What are the applications and principles of this particular seven-star mantis stance?

Question

I recently saw a Seven Star Praying Mantis school perform in public for a cultural festival, and one of their characteristics is the seven-star stance. The stance entails one of practictioner's leg sticking out straight with the heel on the ground and toe pointing upwards whilst the body weight is placed more on the back leg which is bent.

I was trying to figure out what is the purpose of this particular footwork in its applicability to defense and attack because it seems odd to stick out your leg like that, but I also wondered whether it may be a stylistic feature of this particular kung fu system.

Answer 1

I have not trained in Seven Star Praying Mantis; I will defer to anyone with even a modicum of specific knowledge. I also admit my ignorance with respect to the hand position. I can state that within Tai Chi there are several stances that are backweighted like that, and where the heel is down and the toe is up. When I came to tai chi from aikido that drove me nuts.

I'm still a relative beginner in tai chi, but I can tell you that from a learning perspective, that stance enforces separation. If your heel is down and your toe is up, that leg does not bear weaight. Your weight is 95% on the other leg. Separation is an important feature of mobility for tai chi. Separation forces me to move from my hips, rather than relying on momentum and mass.

Sorry - that's longwinded, discursive and has three different disclaimers. But I believe that the stance both teaches and preserves a type of mobility that I find in Chinese Martial arts but not in Aikido.

Answer 2

The technique depicted in this picture is called "mantis spies the cave" in 7 Star Praying mantis style.The right hand would be pulling an apponent into your space while the back of the left wrist is striking the face.The stance as you have said is Seven Star Stance and is used to signify a low sweep/stomp on the toe with heel/hooking into an apponents leg to destabilisestance or generally any opportunity which presents itself.As you say there is no weight on that foot so it is available for attacks and not easily exploited by sweeps from apponents.

Regards 7StarMan (Nine Years on the path of a Chinese Boxer)

Answer 3

Off the top of my head and untested, one application could be to interdict the opponent's footwork while pulling/locking his upper body off center. Based on my experience of Xingyi Horse form, the right hand behind the ear is weak. He is probably using the extended left to apply a lock under the armpit. If the left hand is in the signature praying mantis hand, then there are probably various finger attacks to the throat.

The extended leg also has an option for kicking up into the grown if the other guy gets distracted with what's going on up top.

There are likely other applications. The important thing isn't to fix a particular function of a stance or a form. When you do that, you get functional fixedness . Instead, you want functional fluidity.