Richard A. Tolson
https://www.patreon.com/mantismastersacademy
There are two types of Chinese martial artists. Those who can fight and those who should be teaching dance or yoga!
53 years of training, 43 years of teaching and still aiming for perfection!
Recovering Forms Junkie! Even my twelve step program has four roads!
I just want to clarify that this picture came from Alex Au and was originally posted on Mantis Quarterly. I wish I had access to the original. Basically this is the only reference that I found online that shows the form in it's entirety and I thought it'd be nice to share here since I talk about it a lot.
I have only seen two video clips on YouTube that showed one of the roads in each clip.
Richard A. Tolson
https://www.patreon.com/mantismastersacademy
There are two types of Chinese martial artists. Those who can fight and those who should be teaching dance or yoga!
53 years of training, 43 years of teaching and still aiming for perfection!
Recovering Forms Junkie! Even my twelve step program has four roads!
That's because it's not pretty. It's more of a series of line drills that are linked together. It's one of those forms that beginners love to hate and everyone just grudgingly goes through the process so they can learn the next form...
But - after many years, and people start talking about fighting and kung fu and all that - this form, at least for me, comes to the top as probably the most practical form for teaching applicable mantis combat skills. I'm not going to do a lot of reposting because I've expressed my views on this one to death, but - I believe that if a person is taught this form, and just a few other movement drills, and then one-steps and spars, they'll be able to demonstrate the spirit of 7* in fighting. Everything else is just window dressing.