Shi Mei Lin (Wu Yan Tang) has spent her entire life studying and teaching Martial Arts. Beginning her own training aged 7, she went on to graduate from the Beijing Sports and Cultural University in Chinese Martial Arts.
A Wushu (a member of the Shanghai Wushu Team) and Tai Chi champion in the 1970s and 1980s, she toured with Chinese Wushu teams internationally, including the United States in 1974 when she was part of an elite Chinese Martial Arts Delegation. In later years she was an instructor for members of the Shanghai Wushu Team and she also coached the Taiwanese Wushu Team in 1994 as well as coaching in Japan. Shi Mei Lin is currently Head Taolu Coach for the New Zealand Kung Fu Wushu Federation.
Shi Mei Lin has been an international Tai Chi champion and five times an All China National Tai Chi Champion. In 1986 she won the Chinese National Tai Chi sword competition as well as becoming the Wu Style Tai Chi Champion.
Since making her home in New Zealand Master Shi Mei Lin has taught many appreciative students both Shaolin Kung Fu and Wu Style Tai Chi in New Zealand and all over the world. Besides her public and private classes Shi Mei Lin is a Tai Chi and Wushu tutor at Toi Whakari/New Zealand Drama School and at The Wellington Performing Arts School. She also practises Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture.
Master Shi Mei Lin is the adopted daughter of Wu Tai Chi Grandmasters Ma Yue Liang and Wu Ying Hua.
Both Grandmaster Ma and Grandmaster Wu taught Shi Mei Lin Wu Style Tai Chi. Grandmaster Wu passed on her full knowledge of the Wu style Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi weapons forms to Master Shi Mei Lin (Wu Yan Tang). Grand Master Ma passed on his full knowledge of the style and taught Master Shi Mei Lin the original Wu Style Fast Form, first demonstrated in public by Master Shi Mei Lin herself to the Chinese Martial Arts Society in 1983.
Shi Mei Lin often represented Wu Style Tai Chi with Grand Master Ma and Grand Master Wu at martial arts demonstrations, competitions and conferences. She also co-authored the book "Wu Style Tai Chi Fast Form" with Grand Master Ma and Grand Master Wu.
Grand Master Wu and Grand Master Ma both felt a special affinity with Mei Lin. They both felt she was destined to help continue the Wu Ying Hua and Ma Yue Liang family Wu Style Tai Chi heritage and they gave her the name Wu Yan Tang.
On a visit to New Zealand in 1990 Grand Master Wu expressed the wish that Shi Mei Lin continue to teach and pass on Wu Style Tai Chi. Grand Master Wu's son Ma Hai Long now heads the Wu Chien Chuan Tai Chi Association in Shanghai and her third son Ma Jiang Bao teaches Wu Tai Chi in Europe.
Master Shi Mei Lin moved to New Zealand in 1988. Both Grand Master Ma and Grand Master Wu visited her here in 1990. Staying for about 6 months they gave Tai Chi demonstrations, featured on news broadcasts with Shi Mei Lin and also in a short documentary.