The Shaolin Praying Mantis

[Luo Lang]

Hi there,
Interessting observations Pat!

Nevertheless from my humble experience with Praying Mantis Patterns, I am not sure that there is a special Mantis Spirit or if ther is a known or some known mind set involved!

Out from the charakteristics form this style you may have the agility, the trickiness of a Monkey. You may also have the determination focus of it, but this may be also fit with the Dragon. Especially some movements as far as I can tell it from now, there is some aspect of both animals involved.

For fun I tried out some Tiger Spirit, and from my humble experience is does not fit that well.

[Luo Lang]

Some interessting news/questions about Praying Mantis

Dear all,
I thought it would be time to slowly update you with some further information about Shaolin Praying Mantis!

Before I share some more info's it's time to ask some relevant qeustions first. Like you all know, it's our aim at Wahnam to help to get the glory of different Shaolin Kung Fu styles back. This is what we also aim with the famous Praying Mantis.

Like in all Shaolin Kung Fu styles, it's not only important, rather fundamental that One have a sound understanding of the philosophy and historical aspects of his her style. Unluckily in modern times this aspect often lacks and without meaning to be disrespectful or offensive, even many Praying Mantis Masters, independend if it's a Southern or Northern Branch, nowadays hardy know important information of this so wonderful style.

I would like to invite not only Wahnam family members, but also other Masters to have a fruitful exchange of information knowledge and wisdom.

The secular discliple Wang Lang was sent out by his Sifu at the Shaolin tempel to travell the country.

What was his aim for his search and what did he find out?

Do you know what he found out?
Do you know the content of his researches in detail?
What was eventually resulting out of this contents!

Let us have a happy discussion!

Best regards,

Roland.

[drunken boxer]

Dear Siheng,

I do not know the answers to any of the questions but am interested to find out!
All I have heard is that Wang Lang was small and could not beat his classmates, till he created Praying Mantis.
I relate because I too am small and have much trouble defeating larger classmates and indeed non classmates, hence I'm always interested in any styles/sets/moves for small people.

On a related note, and also related to an earlier post of yours regarding respecting other teachers, I went to a seminar a while back, more of an informational one than a training one, with a teacher of another art. He looked quite old, a little small/frail, and if not unhealthy he certainly didn't radiate obvious vitality that other Masters I've seen do. I was attending in some part out of politeness to an old friend who invited me, and was not that interested either before or during the talk. But at the end he gave a fantastic demonstration, where he got many attendees up some of whom were seasoned martial artists, and his combat abilities were tremendous! This was a great lesson to me that I should always be respectful of other schools and teachers, as well as not to judge a book by its cover, or underrate people.

Paul

[Luo Lang]

Dear Paul,
Nice to hear from you.

You are right, Wang Lang created a style beeing called Praying Mantis Kung Fu. Unfortunately for various reasons many people, including Masters, do not know about the process behind. I think one reason is because lots of information is secretly kept in Chinese classics. Not many people nowadays may have the chance to read the Classics and understand them.

It was not like that Wang Lang just looked at some captured Praying Mantis and developed a famous Kung Fu style out of it to be able to beat his classmates.

As I wrote in my previous post: Wang Lang was sent out by his Sifu.

Wang Lang was actually sent out with a specific aim and objective not just to enjoy travelling

Now what is interessting is what Wang Lang found out to be useful.

Now I shall wait some time to wait for others opinions or facts they have found.

Cheers,

[Kingmonkey]

Dear Sifu

Wang Lang was actually sent out with a specific aim and objective not just to enjoy travelling

I think that what you would like to hear is that Wang Lang, a lay monk at Shaolin monastery, after creating the Praying Mantis Style, was sent out to travel around and search for perfection of his style. According to this Legend he went out and over time gathered together the best thechnics of 16 other styles, e.g. Monkey footwork, Dim Mak, and others, and pasted them in to his Praying Mantis style. After returning to the monastery everyone was very impressed with what he had achieved and the Praying Mantis style became very popular at Shaolin monastery for some Time.

