Pure-Yang Sword (純陽劍) — Eight Step Mantis

純陽劍 (Chúnyáng Jiàn, "Pure-Yang Sword") is a straight-sword (劍) form in the **weapons curriculum of **Eight Step Praying Mantis as taught by Wei Xiaotang (衛笑堂) (named in 左顯富's record of Wei's weapon arsenal). Its name invokes 純陽真人 Lü Dongbin (呂洞賓), the wine-loving Daoist immortal who is the patron of Chinese swordsmanship. 55 postures — a classical Daoist sword form unusually rich in named image-postures: 仙人指路 ("the immortal points the way"), 魁星點斗 ("Kuixing points at the Dipper"), 燕子抄水 ("the swallow skims the water"), 二郎擔山 ("Erlang carries the mountains").

What it trains

• Point precision — the straight sword lives by the tip (平刺, 點水, 點斗) rather than the edge

• Light, agile footwork — the 劍 is carried, not muscled; the form floats between its named postures

• The off-hand sword-fingers and the tassel (手捋劍穗) — the classical two-hand coordination of jian work

• The named-posture vocabulary of Daoist swordplay — image after image, each a precise cut or guard

Full posture script — 55 postures

The posture-name list from the 松傳古藝武術學苑 兵器譜 (the 林松賢 / 左顯富 line, direct Wei Xiaotang disciples), reproduced under fair-use citation; the English are the wiki's own working glosses.

A note on the form

A classical Daoist sword form carried in the Eight Step school rather than a mantis-original weapon; its imagery is shared across many northern 劍 traditions, here drilled in the Eight Step body method.

Videos

Weapon demonstrations from the Wei lineage appear on the 八步功夫學苑 / 鄭榮貴, knhsieh, and Alex Tsuo / 王聖穎 channels — see the channel index on the Eight Step Mantis page. A single lineage-authoritative demonstration of this exact form was not separately confirmed at publication.

See also

八步螳螂 Eight Step Mantis — the branch and full curriculum

Wei Xiaotang (衛笑堂) — the Eight Step disseminator

Mantis Forms — the script-and-video map of every form

Sources

[1] 衛笑堂 Wei Xiaotang, 實用螳螂拳 series (Yiwen 逸文 reprints) — the in-copyright primary source for the Eight Step curriculum; cited, not reproduced. The attribution of 三清刀 / 四門槍 / 純陽劍 as Wei's weapon set follows 左顯富 (Zuo Xianfu), Wei's senior Taiwan disciple.

[2] 松傳古藝武術學苑 (suntrans88.blogspot.com) — the 兵器譜 posted by the 林松賢 / 左顯富 line, reproduced under fair-use citation with the wiki's own glosses. Source post: http://suntrans88.blogspot.com/2016/11/blog-post_70.html.