Tan Tui questions

[EarthDragon]

interesting becuase this topic came up on the mantis page speaking about my teacher and my lineage and tainan's keven braziers response was shi lu tan tuei"

On the Shyun vidtape he says this in English and then follows with the Chinese, "shi lu tan tuei"
If you follow the history that this style is named after Tan Sz temple then we can translate it as 10 roads of tan kicks.
Others use the character for tan which means springy and they translate it as 10 roads of spring(y) kicks.
Wah Lum, the only Mantis style to have actually incorporated Tan Tuei into the Mantis uses the tan character which means "to seek"

BTW, for WL folks I recomend the study of Gung Li chuen for a deeper insight into your art and its roots.

So, Shyun's Chinese is correct.
It is 10 roads of tan tuei-shi lu tan tuei. This version done by Shyun is almost definetly the one brought to Taiwan by Han Chin Tang with variations added by someone else, possibly Shyun himself.

It is important to note that 10 roads of tan tuei is not an 8 Step or a Mantis routine.
Wei Xiao Tang had his equivalent of the 10 roads of Tan Tuei encompassed within 8 roads.
On seeing Wei perform those 8 roads it is immediately apparent that they are Mantis.
Other Mantis branches also have their own roads for beginners, Zhang De Kuei of Mimen Mantis in Taiwan had 7 Roads, Jia Jingting and Li Kun Shan also had their roads.
HK 7* has their 14 roads. In every case, except for 10 roads of Tan Tuei, it is immediately apparent that these are roads for the training of Mantis.

10 roads of Tan Tuei are tradionally used for the training of the cha cheun style and its relatives.

Baji also has its roads of training which are unique to Baji.

[Northwind]

hmmm...

I honestly don't like Sub E Lo Tan Tui (my Cantonese phonetic spelling is terrible). I think it's over rated as a line drill. Luckily I come from a LGY / WHF / CHY / H C mantis line and I got to learn LGY's created form Sub Sa Lo. It's a waaayyyy better basic line drill and you can actually fight with it. Tan Tui requires too much imagination for use and that makes me question it's useability. Then again - maybe it just means I should practice it more. As it stands - it's a good way to initiate a TCMA beginner with something martial arts like to practice and learn...

I guess it depends on the framework. We do 12 roads, but it's trained in a very different manner than most, and the applications are all over the place - both shallow & deep.