Systems/Styles

[norther practitioner]

How many schools are concidered "Northern Praying Mantis"

What are they (the major ones, don't need any breakdowns of different lineages in the past few years)...

Taiji Mantis
8 Step
7 Star etc.....

Thanks, just curious... I'm going to be learning a version of gung li chuan, don't know which one yet, plus I'll be working some of it into my chi sau......

[Laviathan]

I'll give it a try:

The major styles -
Meihua (Plum Flower) Mantis
Qixing (Seven Star) Mantis
Liuhe (Six Harmony) Mantis
Babu (Eight Step) Mantis

Some lesser known styles -

Taiji (Grand Ultimate) Mantis
Shuaishou (Falling hands) Mantis
Mimen (Secret Style) Mantis
Guangpan (Blank Shield) Mantis

For the lineages of these and other styles, please go to:



http://www.geocities.com/mantiscave/frame.htm

[norther practitioner]

Thanks for the info... anyone have any more?

[Robinf]

Wah Lum

[SolarStance]

Hi Everyone,

I don't know if these were mentioned, yet, but I also remember hearing about

Jade Ring Praying Mantis(Yuk Yuan)
Rigid Praying Mantis (Ngan)
Goddess Chi Praying Mantis (Sun Gick)
and Wrestling Hands Mantis (Jut Sow), which is the type we utilize in Wah Lum Pai. As far as I remember, there were 12 styles of PM that branched off of Wong Long, but I could be wrong.

I wonder if Shuaishou (Falling hands Mantis) might be related to Jut Sow (wrestling hands Mantis)? They seem to have similar sounding names and similar translations...

)))SS(((

[MantisifuFW]

Solar Stance,

I was curious as to your terminology. You practice Shaolin yet you refer to working Gung Li Kuen's techniques into your Chi Sao. Are you combining systems or training approaches such as Wing Chun's Chi Sao into your Norther Shaolin or are you a Wing Chun practitioner who wishes to incorporate other systems into your approach? Just wanting to understand your frame of reference.

Steve Cottrell

[SolarStance]

Hi Sifu!

It's good to finally chat with you! I think that you might have me confused with Northern Practioner, who started the post. I'm a long time (well, long for me...) practitoner of praying mantis kung fu. I think that Northern Practitioner had those things you had mentioned and questioned in your post in his profile.

While I have you, though, I was wondering
A. How I can get copies of Mantis Quaterley? Is this a publication to your school or lineage only?

B. I read in another publication that you had discovered a temple or statue dedicated to Wong Long somewhere in China. Has anything else been uncovered in your travels with this since?

Thanks!

Be well,

)))SS(((

[Robbie]

NP go here http://www.geocities.com/mantiscave/ I think it lists them all.

[MantisifuFW]

SS,

My appologies, (boy I made that mistake and I was even sober).

As for Mantis Quarterly it is defintely NOT just for the WHF line. We have writers from across the spectrum of Tanglangmen. We have had writers from Taiwan, France, England, S. America, Australia the Philippines, Eastern Europe and others. As for Tanglang styles we have Qixing, Taiji, Meihua, Ba Bu from HK, Taiwan and mainland families of the art.

The Quarterly is distributed primarily through schools only. We want to get the publication into the hands of students so that they can learn of the larger family which is Tanglang. Educated students soon abandon the generations old predijudice against other Tanglangmen, (a good thing in my opinion). We really have far more in common than we have differences, we can beneift from getting to know each other and, when we decide to have a go, let the best man win!

Right now MQ is being delivered to nine countries. Every month we add new subscribing schools. It has been heartening to have such strong and spontanious support.

If you think your school might be interested, contact me off list.

Great to get to know you!

Steve Cottrell

[MantisifuFW]

SS,

The memorial, found on Lao Shan in Qingdao was an effort by the martial associations of that city to reestablish something that had been lost in the cultural revolution, according to people I interviewed. In that area, Wang Lang was know by another name, Yu Qi. He was a revolutionary and some hold that he invented Tanglang but this has not been proven with certainty, during the Ming Dynasty. (For those wishing to discuss the Song Dynasty origin, we can do this elsewhere but I am just telling what I know of the memorial). Anyway, according to the people I spoke to, there was a pagoda to Yu Qi there once which had been there for generations but it was destroyed by the revolutionaries.

The new memorial was located in a building near a Guanyin temple which had a sign noting it as a martial arts school. It is doubtful that there ever was a school there as it is far from the population centers of that region. There this association, made up of martial artists, non martial artists, all braches of Tanglang, some holding to the Song Dynasty origin and some to the Ming origin put aside their differences to build a memorial to Yu Qi aka Wang Lang.

When we found it, the memorial was hard to locate and obviously isolated, making it often neglected. However, when we were there the first time, there was sign of incense being burned within days of our arrival. We cleaned up the site, made our offerings of respect and departed. We wondered if the site would survive building in the area. We published the article to draw public attention to it, hoping there would be activity, the attendant economic benefit and help preserve it.

In recent years, the Buddhist Temple located above the memorial has taken ownership of the site. They have cleaned, paved and improved the area making it is easily accessible.

Many of our group said they liked the old memorial better. I am just glad that it has been placed in a status where it will be preserved.

Hope that answers your question. There is a lengthy article on Wang Lang's origin theories and the memorial in the most recent Mantis Quarterly.
Steve Cottrell

[Laviathan]

To SolarStance:

I wonder if Shuaishou (Falling hands Mantis) might be related to Jut Sow (wrestling hands Mantis)? They seem to have similar sounding names and similar translations...

It is the same.

Shuaishou = Mandarin pronounciation while Sut Sow = Cantonese.

The character for Shuai/Sut literally means "falling" but can also be translated as "wrestling" (making the opponent fall).

Lav

[norther practitioner]

Steve, there is chi sau in northern as well, just done in a northernn style . A two man free hand drill we do is very similar to the chi sau that wing chun players do, except we don't always go two handed.... I guess it might resemble push hands more to some. The reason I mentioned, is that I've always admired mantis trapping, it is similar to ours, but it'd be nice to have a form with the mantis in it, to get the "spirit" so to speak....