North vs South (mantis)

[blackmantis]

Hello all!

As a practitioner of northern praying mantis i am very interested in its relationship with southern praying mantis.

I know very little of the southern mantis style, and would very much like to be told more about the style.

S

[askinghands]

check out this site. Lots of info on southern mantis.

http://cclib.nsu.ru/projects/satbi/s.../wushu/sm.html

[red5angel]

I can tell you this much, they look pretty similar but my impression of Northern Mantis (I study Southern) is that it is very similar to Southern except stretched out.

[mantis-1]

Northern Mantis looks nothing like southern mantis mechanics, body position and foot work is all different. I think this is a comment you may have made before on this forum, but I asure you northern looks nothing like southern. Northern favours the mantis hook (thats not to say it doesnt use any other fists) for hooking and finding an opening. In southern mantis we dont use the hook and most strikes are with the phoenix eye fist or palm (there are other fist though) I would imagine the power generation is completely different also.

regards

[red5angel]

uh, are you talking to me mantis-1? I have never made that comment before, although now I am. A freind of mine does Northern Mantis, I do Southern Mantis, and while I wouldn't refer to us as kungfu masters, we both know enough to have come to the conclusion that they are indeed pretty similar. Sadly, while I am sure this may outrage some people, mostly those firmly entrenched in either camp, it doesn't take much of an eye to see some strong similarities. I can allow for some basic differences but for the most part they do indeed look similar, atleast in form and I have to imagine application as well.

As for mechanics being totally different, again, I have to disagree, first, human beings practice them, which narrows the available mechanics. Second, they stem from the same ancestor, their too similar to have not , and so that again narrows the difference in mechanics. Third, it's chinese kungfu, and while martial artist lve to fight amongst themselves over the differences in their arts (somehow this is supposed to vindicate their claims that they are better then others) the chinese arts generally share some fundamental body mechanics and ideas. It's ALL about alignment, power generation, connection, sensitivity, etc...and I have never talked ot a martial artist who hasn't said the same basic things, except with a new spin, or atleast a different one.
As for specifics, the hooks are there, but they may be more obvious in northern mantis, or your own family of mantis may have excluded them for some reason or another.
What I'm getting at is that while you might want to believe they are that much different mantis-1 they are not, in a general sense, and while our northern brothers might like to stretch out a little more I've found that all the essentials and basics are very similar. Anyone who stops and bothers to take the time to watch a few forms from each and take a look at some techniques will see it. I know, it's shocking and scandalous ofme to imply that ant art might be the same, especially not Northern and Southern Arts , but I'll take the chance on being honest for once, and risk all that money I could make by teaching exclusive styles and secret ad more deadly techniques to beat all those other pretenders out there.

[Fu-Pow]

I agree with mantis-1. From what I understand these styles have no common origin. The southern mantis comes from the Hakka people. And the Northern Mantis is a derivative of Nothern Shaolin Long Fist Kung Fu. The whole strategy and mechanics of these styles appear to be different. FYI, I have former Southern Mantis and Northern Mantis practictioners in my school so I have first hand experience watching and sparring with both.

[mantis-1]

sorry if I came across rude but this topic has come up time and time again...... I am not outraged at all but it is obvious to anyone who has seen northern mantis and southern mantis that they are different.
It's ALL about alignment, power generation, connection, sensitivity, etc... you are correct but this applies to every style of king fu from eagle claw to ba gua..... but these style are in no way similar to SPM.
The hook in Northern mantis I have never seen in southern mantis and asked mt sifu was it found in our style he said no. From the northern mantis I have seen there was a lot of chambering the fist there is no chambering of the fist within SPM.
As for the same ancestor who created both style????
May I ask who your teacher and style is I am interested to know what style of SPM you train and the differences between yours and the style I train chow gar.

Regards
Tim

[Eddie]

sorry, this might sound like a stupid question, but where does Wah Lum fall under? I am fascinated by their forms and the flexibility and skill of their Grandmaster, Chan Poi.

