Six-Harmony Mantis (六合螳螂拳) — the soft, "hidden-hard" branch

Six-Harmony Mantis (**六合螳螂拳, **Liùhé Tánglángquán) is the softest and most internal of the major praying-mantis branches — so much so that it is sometimes called "hidden-hard" (暗剛): enter soft, and temper the hardness within the softness. It uses markedly fewer of the mantis hooks that define Seven-Star and Plum-Blossom, and feels closer to an internal art than to the other, harder mantis styles. The "six harmonies" (六合) of the name are the internal–external coordinations (heart–intent, intent–qi, qi–force; hand–foot, elbow–knee, shoulder–hip).

Origin & lineage

The branch is a late-Qing Shandong art with an unusually traceable, separate pedigree:

• 魏德林 (Wei Delin), "Wei San" (魏三) — a wandering knight-errant (江湖大俠) of robber-of-the-rich repute, born with a webbed hand (the five fingers joined), hence his nickname "Duck-Palm Wei San" (鴨子巴掌魏三).

• → 林世春 (Lin Shichun) — received Wei's Luohan short-striking together with his own family art. (Note: he is sometimes confused with the Seven-Star master Lin Jingshan 林景山 — a different man.)

• → Lin's heirs in Huangxian, especially 王吉臣 (Wang Jichen) and 丁子成 (Ding Zicheng) (with 趙同書 in Zhaoyuan).

• → 丁子成 (Ding Zicheng, d. 1956, aged 76) — famed for iron-palm conditioning (鐵沙掌, the "Iron Arm" 鐵胳臂); the great early-20th-century transmitter who carried the art toward the coast and Taiwan.

• → 張詳三 (Zhang Xiangsan, given name 張習易, 1900–1982) — Ding's direct disciple, the 6th-generation holder, who took Six-Harmony Mantis to Taiwan.

The Baji master Liu Yunqiao also studied Six-Harmony Mantis (alongside his Bagua) — one reason his Wutan transmission carries a mantis thread.

Character

• Soft entry, hidden hardness: "以柔入手，柔裡調剛" — soft on contact, the power concealed and released from within; hard and soft completing each other (剛柔並濟).

• Few hooks: where the other branches are built around the mantis hook, Six-Harmony minimises it — a defining contrast.

• Internal coordination (the six harmonies) over external shape; sticking, absorbing, and short, sudden issuing.

Signature forms

The branch's empty-hand sets include 鐵刺 (Iron Thorn), 仙手奔 (先手奔), 照面燈 (Lamp-to-the-Face), 截手圈 (Intercepting-Hand Circle), 藏花 (Hidden Flower), 雙封 (Double Seal), and 短捶 (Short Hammer). Its technical heart is the 《六合螳螂拳手法真傳秘訣》— the Zhaiyao "93 hands" (摘要九十三手), the distilled fighting curriculum.

Video

Praying Mantis on Film — incl. the 蔡永煌 and 張道錦 Six-Harmony lineage series

See also

Praying Mantis (螳螂拳) — the parent system & branch tree

Seven Star Mantis — the harder, hook-centred contrast branch

Liu Yunqiao (劉雲樵) — studied Six-Harmony Mantis alongside Baji

Eight Step Mantis — the other modern-synthesis branch

Sources

[1] 六合螳螂拳, Chinese Wikipedia (zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/六合螳螂拳) — the Wei Delin → Lin Shichun → Ding Zicheng lineage, the forms, and the soft "hidden-hard" character.

[2] 丁子成：跨越兩岸的六合螳螂拳, HK01 (hk01.com) and the 6h-mantis.org lineage site — Ding Zicheng's iron-palm reputation and the Zhang Xiangsan transmission to Taiwan.

[3] 徐紀 (Adam Hsu), 六合螳螂拳法述略 — a practitioner's overview of the branch's method.