Original Mantis forms

[Hua Lin Laoshi]

Bung Bo, Lan Jeet and Baat Jow are original Praying Mantis forms created by Wong Long. I am only familiar with the Moy Fa Lan Jeet. References to 8 Elbows keeps coming up in this forum and I'm interested in finding out more about it as well as the others. Maybe I've seen it but just don't know it by name. What other Mantis styles include these forms and how do they differ from one another?

[MightyB]

Could someone roughly translate 8 elbows to Cantonese? Maybe I've seen it but don't know it's English name.

To tell you the truth, I'm going to have to ask my Sifu about Lan Jeet and Baat Jow because I'm not able to get a mental image of what these forms are either.

[Mantis9]

I know that in 7*mantis 8 elbows in a closed door form, restricted to student close to graduating in the system. I haven't seen it, because I'm - well- not ready to see it, let alone learn the form.

If you have seen it, I consider you lucky.

[tiger lui]

In our style,TCPM,bung bo is the second form taught.

Baat jow is taught as two forms,upper and lower baat jow,thats an intermediate form.

Lan jeet is one of three advanced forms,the other two are jet yew and ground mantis,cheers

[EARTH DRAGON]

8 step has 23 forms though most are not taught to the general public we do consider lan jie (intercept) a more intermediate/advanced form but we do include it in our regular ciriculum to give students a opportunity to one of learn orignal mantis sets

[Tainan Mantis]

Hua Lin Laoshr,
It is written that luan jie was created by the brother of Wang Lang's wife, his name was Zhau Zhu.

TJPM has all three forms.

7*:
In Won Han Fun's 10 year program he taught 8 claws. That sounds like 8 elbows in Chinese, ba zhua and ba zho, respectively. I don't know What this 8 claws is. One of his students who became a teacher came to Taiwan to learn mei hwa 8 elbows from my teacher. This is where we first heard this story. Later I saw Brendan Lai's syllabus has 8 claws(written in Chinese) but no 8 elbows.
If there is another 8 elbows in 7* I'd like to hear about it.

Mei Hwa doesn't have beng bu, but their 8 Elbows has 3 or 4 sections.

Mimen also no beng bu but 8 elbows has 4 sections.

I've heard that Wah Lum has all three from GM Chan's cousin who is also a teacher of Wah Lum, but they are rarely seen.



Mighty B,
BAAT JOW is Cantonese.

[MightyB]

So Lan Jeet would be the Jet Yew forms like Yee Lo Jet Yew (sp?). That makes sense, but they are reserved for advanced students where bung bo is one of the first forms taught.

Tainan, is Baat Jow eight elbows or eight claws?

[Hua Lin Laoshi]

So far the only Lan Jeet I've seen during my time with Wah Lum came from Zhang Bing Dao. One seminar was quite a few years ago, 18Eldersmay know or have taken that, and the other was 1999. I wasn't on either one of those trips. I haven't looked to see if it's changed at all between the two seminars. I still think these three forms may be above the level I'm at right now.

[Tainan Mantis]

Mighty B,
jow is elbow. Mantis 108 can tell us what claw is in Cantonese.

Also, Luan Jie(Lan Jeet) and Dzai Yao(Jet Yew) are not the same forms.

[MightyB]

You guys got me curious. Unfortunately, I won't be able to ask about Lan Jeet or Baat Jow until Thursday night.

Good stuff.

[mantis108]

Hi All,

There are 2 words in Chinese that means elbow. One is Jang, the other is Jow. The character in Chinese composed of Flesh and compete for the Jang. The other Jow, which sounds like claw in Chinese, is composed of Flesh and Inch. We often have that problem with oral transmissions back in the old days. That's why Chinese can't talk to Chinese! LOL... Another thing about Jang and Jow is that Jang is commonly use term in Southern and Jow is more a Northern may be because of the Jang sounds lauder and We (I am Cantonese) are southern barbarian so lauder is good!

About the three forms, IMHO, there are in progression similar to that of the Wing Chun 3 forms. We first have Bung Bo for footwork. Then Lan Jeet for the hands, finally combining the long range footwork with the short range hands. Even the immortals would find it hard to escape.

Mantis108

[ShaolinMantis]

Greetings and Happy 2002 to all

I have been told there are 3 levels to Bung Bo.
Begining, intermedate, advance.

Baat Jow was at one time one form (set), then broken into 2 sets. Han or Ha Baat jow and San or Sa Baat Jow= Upper and lower eight elbows. spelling maybe off

[Old Mantis]

Bazhou (8 elbows), Luanjie (Chaotically Connected [Techinques]) and Bengbu (Crash and Fill In) are the 3 original PM forms.