[Ou Ji]

Northern and Southern Mantis are not alike at all from what I've seen. Recently, I read somewhere (here?) that Southern Mantis is actually another style that was renamed to cover up it's origins or something like that. I'll have to track that story down again since it was very interesting but I don't recall the details.

Wah Lum is Northern Mantis. You can find them posting in the Northern Praying Mantis forum if you have any questions.

[mantis-1]

ou ji... you are right.
The story goes......when the manchurians invaded china a lot of nobles fled and found shelter in the southern temples. One of these nobles from the ming imperial court Chow Ah Naam developed the Southern mantis boxing style (apparently from watching the mantids in the forrest) over the years he developed a style with a shorter learning time than most styles to help over throw the ching invasion. It was also said that the style was called mantis as to confuse manchurian soldiers that it was the same as the northern version. As stated by F. Blanco: The relation, or should it be better to say the lack of relationship between Northern mantis and Southern mantis is similar to Fujian White Crane and Tibetan White crane. They seem to have absolutley nothing in common but the same name.

[David]

I know of one Hakka historian who links Northern and Southern mantis but that doesn't make for any similarity. Visually, the styles both have mantis-like characteristics but they're drawn by different artists, if you see what I mean.

Northern mantis is a longfist system and Southern is shorthand. The only longfist-associated methods to be found in Southern mantis would probably be the common chin na (kum na) methods.

IME, the North and South systems can instantly be distinguished from any pose or motion as easy as telling the difference between Muay Thai and Tai Chi.

Rgds,
David

[red5angel]

First I am going to bust in here and say that I don't buy most of the "creation" myths behind kungfu. Each style has some fantastic story about how or why it was created, usually involving some historical figure, or some desire to create an art that defeats some other art or family of arts. These creation myths are flash to add mystique to these arts, designed to get you all pumped up about what your learning. Everything I have read and seen leads me to believe both arts have a common ancestor. It's actually pretty common for Northern and Southern arts to share a common ancestor, but they won't tell you that, too much rivalry and all that other ridiculous crap that has gone on for far too long in the chinese martial arts.
As for another art being named as Southern Mantis, I've heard similar stuff, it doesn't matter to me what the name is, it was created by observing the motions and actions of a preying mantis, same as Northern Style Mantis.

mantis-1 its bamboo forest southern preying mantis, I learn from Jack Spizale a student of Master Gin Fun Mark.

IME, the North and South systems can instantly be distinguished from any pose or motion as easy as telling the difference between Muay Thai and Tai Chi.

I wouldn't go that far but they are certainly different. Most Northern arts share the long forms, the reching and stretching, while short forms tend towards infighting, short techniques. Some are more obvious, some not so obvious and while both northern and southern mantis can be individually identified by their forms, they are hardly completely different.

[mantis-1]

There is a lot of info out there on Gin foon mark looking at Gin foon Marks hand I see nothing that resembles northern mantis..... you are right in saying that both arts originated by studying the mantids... As I see it the northern mantis resembles the actual movements of a mantis where as its southern counterpart studied the mantis to develop the incredible shock power released by the mantis... if these two arts originated from the same ancestor I am pretty sure there would be some evidence somewhere, and still there is the issue of the styles themselves... they look nothing alike as people on this forum have observed and stated that it is obvious looking at the two styles that they look different and one is easily distinguishable from the other...... though most of my training is in Chow gar I did do I some years of Jooklum and I didn't seem anything like NPM in that either...

[David]

Maybe there's an anachronistic Northern mantis style which appears more like Southern... What style does your mate study, Red5?

Rgds,
David

[mantis108]

Here's a thread that I started regarding various accounts of Shaolin Kung Fu origins. Enjoy

Northern and SouthernShaolin

From there we could go on to various styles. There is a possible southern connection to Fujian in Taiji Praying Mantis tradition through GM Li BingXiao. There is a possible southern connection to the Songshan Shaolin in 7 Star PM through GM Wong Yunsheng. IMHO, there is not such thing as mystic creationism in Kung Fu. It is about evolution and the needs of the practitioners.

Mantis108