This doesn't make sense to me. What do you think

[JowGaWolf]

Do find it amusing when practitioners of "long arm" styles try to explain it to those who haven't practiced it, yet don’t apply the same logic when discussing "mantis" asking question's of something not practiced.

Only one way to find out. Find someone who trains this system to spar using this technique against a round house. I personally don't think there's any need because be cause in the video itself, it shows what happens when you miss. Even the teacher that the teacher realizes this which is why he changes the target from the shin to the knee.

The picture below is the truth even if you are super fast. If you miss the kick still goes through and you pay the price.

But you are right. I'm don't know what I'm talking about because I don't train Mantis. But I wasn't the only one who saw something wrong with that punch knee / punch shin application. Even the teacher changed it up.

 

[windwalker099]

There's is no "and." None of that changes the realities of trying to punch a round house kick. It's not about the teacher, it's about the technique and the application of it. If you bring up a person's age, then it's no longer about the technique it's about that person.

Only one way to find out. Find someone who trains this system to spar using this technique against a round house. I personally don't think there's any need because be cause in the video itself, it shows what happens when you miss. Even the teacher that the teacher realizes this which is why he changes the target from the shin to the knee.

The picture below is the truth even if you are super fast. If you miss the kick still goes through and you pay the price.

View attachment 32547

But you are right. I'm don't know what I'm talking about because I don't train Mantis. But I wasn't the only one who saw something wrong with that punch knee / punch shin application. Even the teacher changed it up.

is it the teacher demoing, or the technique itself ?

Does anyone do Prayign Matis who has pulled this technique off as shown in the video? What are you thoughts.

We did things similar, having practiced to do them...

The things that make it work are not demoed nor explained in the video.
Presumably, the target audience, his students who are actively training in the method..

Interesting style
The Shandong, flavor different from those in Hong Kong
and other places......

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Anyone who practices the style will seem faster to those who do not based on the practice itself.

The praying mantis system is faster than the long fist, Baji, ... because the PM punch doesn't:

- pull punching hand back to the waist after punch.
- move big circle. It only uses small circle.
- always punch with fist. It sometimes punches with the back of your hooking hand after block/grab. This saves time that you don't have to change a grabbing hand into a fist.
- twist/extend body during punch (weaker in power).
- always transfer power from heel to hand.
- ...

 

[windwalker099]

The praying mantis system is faster than the long fist, Baji, ...

How we practiced, reflects the style as it was taught in Korea.

 

[JowGaWolf]

No asked about why he stamps in his demo.
but does not go over the stamping or explain it in the movements

My understanding of stomps is that it's a method that trains a person how to drop their weight. Normally you see the stomp and lowering of the body. There are some misconceptions about it that I should mention.

The biggest being that it's a stomp. It's not a stomp as in "my foot is attacking the ground." It's more of a "stop fall" The best way to understand it is to try it. You may be able to do this exercise to understand what is happening.

Step one. Use your weakest leg to stand on, while lifting your strongest leg. You should be in a similar position as this. but have you hands by your side and relax your foot, don't point your toes up or down. Also make sure your standing leg is not completely straight.

Step 2: This next step is the hardest part because your body naturally tries not to do it. but it will once it's gets used to the dropping sensation. So from this position you are going to stop supporting your body with the standing leg. You are going to let it naturally collapse like you have no bones in that leg. As you fall keep your raise leg bent and when it hits the ground don't allow it to bend. What will happen is that you will hear the impact force caused by the drop.

If you listen closely you can hear the impact of the foot as it hits the ground. He's not stomping it. But this is the same concept of the "kung fu stomp" Now there are other systems who do stomp, but for your question about that specific movement in the video this is the answer.

 

[JowGaWolf]

The things that make it work are not demoed nor explained in the video.

Do you know what makes it work?

 

[JowGaWolf]

How we practiced, reflects the style as it was taught in Korea.

Now is that a punch or an elbow putting pressure on the arm? Is that striking or grappling?

 

[windwalker099]

Do you know what makes it work?

I can see what he is doing that makes it work not mentioned or explained in the clip.
Part of it has to do with how "he" demos solo vs when he starts to demo with the student.

Kung fu Wang, could probably offer other perspectives on the demo and style

Mantis, as a style, has evolved over time due to the shifting focus of different eras.
Training closely with those who have actively applied it tends to provide a more authentic reflection of its practice and methods

My teacher

Park Chi Moon.
Shifu Park Chil Sung was born in 1930 in what is now North Korea. He first began studying gong fu within his family at a very young age (around 7 or 8 years old). He later traveled around the Korean peninsula studying under any master he could find.
At that time he met his main master, shifu Lin Ping Jiang.

