[QUOTE=Tainan Mantis;956163]Here is a portion of the Short Strike manuscript. I would be interested to know where else besides mantis that this turns up.
If other styles have the same manuscript then they should have this fighting method within their style.
Within the Shaolin that I have seen I don’t see anything like this.
[B][INDENT]Fanche Lulu Fist Six Six Thirty-Six
As for the word che; it is a cart’s wheel ever turning.
As for the word lulu; it is like a windlass flowing endlessly.
To speak of both fanche and lulu; the single hand is lu and both hands make a wheel.
A cart is like lulu. Adding the “fan” character means to turn this way and return that way, falling without end.
Fanche lulu interconnects with the hands of collapsing, smashing, adhering (nian) and grasping along with the maneuvers of pasting (tie) and leaning (kao). Adding the fists and elbows as well as applying the knees and feet constitutes mantis striking (da).
Fanche stays afar while mantis approaches.
Fanche is distant while mantis is close.
Actually fanche is not distant, it only seems that way when compared to mantis.
When using fanche your opponent has no place to hide.
When using mantis your opponent has no way to defend.
Adopt yourself to the changing circumstances using the entire body* for hitting.
This is the profoundness of short strikes, the highest extreme of technique.
Mantis has a blade, it is the fists and elbows. Therefore, it is also called “warding off blade (jufu)”.
For those looking to relieve boredom (hao shi zhe) and use a twig to provoke a mantis, it will display the movements of adhering (nian), striking (da), collapsing (beng), beating (pu), dodging, deceiving, opening and shutting. It is an entirely unknown subtlety.
Therefore, the hands of mantis are the invincible method of short strikes.[/INDENT][/B]
The following combination
[INDENT]Fanche stays afar while mantis approaches.
Fanche is distant while mantis is close.[/INDENT]
Can be found within the 8 Elbows form. A form of almost no punches.[/QUOTE]
Well, the “Short Strike” - “Duan Da” is a major part of the Shaolin martial arts of the 1500s-1600s.
It is important to note that by the 1600s, some Shaolin based styles in Henan and Shandong practiced a set called Yuejia Duanda Chui Yue Family Close-Range Strikes. This set was written about in some early Qing era Shaolin books that researchers consider being two versions of one work, identically sharing half the text and illustrations. These books are:
Quan Jing - Quan Fa Beiyao (Hand Combat Classic, Hand - Combat Method Collection), containing a preface from 1784 written by Cao Huandou; and
Xuanji Mi Shou Xuedao Quan Jue (Xuanji’s Secret Transmission of Acupuncture Points Hand Combat Formulas), which carries an undated preface written by Zhang Ming.
These 18th century books were annotated versions of an even earlier 17th century book (dating from about the 1600s) that was first written by Zhang Kongzhao (also called Zhang Hengqiu), who studied his Shaolin method with Zhang Ming (the author of the preface to Xuanjis Secret Transmissions book). Both books identify the same Shaolin monk, Xuanji, as the original source of this late Ming-Qing transition era material.
Researcher Meir Shahar notes in his book, The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts, that a monk named Xuanji is indeed mentioned on a 1631 Shaolin stele inscription as being a dutidian (“superintendent”), a term that was commonly applied to military appointees in the monastery’s internal administration. These Qing era manuscripts were eventually published in Shanghai during the Republican era (1912 -1949).
Both previously mentioned Shaolin books discuss that “close-range hand combat can overcome long-range hand combat” (duan da sheng chang quan), for short-range makes it easier to reach the adversary’s body. The Hand Combat Classic book contains a text titled “Comprehensive and Original Treatise of the Shaolin Monastery’s Close - Range Fist Body Method” (Shaolin Si Duan Da Shen Fa Tong Zong Quan Pu) that is devoted to his topic. As Shahars book shows, this text is missing from the other manual; instead the Xuanjis Acupuncture Points discusses the Yue Family Close-Range Strikes (Yuejia Duanda), which is another short -range style. Shahars book says that other Sixteenth and seventeenth century military experts allude to various short -range styles including “Cotton Zhang’s Close - Range Fist” (Mian Zhang Duanda), “Ren Family Close - Range Fist” (Renjia Duanda) and “Liu [Family] Close - Range Fist” (Liu Duanda).
Thus, in the late Ming Dynasty, if not even earlier, the Yuejia Duanda Chui was practiced at Shaolin (perhaps also in one of the other branches of the main Henan Province location). This Yuejia Chui set is what eventually developed into the Yue Shi Ba Fan Shou set as it eventually spread into Shandong and then north into Hebei province, where this set is most prevalent now.
At some point during the Ming-Qing transition era, Shaolin monks traveling in the Yingkou area of Liaoning province, in northeastern China, passed on a system of what appears to be sets from Mi (Zong) Quan and Shaolin Wu Quan to Cheng (Sheng) Lixian () of Shandong province. The system he brought home and practiced in the Laizhou () village was later named as the Shaolin Meihua Men.
Some of the sets that they practiced were:
Taizu Quan Great Ancestor Boxing,
Tang Lang 13 Zhao Preying Mantis 13 Provocations,
Xiao Hu Yan Small Tiger Swallow,
Yuejia Chui Yue Family Strikes,
Heihu Quan Black Tiger Boxing,
Meihua Quan Plum Flower Boxing,
Da Hong Quan Big Flood Boxing,
Zui Ba Xian Deng - 8 Drunken Immortals, ; among others.
The weapon sets were Taizu and Plum Flower based implements: , , , , , (), , and .
By the late 1700s to early 1800s, Monk Liquan () of Shandong province learned Yuejia Chui and other sets and passed it on to Monk Fa Cheng (). Note: some researchers think that Liquan might not be the name of an individual but a religious order with Shaolin Sect. The location of their temple is believed to be the one in Hebei Province where Fa Cheng was in residence.
Please note that these are earliest mention of Mantis Boxing appearing in Shandong. If someone would do the research, I think that connections will be discovered between what I have posted above and “Sheng Xiao” and Li Bingxiao, and the Mei Hua Shou / Tang Lang Shou material.
Also there is another Shaolin connection:
In Tanglang the first of 12 principles is:
“Gou, also known as Tong Guo Gou (pass through/back hook): Attach or deflect by hooked hand or Mantis Claw. In the case of Tong Guo Gou; pulling back by hooked hand.”
There was another style from shaolin that included a Tong Guo Gou set, which they also called Mantis Claw (Tang Zhao?) and it left Shaolin around 1735 and went to the Shandong area.