---
title: "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**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/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.

## The forms — the six core sequences (六趟)

The **張詳三 (Zhang Xiangsan)** Taiwan line teaches its empty-hand art as **six core sequences (六趟)**, plus the Short Hammer and a compact Six-Harmony Fist. Each now has a full move-by-move script page here; the lists are the lineage's own 拳譜 (6h-mantis.org):

| # | Form 中文 | English | Postures | Script |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 一趟 | 鐵齒 / 鐵刺 | Iron Tooth | 32 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-iron-tooth) |
| 二趟 | 善手奔 / 先手奔 | First-Hand Rush | 37 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-first-hand-rush) |
| 三趟 | 鏡裡藏花 | Hidden Flower in the Mirror | 33 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-mirror-flower) |
| 四趟 | 截手圈 | Intercepting-Hand Circle | 27 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-intercepting-circle) |
| 五趟 | 葉底藏花 | Hidden Flower Beneath the Leaf | 23 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-leaf-flower) |
| 六趟 | 雙封 | Double Seal | 39 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-double-seal) |
| — | 六合短捶 | Short Hammer | 50 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-short-hammer) |
| — | 六合拳 | Six-Harmony Fist | 20 | ✅ [page](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/six-harmony-fist) |

All six core sequences share the same closing run — **進步跺腳 → 破膝 → 掛耳圈**.

The branch's 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); no clean open posture-list of it has surfaced (it survives chiefly in Zhang Xiangsan's printed book). The **照面燈 (Lamp-to-the-Face)** named in older inventories belongs to the mainland 招遠 (趙春合) line and likewise has no open script.

## Video

<PageRef space="notes" slug="mantis-video" text="Praying Mantis on Film — incl. the 蔡永煌 and 張道錦 Six-Harmony lineage series" />

## See also

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

<PageRef space="notes" slug="seven-star-mantis" text="Seven Star Mantis — the harder, hook-centred contrast branch" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="liu-yunqiao" text="Liu Yunqiao (劉雲樵) — studied Six-Harmony Mantis alongside Baji" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="eight-step-mantis" text="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](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AD%E5%90%88%E8%9E%B3%E8%9E%82%E6%8B%B3)) — 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](https://www.hk01.com/%E6%AD%A6%E5%82%99%E5%BF%97/202428/)) 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.