Wrestling with history: Bringing ancient Chinese martial arts to Israel

When Josef Levitis opens the wooden doors of his small studio in Netanya, the space feels more like a living museum than a gym. Heavy stone locks, scarred wooden planks with hand-burned Chinese calligraphy, spears, swords, and iron palm bags sit alongside kettlebell-like training balls modeled on Manchu and Mongolian designs. In one corner, a Qing Dynasty officer’s helmet – purchased from an Israeli antique shop whose owners had no idea of its provenance – rests like a silent witness to history.

For Levitis, this is not just décor. It is the physical bridge between thousands of years of Chinese martial tradition and a new home in Israel, where he is working to plant the seeds of Shuai Jiao – the Chinese art of wrestling once reserved for emperors’ guards.

Levitis’s path to this mission began far from Israel – or China. Born in Moscow in 1975, he grew up in the Soviet Union, where Jewish boys often needed to fight to survive. His father and grandfather were boxers, and by age six he was in the boxing club. The first day he came home from school with a black eye, his father’s advice was straightforward: Learn to defend yourself.

“Boxing worked,” he recalls. “Like most Jewish kids in the Soviet Union, you had to do something. Otherwise, you’d get crushed.”

It might have ended there – a life divided between martial arts and his career as a guitarist – had Levitis not chanced upon a Chinese master whose pragmatic approach to Kung Fu changed everything.

“I tested him,” Levitis says with a laugh. “I threw some combos at him. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. I didn’t even know how it happened. That was it. I thought, ‘I have to learn this.’”

That encounter led him into Shuai Jiao, China’s wrestling tradition, and Meihua Tang Lang, the “Plum Blossom Praying Mantis” style of Kung Fu. These arts became his lifelong devotion.

To the uninitiated, Shuai Jiao looks a bit like judo. Two opponents grip each other’s jackets and try to throw or trip the other to the ground. But Levitis points out key differences. The jackets, modeled after Manchu military armor, are brutally stiff – closer to bulletproof vests than the soft cotton gi karate uniform of Japanese martial arts. Developing the grip strength to control an opponent through such material demands years of training.

Its history is even more distinctive. During the Qing Dynasty (1644 to 1911), the emperor kept an elite corps of 300 wrestlers, the Shan Pu Ying, who lived inside the Forbidden City and performed only for him and his guests. They doubled as bodyguards. Unlike many martial legends, this one is documented: They were all Manchu, never Han Chinese, reflecting the political mistrust of the era.

“This is one of the only martial art traditions where the myths line up with history,” Levitis says. “When people say their great master was a bodyguard to the emperor, it’s usually just a story. In Shuai Jiao, it’s actually true.”

Levitis spent decades in Russia after his years in America, building a career in both music and martial arts. But when the war in Ukraine began in 2022, he and his wife decided it was time to leave Moscow.

“I’d been to Israel many times since the 1990s and loved it,” he says. “When the war started, we thought – we need to move. And Israel made sense. My family is fully Jewish, so the aliyah process was straightforward. Even my dog made aliyah.”

Now based in Netanya with his wife, teenage son, and their corgi, Kevin, Levitis has immersed himself in Israeli life. His son trains in judo and Shuai Jiao, sometimes joining his father’s classes and even helping to teach. On mornings, Levitis walks to the Mediterranean, marveling at how close the sea is compared to landlocked Moscow.

“Here, everything feels small,” he says. “In Moscow, I’d spend two hours each way just commuting to training. In Israel, people complain if they have to drive from Tel Aviv to Haifa in one day. For me, that’s nothing.”

In Israel, Levitis quickly realized he was introducing something new. Shuai Jiao had never been practiced here in an organized way. In 2023, he founded the Israeli Shuai Jiao Association, which has since joined the European federation, and he has been invited to the Shuai Jiao World Cup in China – a kind of Olympics for the martial art.

Beyond wrestling, Levitis runs Kung Fu Combat, a program designed to make traditional martial arts more combative and applicable. Many Chinese and Japanese styles, he says, lost much of their practical effectiveness during the 20th century – victims of the Cultural Revolution, commercialization, or transformation into sport. Shuai Jiao, with its direct grappling and battlefield roots, provides a missing key.

“I’ll go to a karate or Kung Fu school and teach them elements of Shuai Jiao,” he explains. “Suddenly, techniques they’ve been doing for years make sense. It’s not adding something new; it’s unlocking what was always there.”

His students range from children in Netanya and Tel Aviv, who build confidence and athleticism through playful wrestling drills, to seasoned martial arts instructors seeking to enrich their own schools. Some come for fitness alone, lifting the heavy stone locks and training with the massive bows and spears that Levitis uses to replicate Qing Dynasty strength routines.

For Levitis, life in Israel has also underscored the contrast between his old and new homes.

“Before the war, Russia wasn’t free, but you could speak a little. After 2022, it was crushed completely. Seven, 10, 20 years in prison – for posting online, even for saying a few words. In Israel, people protest in the streets every week. That would be impossible there now.”

Netanya, meanwhile, has been a good fit. The city’s large expat community means he can get by in English or Russian when his Hebrew falters. Its central location makes travel easy. And the sea remains a daily gift.

Levitis is clear about his goals: to build a strong Israeli Shuai Jiao community, to bring athletes to international competitions, and to use martial arts as a bridge of diplomacy.

“Look at Israeli judo,” he says. “It’s world-class now, and it gives Israel amazing publicity. Shuai Jiao could do the same, even bigger. We’re talking about the national sport of the world’s largest population. If Israeli athletes succeed there, it opens enormous possibilities – not only in sports but in cultural exchange.”

As for his personal philosophy, it goes beyond medals or recognition.

“Whenever you do martial arts, you learn about yourself,” Levitis reflects. “You find your strengths and your limits. You become a better version of yourself. That’s why I tell people: ‘Join us, get strong, and build yourself up.’”

In a small studio by the Mediterranean, under the gaze of Qing-era relics and with the thud of heavy stones meeting earth, Josef Levitis is wrestling not just with opponents but with history itself – reviving an ancient tradition and giving it new life in Israel. ■