Does anyone here practice Tongbei praying mantis I know it's a northern style and in the lineage you can see it flows straight to Wang Lang. But I don't kow the specifics of this style. I can't find any information except that it is a rare style. I found one teacher named Yang Hongjun ( or something like that ) He teaches in Cangzhou,China. I'm planning to go to Cangzhou with a bunch of people learning different styles and this is one of them hope you guys can help me..... thanks
it is called ' connecting arm mantis boxing' so it should be a type of mantis boxing ... I found some info regarding the lineage at www.mantiscave.com but no other info was there to be found
Tongbei quan is a common "neijia" or internal style. Training consists of swinging your arms around and slapping your back, shoulders & various other body parts in conjunction with some pretty vigorous stance work. The name means "through the back". The idea of the training is to learn how to use power from the torso by getting rid of tension in the arms & shoulders. There's a Beijingified pretty-boy fu competition version of it, which is, well, pretty. If you travel around rural China, the countryside version of it looks a little more intimidating. Of course, pretty much anything those guys practice looks more intimidating than Beijing-fu or Hong Kong Gangster-fu. Being "neijia", the common tongbei quan is of course unrelated to anything Shaolin-derived, by definition "waijia" or external. I've never heard of tongbei mantis, but sometimes it seems like there are more styles than there are people in China.
Jeff, thanks, that was my understanding. However, I don't always have a proper grasp on things, just ask my sifu. BTW, I am stealing your last line in that post. :Angel:
