---
title: "Forms & Weapons (套路・兵器) — the routines and the arms"
---

A **form (套路, *****tàolù*****)** is a fixed sequence of movements — the way Chinese martial arts package their techniques for solo practice, transmission, and testing. This section gathers the wiki's form and weapon pages: the foundational drills every northern student meets first, the deep library of empty-hand routines, and the weapons — saber, staff, sword and the great long blades — with a bridge to the Ming-dynasty manuals where those weapons were first written down.

## What a form is for

Forms get argued about — are they a training method or a museum piece? The traditional answer is that a *taolu* is a **container**: it preserves a style's vocabulary in a fixed order so it can be drilled alone and passed on intact. A typical northern curriculum climbs a predictable arc:

1. **Foundational drills** — short, repetitive sets that install stance, footwork and a few core powers (the kicking drill, the footwork set).
2. **Core empty-hand forms** — longer routines that recombine the vocabulary into fighting sequences.
3. **Signature / advanced forms** — the school's prized, more demanding sets.
4. **Weapons** — saber, staff, spear, sword, taken up once the empty-hand body is built.

## Foundational forms

The cross-style starting points — not the property of any one system, but the shared ground of northern training:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="tan-tui" text="Tan Tui (彈腿 / 潭腿) — the foundational springing-kick drill under most northern schools" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="lianbuquan" text="Lianbuquan (練步拳) — the footwork-training long-fist set; a standard open beginner form" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="eighteen-luohan-hands" text="The Eighteen Luohan Hands (十八羅漢手) — the Shaolin conditioning set at the root of the temple's reputation" />

## The empty-hand library — Northern Mantis

The wiki's deepest form coverage is in **Northern Praying Mantis**, whose curriculum is documented form-by-form with full move-by-move scripts. Rather than repeat it here, this section points to the two dedicated maps:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="mantis-forms" text="Mantis Forms — the script-and-video map of every Mantis form, across all four branches" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="white-ape-forms" text="The White Ape Forms (白猿) — Steals the Peach &amp; Leaves the Cave, with full scripts" />

All **four mantis branches** are now documented form-by-form on that map: **Seven Star** (the full Wong Hon Fan canon — 崩步, 攔截, 連環錦套, 大翻車, 四路奔打 and the rest of the empty-hand sets, plus eleven weapon forms), **Eight Step** (七手 · 力劈 · 小翻車 · 大翻車 · 摘要 and the 拍按 two-person set), **Six-Harmony** (the six 趟 — 鐵齒 · 善手奔 · 鏡裡藏花 · 截手圈 · 葉底藏花 · 雙封 — plus 短捶), and **Taiji Plum-Blossom** (分身八肘, the root Eight-Elbows). Each row links a full move-by-move script.

## The internal arts (內家)

The three classical internal arts each have their signature forms scripted here.

**Xingyi (形意拳)** — form-intent boxing, the five elements and twelve animals:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="xingyi-linking-fist" text="五行連環拳 Five-Element Linking Fist — the foundational linked form, threading all five element-fists" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="xingyi-twelve-animals" text="十二形 Twelve Animals — the animal-form roster, each with its signature postures" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="xingyi-eight-characters" text="八字功 Eight-Character Skills — the eight method-characters + their linking form" />

**Bagua (八卦掌)** — the eight-trigram palm, walked on the circle:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="bagua-eight-palms" text="八大掌 The Eight Palms — Bagua's core: the trigram-animal palms + the single/double change scripts" />

**Baji (八極拳)** — the close-range art of explosive short power:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="baji-small" text="小八極 Small Baji — the foundational 36-posture form" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="baji-vajra-eight" text="金剛八式 Eight Vajra Postures — the foundational power-postures, with their verses" />

## The weapons (兵器)

The classical curriculum is built on the **eighteen arms (十八般兵器)**; the documented weapon *forms* on the wiki come chiefly from the rich **Northern Mantis** weapons syllabus, grouped here by the arm rather than by branch:

| Weapon | Form | 中文 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Saber (刀)** | [Yan Qing Single Saber](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/yan-qing-single-saber) | 燕青單刀 |
|  | [Liuhe Double Sabers](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/liuhe-double-sabers) | 六合雙刀 |
|  | [Army Large Saber](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/army-large-saber) | 軍中大刀術 |
|  | [Eight-Trigrams Saber](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/eight-trigrams-saber) | 八卦單刀 |
|  | [Drunken Groundwork Saber](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/drunken-groundwork-saber) | 醉酒地躺單刀 |
|  | [Three-Pure Saber](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/eight-step-three-pure-saber) (Eight Step) | 三清刀 |
| **Staff (棍)** | [Fifth Son's Eight-Trigrams Staff](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/fifth-sons-staff) | 五郎八卦棍 |
|  | [Mantis Liuhe Staff](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/mantis-liuhe-staff) | 螳螂六合棍 |
|  | [Tiger-Tail Three-Section Staff](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/tiger-tail-three-section-staff) | 虎尾三節棍 |
| **Straight sword (劍)** | [Sundial Sword](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/sundial-sword) | 子午劍 |
|  | [Bagua Sword](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/bagua-sword) (Bagua) | 八卦劍 |
|  | [Pure-Yang Sword](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/eight-step-pure-yang-sword) (Eight Step) | 純陽劍 |
| **Long blade (大刀)** | [Spring & Autumn Halberd](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/spring-autumn-halberd) | 春秋大刀 |
| **Flexible (軟兵)** | [Nine-Section Ground Whip](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/nine-section-whip) | 九節地躺鞭 |

## From living forms to the source manuals

These are the *practised* weapon routines. The wiki also holds the **earliest printed weapon manuals** themselves — the 1621 Ming texts where the staff, the long saber and the spear first entered the record. The forms above are how the arms live now; the texts below are where they were first written down:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="shaolin-staff-method" text="Shaolin Staff Method (少林棍法闡宗, 1621) — the earliest surviving Shaolin weapons manual" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="long-saber-method" text="The Long Saber (單刀法選, 1621) — the two-handed saber, ancestor of the miaodao" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="spear-and-crossbow" text="The Spear &amp; the Crossbow (長槍法選・蹶張心法, 1621) — the Yang-family spear and the foot-drawn crossbow" />

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="northern-styles" text="Northern Kung Fu Styles — the arts these forms belong to" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="source-texts" text="Source Texts — the manuals, in the order they were written" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="four-gates" text="The Four Gates (踢打摔拿) — the categories of technique the forms train" />