The character 'dian' is not very common in the names of techniques of Mantis, but it comes up frequently in the method of applications. For this reason, I believe that tracing the etymolgy of this character may give us clues as to some of the early sources of Mantis Boxing.

Tracing the etymology of the character dian to earlier sources.
I started with Wushe's book Record of Arms (1662) as it is an early Qing Dynasty review of Ming Era spear manuals from various sources including Shaolin E-Mei as well as family methods such as Yang Family and Ma Family.

An interesting side note; it is the first appearance of a spear manual by a Ming Era Shaolin Monk who instructed Cheng Zongyou before Cheng published his book on Shaolin weapons methods at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

In order to trace the roots of this character, we must first determine which is the correct character to use. There is the dian, which commonly means small, or to place a 'dot' in calligraphy writing

點

As well as the character 顛
Resolving the question of which is the correct character to use for dian has proven to be an almost impossible issue to decode.

These characters are sometimes used interchangably from manual to manual. Bit by bit I will show some comparisons for your examination.