wushu or traditional?

hello all,

i would like to discuss traditional mantis vs wushu mantis and where those lines cross and/or become blurry.

i am from canada and have been living in china for 3 months now. i have encounterd a mantis teacher in ningbo, zhejiang province that was eager to teach (sell) me one of his forms. his mantis syllabus consists of 3 forms: bung bo, do gang and mei hua sao chuan. since i have already learned bung bo, do gang, and the other 2 plum flower sets offered in my hong kong lineage in the past, he thought, and i agreed, that learning the plum flower hands set would be most logical.

he demonstrated his bung bo for me and i for him and they were recognizably similar. the primary differences appeared "stylistic" more than anything. same with do gang.

and so it began. the second move of the form is the root of my question here today. it involves moving from what i will call a "left foot forward cat stance" rotating to the left on the balls of both feet into a "left foot forward twisting horse stance". this is not unusual unto itself, but it is the depth of the stance i am curious about. i don't just twist...i twist so that the completion of the rotation has me end up practically sitting on my right heel (within an inch) with my right knee staggeringly close to the floor resting behind my left ankle.

so....in the opinions of this board's members (and hopefully my description is clear), is the depth of this stance considered "traditional" in either of the "traditional" plum blossom or 7* systems or have i clearly moved towards a more contemporary "wushu-ish" (for lack of another way to describe it) kind of format??

my personal thoughts on application and moblility issues of this position are not at hand right now, only whether the sheer depth of this position would be considered "traditional" or not.

thanks for your time.

sincerely,
neil

please let me know if this is unclear in any way.

hmm i havent seen a lot of 7* mantis. i have seen some southern mantis from what people psoted here and they were a bunch of old masters with high stances and such. cant really judge it because only mantis i have in my area are a couple bad Wah Lum schools who arent even part of the WL family. I have seen wushu mantis and i like it.

I generaly look to the application of the move to establish the correct height for the execution of the movements intent. If its so low that you would be throwing yourself over if you try to apply it, most likely its a moden wusu stylistic height. (IMHO).

Ninjaboy,

IMHO,
The height of the stance has little to do with traditional or modern. The dynamics of the stance is everything. A stance can be high, not properly aligned or low and not properly aligned, knee to ankle, primarily, then hips in relation to knees.

Low stances are the norm on the mainland or alternating from high to very low or from low to high. They do this to develop their Ma gong.

I am glad that you are studying there on the mainland. I believe with the right teacher you will have an enlightening experience! There are some great teachers there!

Steve Cottrell

Glad to hear that you are training in the Mainland and having a good time.

I am with Sifu Cottrell on this one. We have similar requirements for the "twisted horse stance" which we call Yuhuan in CCK TCPM. I believe Sifu Profatilov calls it "Zuopan". Regardless of the different terminologies, it is basically the same stance.

I believe the main difference between Wushu Mantis and Traditional Mantis is in the applications. Wushu Mantis IMHO seriously lacks in the applications both in drilling and integrating. That's why modern Wushu in general needs San Shou (the sport) to fill in the gaps. Traditional Tanglang definitely not mere kickboxing with throws.

Warm regards

Mantis108

thanks for your insights...i will pick his brain further regarding specific purpose and application

neil

fyi: he insists that the physical structure of the "hooking" hand has your index finger and middle finger both sticking out at right angles to one anoher so that the middle finger is parallel to the forearm and the index finger is at a right angle to the forearm...and locked straight, not bent, apparently for attacking pressure points. this is different than what i'm used to... anyone else have thoughts on this?

Hi ninja,

I think as far as the twisted step, it a matter of frames and this is dependant on the age, agility and strength of the practitioner. So I dont think from this alone we can say 'wushu' as opposed to traditional.

On a side note, Wushu means martial art, nothing more, nothing less. I believe you are referring to Chuantong Wushu (classical or traditional martial arts) These are the arts referred to elsewhere as Gongfu. Yes I am aware of the conotations the term wushu has for many but there is a clear distinction between sports and traditional wushu.

As far as the advice on the hook...
Dodgy. But that doesnt mean his whole TLQ is crap. Just a silly perspective on the real use of 'Gou'. Yes, many practitioners have the middle and index close to or at right angles to each other but no way in traditional Tanglang is there use for Gou with the middle finger parrallel to the forearm and the index a further 90 degrees removed. If the index is flat and level with the top of the hand, this hook is purely for show. The index almost never attacks in a single-finger straight ahead poke with the finger in line with the hand. Straight ahead finger pokes in Mantis Boxing are usually with two fingers and single finger pokes to the eye (eye piercing), are done with the poke coming from an in to outward sweeping hook (that incorporates an eye slash with all the fingers) that ends strongly bent. The index finger approaches but doesn't reach, parrallel to the forearm.
In my experience, traditional Gou Fa has the thumb coming far closer to the tip of the index finger and the index and middle finger closer together, giving a much deeper and tighter hook. The top of the wrist should very tight and the two balls of muscles in the palm, very tightly bunched along with the muscle ball at the base of the inner forearm.
Hope this doesnt put you off. He may be a very god teacher so as everyone else says, check the applications out. Do they work? Therein lies the truth.

B.T

Hi Wang,

If you dont mind me asking, are you training Tanglang in Shanghai? If so, who do you train with?

B.T

Contemporary wushu mantis is basically one form that's an "official" representation of the style for competition. I think a better question would be "how to tell good mantis from bad mantis" or "how can you tell whether or not a mantis teacher knows his stuff".

BTW, I didn't think about this, but do any of you know if the government tried to standardize any classical mantis forms like they did with Cha Quan?

Brad,

Yes they did, yes they do.

B.T

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brad
BTW, I didn't think about this, but do any of you know if the government tried to standardize any classical mantis forms like they did with Cha Quan?

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yes in some way. Yu Hai create some modern wushu based on his experience in tang lang quan. i saw his son performing modern tang lang. nice performing and goodlooking moves but far away from chuan tong gong fu - and that's the point, that's why modern wushu was created by government...

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brad
BTW, I didn't think about this, but do any of you know if the government tried to standardize any classical mantis forms like they did with Cha Quan?

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I cannot remember anything in recent history that my government (Canadian) has touched that has resulted in any kind of improvement.

Presumably the PRC (government) has a better handle on things?

best regards,
UM.