Seven Hands (七手) — Eight Step Mantis

七手 (Qī Shǒu, "Seven Hands") — also 小七手 — is the entry empty-hand form of the Eight Step Praying Mantis curriculum of Wei Xiaotang (衛笑堂). It is the first set a student learns and the one that installs the branch's core hand-and-step vocabulary. The form is compactly symmetrical — its two halves mirror each other (postures 2–8 repeat as 9–15 on the other side) — drilling the seizing hand (採手), the back-of-hand palm (反背掌), the blade-breaking hand (破刀手), and the hawk-and-sparrow hand (鷹雀手), and closing by "reaching into the sea-bottom for treasure" (海底取寶).

What it trains

• Seizing-hand entries (採手) — sticking, pulling, and opening the line before each strike

• Left/right symmetry — the mirrored halves train both sides of every technique

• The blade-breaking hand (破刀手) and hawk-and-sparrow hand (鷹雀手) — signature Eight-Step trapping shapes

• Stepping — the stealing step (偷步), skip-step (墊步), and the closing hook-scoop seal (勾摟封手)

Full posture script — 17 postures

The posture-name list as set down in the 松傳古藝武術學苑 拳譜 (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. Eight Step movement names are longer and more descriptive than the tight four-character Seven Star style.

Place in the curriculum

The first of the Wei Xiaotang empty-hand sequence (七手 → 力劈 → 小翻車 → 大翻車 → 摘要). Often also trained as a two-person feeding drill (七手對練).

Videos

• 八步螳螂 七手 (套路 / 餵招) — knhsieh channel (左顯富 line); the feeding-drill variant

See also

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

Wei Xiaotang (衛笑堂) — the Eight Step disseminator

力劈拳 Li Pi Quan — Eight Step's Force-Chop form

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

Sources

[1] 衛笑堂 Wei Xiaotang, 實用螳螂拳 series (1968 / 續集 1972 / 秘笈 1977; Yiwen 逸文 reprints) — the in-copyright primary published source for the Eight Step curriculum; cited, not reproduced.

[2] 松傳古藝武術學苑 (suntrans88.blogspot.com) — the 拳譜 posted by the 林松賢 / 左顯富 line (direct Wei Xiaotang disciples). The bare posture-name list is reproduced under fair-use citation; the English are the wiki's own working glosses. The 17-posture skeleton is independently corroborated by a second transcription (the "螳螂七手拳" 拳譜 on the Taiwan 國術論壇, wushu.pixnet.net). Source post: http://suntrans88.blogspot.com/2016/11/blog-post_15.html.