During the Korean war he along with most other young men from his home town were recruited to fight for the south as guerilla fighters not actually associated with the formal army. After the war he was able to relocate to the south and has not seen his family since then. Shifu Park Chil Sung worked for some time after the war for the South Korean equivalent of the American CIA, training in hand to hand combat. He has been teaching at Camp Casey Tongdushon (a U.S. Army post just south of the DMZ - north of Seoul) since the 70's, with many of his students being U.S. Military personnel. In the year 2000 he was still alive and teaching in Korea.

Mr Park and Roger 1970s

One of his students Roger Haygood...would go on to study s-mantis
As fate would have it. Roger left Korea a little bit before I arrived.
Interesting enough we would met in the US,
he teaching s-mantis at the time...

Mantis not my cup of tea...
others might find it so.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

How we practiced, reflects the style as it was taught in Korea.

When I was in the long fist system, I was not concern with the

- speed training until I started to cross train the praying mantis system.
- power training until I started to cross train the Baji system.

The long fist system is good to be used to build foundation. It's not specialized in either speed, or power.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I've punched the instep on round kicks. Also the thigh. I say punch the instep, but in sparring it's more placing the fist in the path of the instep so you don't hurt your partner. I'm pretty positive it would cause damage if done with that intent. One point- I suspect that years of makiwara work has made my fists more resilient to damage. Not sure if it would be a good idea otherwise. Front kicks I'll catch the foot and hit the side of the knee or inside the thigh. I like a palm heel to side of the knee, follow through can turn over or fold their leg and leads to a takedown. Some people throw a front kick, if you scootch your core back a little, you can absorb the kick and use that to under hook the foot with one hand. People tend to bend the knee up when you catch a front kick which makes hitting the thigh easier. A hard hit to the thigh is miserable, I consider it a viable target. Keep in mind these aren't really things I make a point of doing, it's one of those "when the opportunity presents itself" things. I don't recall ever hitting someone's shin head on.

I have broken my right foot on my partners shin .

 

[JowGaWolf]

No asked about why he stamps in his demo.

Just realized that you may not be asking why he stomps his foot.

I didn't ask why because for me it's not a stomp but a weight drop. When that technique is used as a grappling technique to deal with someone grabbing my wrist. I will have 2 options.
1. I can try to push against my opponent's upward resistance. When I tried it on my son I could feel where he would try to prevent his wrist from being locked and pushed down. If the person is stronger than I am then I will lose.


2. I can simply drop my weight while using that downward punching motion to create good arm structure while moving my opponent into bad arm structure. . This way I can use the weight of my body, and I don't have to push. The turning of my wrist so that my fist palm turned my son's wrist. By making a fist he could not slide his grip over my hand and escape, once the wrist started to turn the only escape that I saw him take was to go in the same direction that I was driving down. I think if I had an open hand, he would have two ways to escape, with the best way being to simply allow his grip to slide over my hand and pull his hand towards him.

Depending on how someone grabs my arm I will either escape their grip or lock their wrist. With that movement. If my hand escapes then I'll be free to hammer fist the groin. If my hand doesn't escape, then it probably means that my son would be in a wrist lock. The left-hand rising seems like it for controlling the elbow so that my son could not bend the elbow to free his hand in the initial lifting of the arm.

But since you asked.


Why do you think he "stomped" his foot? in the form demo but not in the application?

 

[JowGaWolf]

I have broken my right foot on my partners shin .

ouch.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I can see what he is doing that makes it work not mentioned or explained in the clip.
Part of it has to do with how "he" demos solo vs when he starts to demo with the student.

Kung fu Wang, could probably offer other perspectives on the demo and style

Mantis, as a style, has evolved over time due to the shifting focus of different eras.
Training closely with those who have actively applied it tends to provide a more authentic reflection of its practice and methods

My teacher

Park Chi Moon.
Shifu Park Chil Sung was born in 1930 in what is now North Korea. He first began studying gong fu within his family at a very young age (around 7 or 8 years old). He later traveled around the Korean peninsula studying under any master he could find.
At that time he met his main master, shifu Lin Ping Jiang.

During the Korean war he along with most other young men from his home town were recruited to fight for the south as guerilla fighters not actually associated with the formal army. After the war he was able to relocate to the south and has not seen his family since then. Shifu Park Chil Sung worked for some time after the war for the South Korean equivalent of the American CIA, training in hand to hand combat. He has been teaching at Camp Casey Tongdushon (a U.S. Army post just south of the DMZ - north of Seoul) since the 70's, with many of his students being U.S. Military personnel. In the year 2000 he was still alive and teaching in Korea.

