---
title: "Fifth Son's Eight-Trigrams Staff (五郎八卦棍) — the Yang-family staff in the mantis curriculum"
---

The **Fifth Son's Eight-Trigrams Staff** (**五郎八卦棍**, *Wǔláng Bāguà Gùn*) is a famous **long-staff (棍)** form carried in the [**Seven Star Praying Mantis**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/seven-star-mantis) curriculum, recorded by [**Wong Hon Fan**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wong-hon-fan) (Hong Kong, Zhencheng Bookstore, 1955). It runs to **74 postures** in two parts (49 + 25). Unlike the house mantis staves, its legendary origin lies in the **Yang family of generals**: **Yang Wulang (楊五郎)**, the "Fifth Son," who — in the *Generals of the Yang Family* sagas — survived the disaster at Golden Beach, became a monk at Mount Wutai, and is said to have developed a monastic staff method that spread into many northern systems.

## Character

This is a widely-shared northern staff form — practiced across Hung Gar, Choy Li Fut, mantis, and other systems — so its presence in the mantis curriculum reflects the **common pool of northern weapons** as much as anything mantis-specific. The **"eight trigrams"** in the name points to its eight-direction stepping. Where it enters the mantis line, the house stamps it with its own identity: the posture **螳螂探爪 ("Mantis Extends a Claw")** is pure mantis vocabulary grafted onto the Yang-family frame.

## Representative postures

A selection from the 74 (the complete two-part sequence is in Wong Hon Fan's manual, translated in full by Brennan — linked below):

| 中文 | English |
| --- | --- |
| 隻手擎天 | A Single Hand Holding Up the Sky |
| 螳螂探爪 | Mantis Extends a Claw |
| 白猿問路 | White Ape Asks the Way |
| 橫攔天門 | Horizontally Blocking to the Sky |
| 右路劈殺 | Right Advance, Chopping Smash |
| 囬棍撩陰 | Pull Back the Staff, Kick to the Groin |
| 推窗看月 | Push Open the Window to Gaze at the Moon |

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="mantis-liuhe-staff" text="Mantis Liuhe Staff (螳螂六合棍) — the house six-harmony staff" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="tiger-tail-three-section-staff" text="Tiger-Tail Three-Section Staff (虎尾三節棍) — the flexible-staff form" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="seven-star-mantis" text="Seven Star Mantis (七星螳螂拳) — the parent branch" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="mantis-canon-english-translations" text="Mantis Canon — the full index of Wong Hon Fan forms in open English" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="praying-mantis" text="Praying Mantis (螳螂拳) — the parent system" />

## Sources

**[1]** 黃漢勛 (Wong Hon Fan), *五郎八卦棍* (Hong Kong: 鎮成書局, 1955), as carried in the Seven-Star Mantis curriculum — full open English translation by Paul Brennan: [Fifth Son's Staff](https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/fifth-sons-staff/). Brennan's translation is in copyright; linked, not reproduced.

**[2]** *Praying Mantis Master Wong Hon Fan Collection*, Chinese University of Hong Kong Library ([repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/collection/whf](https://repository.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/en/collection/whf)).