Nevertheless there seem to be many other legends about how the Praying Mantis style has been created. What they all have in common, is that it was Wang Lang who created it and that he has gathered the best out of 16 or 17 Styles of Kung Fu to perfect his Style.
One for instance says that he had allready known 17 Styles of Kung Fu before he observed the that Praying Mantis. Another legend takes place in a Taoist monastery, in one the praying mantis is fighting a cicada, in on a bird in once another there are two praying mantis' fighting each other.

Some of these legends can be found here.

I think the differences of these legends are not so important, what I do consider important are the similaritys, that there is the best out of 16 or 17 (give or take one) styles of Kung Fu within this style, I think thats what makes it so popular, allthough a lot of people may not know about the depths of it.....

I'm really getting anxious for that course

Pat

PS: I have heard rumors that this Style has a very special force training...

[Luo Lang]

Hi Pat,
I also came across the posted link and I found the authors information most useful and benefiting.

I agree the legends may have different points of view. We shall keep the different opinions like they are for the time beeing.

Sifu generously posted the following:

Wang Lang's sifu was very impressed with the Praying Mantis Kungfu that he had invented, but his sifu found some weaknesses in it. So he asked Wang Lang to take leave from the Shaolin Temple to travel all over China to test out his new-found Praying Mantis Kungfu and incorporate excellent points from other arts into it.

Wang Lang travelled widely and had friendly sparring with many masters. (Unfortunately I don't have records or descriptions of these sparring sessions.) He found 16 masters who were excellent fighters, and he incorporated their best points into his art.

With the help of his sifu (I have forgotten the sifu's name) at the Shaolin Temple, Wang Lang composed a kungfu set with these 16 points, using Shaolin Long Fist and his Praying Mantis Kungfu as the base. This set is called "Sap Pat Sau" ("Shi Ba Sou" in Mandarin), which means "Eighteen-Collection" or "Eighteen-Search", i.e. a collection, after a search, of 18 best kungfu features.

So far Sifu's generous accounts would go in line with the researches I have done. That said it was not easy to find useful material with great content.

The most exciting information was in my opinion the following:

- Wang Lang was sent out to find Masters and to test his style:

It was unlikely that Wang Lang just went out to travel, to hope he would find Masters to help him with his work. It was unlikely in the Past just travelling around and finding Masters showing their secrets, when knowing the facts, that some Masters even held back their knowledge within their families.

He went out to test his style because his Master, the Abbot of the Shaolin temple asked him to do so...because the Abbot found some weakness in Wang Lang's performance, allthough he was higly impressed.
I think it happened most likely like that. Great past Masters always encouraged their students to grow by their own with their help.

So Wang Lang would go out and test his style with a friendly freesparring. It was not only the best Way to test himself but also to observe other Masters advantages. Of course One could also do so with just observing, but the testing aspect was the best way to find it out better.

- Incorporating the best points of 16 Masters with the base of Shaolin Long fist and Praying Mantis.
Wang Lang met 16 Masters among many. All of those 16 Masters were especially known for their fighting abilities and skills. So Wang Lang would find not only very useful styles, but also the Masters representing them personally.

- The Sifu's help to create a Set:
This explanation is extraordinary exviting and useful. Wang Lang has found out many good points. But how can it easily be corporated and put together to train it wisely to grow and to train the sufficient skills to get more combat effectice?
Yes, if One crystallises the patterns into a meaningful Set to be able to train the skills. Wang lang's Sifu helped to create a summary to train all aspects in a meaningful manner.

So following a Set training, the Set was not only training the patterns, but also train the energyflow, the internal force, Fa Jing, skills and mental clarity.

- The Set Sap Pat Sau. The collection of 18 Kung Fu features!
One Set which incorporates 18 of the best features in Kung Fu at this time.

Stay tuned some more interesssting information will follow.

Roland

[drunken boxer]

Dear Roland Siheng,

Hmmm... so from my previous understanding I thought the two rival traditional points of view were that Wang Lang either:
A. Invented Praying Mantis Kungfu from scratch himself (with his Shaolin or Lohan or Longfist base of course) after watching a fight between a Mantis and a Cicada.
Or
B. Travelled around searching for many great Masters and arts and combined these into one style.

It seems from your post that he searched for the masters to ADD to his already existing Praying Mantis Kungfu, so maybe both are true, ie he created the Praying Mantis Kungfu himself, but developed it by adding techniques from the other 16 arts.