Mr Park and Roger 1970s

One of his students Roger Haygood...would go on to study s-mantis
As fate would have it. Roger left Korea a little bit before I arrived.
Interesting enough we would met in the US,
he teaching s-mantis at the time...

Mantis not my cup of tea...
others might find it so.

So how does it work?

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

ouch.

Better than my hand.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

The right hand may not be a punch but an "arm guiding". You grab your opponent's wrist and pull down his arm. It can be just a guard opening move.

The application can be:

You have right leg forward and your opponent has left leg forward.

- You use your right hand to grab his left wrist and guide his left arm down.
- You then step in your right leg behind his leading left leg and use your body to push him off balance.
- If your opponent's right-hand punch to your face, you use left hand to parry down his right arm, let go your right control hand, and change into a back fist toward his head.

 

[marvin8]

Only one way to find out. Find someone who trains this system to spar using this technique against a round house. I personally don't think there's any need because be cause in the video itself, it shows what happens when you miss. Even the teacher that the teacher realizes this which is why he changes the target from the shin to the knee.

The picture below is the truth even if you are super fast. If you miss the kick still goes through and you pay the price.

View attachment 32547

Yes. Blocking/striking a low kick with hand can put you in a bad position and be countered.

https://imgur.com/MF2xxbD

https://imgur.com/61sTwZu

But you are right. I'm don't know what I'm talking about because I don't train Mantis. But I wasn't the only one who saw something wrong with that punch knee / punch shin application. Even the teacher changed it up.

A praying mantis sifu teaches that you can be struck in the face blocking kicks with hands at fight distance.

 

[Fungus]

Unless you have some pretty amazing iron fist conditioning, I don’t think punching directly into an oncoming shin is going to end well.

I agree.

I haven't see that technique before, and not sure where he hits as the attackers pants are baggy.
What comes to my mind as a potentialla effective technique, is to get in close, perhaps with a slight side step (to make sure you evade at same time) and then strike the attackers leg above the knee cap. Either seiken into the muscle, or a shotei on the kneep - it would likely be like a "stop punch to the leg" cause an hyperextension of the attackers leg which would cause damage. Ie. a striking version of a stomp kick to an incoming leg of a roundhouse kick.

But I am not sure if that is what the video is suppost to show? Seiken ot hte lower leg sounds like a bad idea though.

 

[jks9199]

A few more thoughts...

First, it's possible that the guy is deliberately not showing things; Chinese arts do have a reputation for showing one thing publicly, and another privately. Maybe he's deliberately showing a technique that's not so good...

But, to me, this technique set can work. It's not a basic technique. There's a lot of positioning and set up involved in making it work, and he's not showing that. If I were to do something similar, I'd step forward almost towards or on the opponent's left foot. That puts me deep inside, weakening the kick if it does make contact. The strike isn't going to be into the shin, ideally -- it's into the calf, parts of the knee, or thigh. Then, I'm in position for those strikes to go up the middle, at close range.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I would try to “block” a kick with my hand nor fist but I possibly might try to “catch” the right leg with my left hand down, palm out as it reaches full extension and then strike off that connection with my right hand as I drive in on the inside of their right leg. Palm out with my left hand down gives some protection from the kick and puts me in position to catch the kick on full extension or as they begin retraction. Many people do not retract the kick with the same force as they extend it. If the kick dies on the vine, the catch and resulting drive in can take their balance. The catch need not be lasting, only long enough to strike or drive in. It’s possible that this teacher might actually use the motion he demos in more than one potential application. In the same way I might use diagonal flying posture to strike, or lift, or lock. It’s the same motion.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

A few more thoughts...

First, it's possible that the guy is deliberately not showing things; Chinese arts do have a reputation for showing one thing publicly, and another privately. Maybe he's deliberately showing a technique that's not so good...

But, to me, this technique set can work. It's not a basic technique. There's a lot of positioning and set up involved in making it work, and he's not showing that. If I were to do something similar, I'd step forward almost towards or on the opponent's left foot. That puts me deep inside, weakening the kick if it does make contact. The strike isn't going to be into the shin, ideally -- it's into the calf, parts of the knee, or thigh. Then, I'm in position for those strikes to go up the middle, at close range.

I have been told by a well known teacher of CMA that the way he shows “inside” students to do a thing is not at all the way it is shown in his books or videos. Another good example of this is a form known to some folks as the book set or panther set. This form was purposely taught to the head of a certain martial arts style with certain parts missing so as to prevent theft. Now when we see them perform this set it is seriously flawed and incomplete. It’s a common thing in CMA in my experience. Some of the old guys were extremely secretive