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.