Paul

[Kingmonkey]

Thank you very much Sifu and Sigung for those interesting points. I'm very much looking foreward to the following information about this style...

Thank you
Pat

[Luo Lang]

Hi Paul,
I tried to list the things up like they could happen realistically and historically.

It's just unlikely to be realistic that a secular disciple just watched a Praying Mantis fighting a cicada and then created a complete new style by his own, while training at the Shaolin temple.

With his Praying Mantis which he had created, but which was not complete at the time and because his own Sifu observed weaknesses he left the temple to travel by his Sifu's motivation to do so...this just makes also complete sense to me. the Shaolin Monastery was exceptionally famous for its excellence in training methods and systematical training.

His own Sifu would know why he sent him to travel.

Just my two cents



So all in all,

[Luo Lang]

Some more interessting notes by Sifu:

Originally posted by Sifu:
By the way, many people translate "Sap Pat Sau" ("Shi Ba Sou" in Mandarin) as "Righteen Elders". But I prefer "Righteen-Collection" or "Eighteen-Search" as this is more appropriate.

The difference arises because of the Chinese character "sau" ("sou"). It means "collect", "search" or "collect after a search", but it can also mean "old person".

The pronounciation is the same though the Chinese words are slightly different. The word meaning "collect" has a "hand" radical added to the stem, whereas the word for "old person" has only the stem which gives the sound "sau". (Radicals and stems are parts that make up a Chinese word.)

The Chinese word for the Praying Mantis set is usually written without the radical. This is why many people translate the word as "old man", which does not make sense in this case.

It gathers some sense when "Righteen Old Men" is changed to "Eighteen Elders", suggesting that Wang Lang gathered the 16 features from 16 elderly masters.

But I beleive that most of these 16 masters were not elderly when they sparred with Wang Lang. Wang Lang himself was around 30 at that time.

Moreover, "sou" does not suggest elderly men with wisdom. That would be "lou" (also spelt as "luo") ,like Lou Zi (Lau Tzu) in the past and Lou Lang at present.

In fact "sou" suggests old men who are not very clever, like in the expression "toong sou pat hei" which means "would not cheat even children and old men who are not very clever".

Then, why is the word i"sou" n the Praying Mantis Set written without a "hand" radical. There are two possibilities.

In the past, the name of the set was not written, it was passed down orally. Later when it was written, people left out the "hand" radical when writing fast, as people sometimes do nowadays.

The second possibility is that written words change over time. It was possible that during Wang Lang's time, which was many hundred years ago, "sou" meaning "collect" or "search" was written without the "hand" radical.

By the Way it would be interessting to find out, what these 18 respectiley 16 features are!

Best regards,

Roland.

[Luo Lang]

Some more information for the Sap Pat Sau Set!

Originally posted by Sifu:
One would expect that this "Eighteen-Collection" must be a very long set, but it is surprisingly short. One would think that the patterns must be very complicated or complex, but they are surprisingly simple. In fact, this set is not particularly impressive to watch. But of course it is exceedingly valuable; it consists of the best 18 kungfu features of the time. There is much profundity in the apparently simple-looking patterns.

As I have told already, it will be interessting to know, find out, wheater some of us may find out what these 18 features are!

[Chiahua]

Interesting.... the 18 elders set can be found on youtube, but it is definitely overshadowed by some of the other mantis sets such as bung bo (crushing step) and the meihua set (plum blossom). Here's an exponent demonstrating an eighteen elder set (I don't know if it's the same one that Sifu is discussing):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySXiTK9cG4A

There's the characteristic use of the "taiji stance" (as it is known in Taiji Praying mantis) with the front leg straight, the heel down, and the toes pointing up. I forget what it's called in our school unfortunately.

[Luo Lang]

Hey there,
I shall wait some time, to let the huge amount of information sink a little, before I post up new stuff!

ChiaHua,
that's very vers interessting! Just to say that and keep it like that!

What I can say is that we will have a lot of fun before us!

[Chiahua]

Well I was brief because I'm not sure if that's the same eighteen elders set that Sifu is talking about

[Luo Lang]

Within the different Masters there may be some differences!