom the immortals record under another name—Hong Bei Zhenren, the Red-North Perfected One.
In the early Tang Dynasty, when Daoist alchemy still scented the mountains and sword light lingered in poetry, Santa crossed the frozen seas from a green-white land far to the west. He came not by ship but by breath, riding the currents of heaven and earth, guided by a vow older than dynasties: to refine life beyond death. Word had reached even Greenland of Wudang Mountain, where clouds coiled like dragons and the bones of immortals slept beneath pine roots.
There, in a ravine ignored by maps, Santa met the one history forgot—a dwarf martial master known only as Old Iron Pine. He was small as a child, crooked as a winter branch, yet when he stood still the mountain listened. Old Iron Pine spoke little. He taught by tapping Santa’s dantian with a gnarled finger, by making him stand until snow melted around his feet, by laughing when Santa failed and nodding once when he succeeded.
From him Santa learned the true internal method: stillness that moves, softness that breaks stone, breath that circles like the North Star. This art was older than names, a formless precursor to what later generations would call Taijiquan. Old Iron Pine taught that the body was a sleigh, the qi its reindeer, and the mind the silent driver. Only when all three agreed could one cross worlds.
Eighty-one years Santa remained at Wudang. During that time, Old Iron Pine accepted another student—a tall, wandering Daoist named Zhang Sanfeng. The dwarf taught Zhang only after Santa, and thus the root of all internal martial arts passed first through northern hands, then into Chinese legend. When Old Iron Pine vanished one morning, leaving only frost on sun-warmed stone, Santa bowed three times and knew the transmission was complete.
Before departing, Santa befriended a white tiger whose stripes shimmered like calligraphy. Together they practiced stepping methods at dawn. Yet the tiger, bound to the veins of China, refused the northern winds. With mutual respect, they parted.
Santa returned north, but immortality demands seclusion. He settled at the Pole of Cold, where heaven’s axis hums. Old Iron Pine’s younger cousins followed him—dwarfs of iron bone and quiet laughter. In the Scandinavian snows they intermarried with snow elves, giving rise to a hidden clan: diminutive warriors who train day and night beneath auroras, refining fist, breath, and spirit.
Reindeer replaced the tiger, patient and attuned to snow-qi. Toy making became a convenient disguise, a side hustle to fund the most secret martial academy on earth. Gold leaves trails; gifts leave smiles. Those few who find the Pole and survive training pay not with coin, but with silence.
Thus the jianghu remains deceived. Children await Santa’s arrival once a year, unaware that each journey is a moving meditation, each sleigh a formation, each laugh a thunder hidden in snow. And somewhere beyond sight, the dwarf master smiles, for the true art has never been lost—only wrapped.
