Wu Tan New England was founded in 2021 in Massachusetts by Shifu Luis Mendez — a practitioner whose martial arts journey spans decades of training, teaching, and transmission across multiple countries and continents. When he established the school, Shifu Mendez brought together everything that had come before: years of experience teaching outside the United States, the hard-won lessons of directing his own martial arts academy in Venezuela, and an unwavering commitment to preserving and transmitting traditional Chinese martial arts exactly as they were passed down through his lineage.

The school's mission has always been clear — to make the knowledge of authentic traditional martial arts available to both children and adults, without compromise and without simplification. Whether you are eight years old or eighty, a complete beginner or an experienced practitioner, Wu Tan New England offers a path grounded in one of the world's most complete and historically significant martial arts traditions.

For its first five years, Wu Tan New England taught in Massachusetts — and the name has been kept as a mark of that origin and the community built there. Following Shifu Mendez's relocation, the school has established its new home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he continues to accept students and carry forward the transmission of the Chinese martial arts tradition.