Lishi means Li (or Lee) family system and can be traced back to Ho-Hsieh Lee who was the earliest known practitioner of this system.  He lived around 1000 BC near Beijing in China where he and his family were practicing Daoists. When he was 54, he and his family resettled in Weihei, which was then known as Wei Hai Wei, a fishing village in the Shandong Province. The arts remained in Shandong until 1933, surviving as a family system by being passed from parent to child and evolving and growing over the years. They were eventually given to Chan Kam Lee, the last person in the Lee family to receive the arts.  Kam Lee was unmarried and had no children. He often lived in London where he started a class in Red Lion Square in Holborn in 1933.

A year later, Chan Kam Lee met Chee Soo in Hyde Park in London when Chee Soo apologised for accidentally hitting Chan Kam Lee in the back with his ball.  They became friends and Chee Soo was invited to join his class.

In the winter of 1953/4 Chan Kam Lee died on a ship that went down near Canton in China and Chee Soo later took over as head of the family.  Before Chee Soo died in 1994, he passed the arts on to Desmond Murray who we call ‘Laoba’, a title that means 'old (wise) man’. Our main teacher in London is Dr Alex Boyd who has been a student of Desmond Murray since 1984 and has travelled to London to re-establish Lishi here and teach each week for the last 20 years!