Praying Mantis Boxing Manual by Master Liang Xuexiang (1810-?) has all 3 forms and the names of the moves. All these original forms are preserved in Plum Blossom PM tradition.

Tainan Mantis:

Meihua Tanglang does have Bengbu.
When Jiang Hualong was in his advanced years he did not teach it. He preferred Meihua Lu. Thus when Jiang Hualong was teaching in Changshan Village Boxing School, he did not teach it, so Li Kunshan did not learn it.

Meihua Tanglang's Bengbu is called Laiyang Bengbu and is quite different from Yantai Bengbu or 7* Bengbu.

Laiyang Bengbu was originally taught by Song Zide and Jiang Hualong to Wang Yushan and Cui Shoushan (2 out of 3 Mountains of Laiyang City) in Zhaoge Zhuang Village Boxing School.

Here is a part of Ilya Profatilov's article in JAMA which discribes this in details,

"When Jiang Hualong and Song Zide were middle-aged, they decided to teach Tanglang Quan openly and together established a boxing school (quan fang) in Zhaoge Zhuang Village in Laiyang County. At that time, Jiang Hualong did not like to participate in teaching. Often he just observed or supervised the training process. Song Zide was the one who actually did most of the teaching. When Jiang Hualong was sixty-years old he decided to start teaching on his own and opened a second boxing school in Chang Shan Village in Laiyang. However, he would often visit Zhaoge Zhuang boxing school and help Song teach in their original school.

When Jiang started teaching in Chang Shan school, he altered the original Tanglang Quan that he used to teach in his old Zhaoge Zhuang school with Song Zide. He both modified and ommited some original forms. For instance Jiang did not teach the original "Crash and Fill in" (Bengbu) form to his students who had already learned the "Plum Blossom Path" (Meihua Lu) form, because of relative similarities in the techniques and vise versa."

[mantis108]

Old Mantis wrote:

"Bazhou (8 elbows), Luanjie (Chaotically Connected [Techinques]) and Bengbu (Crash and Fill In) are the 3 original PM forms. "

This is rather interesting (in fact his whole post is interesting too) because I could see the Chinese words in the English translations and it makes a lot more sense than adapting the 7* names and meaning. I am not dissing 7* by any means. But these name as listed by old mantis connect with the Taiji Praying Mantis really well. I can see some coherence.

Discarding Kung Lik Kuen, which is a recent injection to the TJPM system, the first form that is taught is Bung Bo (Crashing Step or Hopping Step as translated according to 7* and TJPM). The focus turns out to be footwork. Especially, in TJPM's case the 8 basic stances are all in the Bung Bo clearly and "solidly" (although there is a fast version that looks more like the 7* footworks which has quite a few more single point base of support). In Old Mantis's list Bengbu (Crash and Fill in) seems to be (at least in meaning wise) compliment of the second form of TJPM, which is Jit Gun (Swiftly followed). So there is IMHO a flow in PM form teaching back in the old days but somehow it became broken up for whatever reasons. As least this is my impression of the Mui Fah various lineages. The names of the forms also seems to be of deliberate thoughts also. Crash and Fill in - with footwork(then) Swiftly followed - the opening (if opponent counter fiercely) Chaotically connected - with my hands ... so on so forth. Though this is my speculations only. The inspiration came from GM Chiu's manual which has a very broken off "strategy" sonet. What if the names of the forms are similar in nature?

The info that I have is consistant with Old Mantis in that the "original" Plum Blossom system seems to have 3 Mei Fah Forms (also know as the Mei Fah San Sau?) along side the 3 Mantis forms plus Dzai Yao.

Taiji Praying Mantis of Sigung Chiu's version retains the 3 Mantis and Dzai Yao. One Mei Fah which I am not sure if it has any connection to the Mei Fah san sau. Then there is Ng Sau Tsui (5 hand Punch) which looks like a sub set of Dei Tong Long (Ground Mantis).

Well, enough code breaking for one day. lol... it's fun though.

Mantis108

[Tainan Mantis]

Old Mantis,
You have answered a question that has long been in my heart, namely;
did Liang's manuscript have beng bu.

This brings up another question.

Does Liang's manuscript for luan jie and 8 elbows match those by Li Kun Shan and the one published by Jiang Bing Do?

Also, how many sections in that old 8 elbows of Liang's manuscript?

Thanks for clearing up the confusion.

My Shr fu said that Han Hsiang Ye preserved his old manuscript. It was sold to a PM master in S. Korea for 50,000 ping of land(the size of 100,000 tatami mats).
When he was in Korea he saw it himself.