---
title: "Spring & Autumn Halberd (春秋大刀) — the Guandao capstone form"
---

The **Spring & Autumn Halberd** (**春秋大刀**, *Chūnqiū Dàdāo*) is the great-weapon capstone of the [**Seven Star Praying Mantis**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/seven-star-mantis) curriculum — the **guandao (大刀)**, the heavy crescent-bladed pole-saber of Guan Yu. Recorded by [**Wong Hon Fan**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/wong-hon-fan) (Hong Kong, 1958), whose preface frames it as *"螳螂派所傳之春秋大刀"* — the Spring-and-Autumn halberd **as transmitted within the Mantis school** — it runs to **97 postures**, the longest of the mantis weapon forms.

## Character

The name honours **Guan Yu (關羽)**, the deified Three-Kingdoms general said to have read the *Spring and Autumn Annals* by lamplight, whose legendary guandao gives the whole class of weapon its name. A guandao is heavy and long; the form is a test of **root, waist power, and whole-body strength**, swung in great chopping and reaping arcs rather than the quick changes of the lighter weapons. Its martial-romance imagery is explicit — postures like *"Slicing Through a Yellow-Turban Soldier"* place the practitioner inside the world of the war epics.

## Representative postures

A selection from the 97 (the full sequence is in Wong Hon Fan's manual, translated in full by Brennan — linked below):

| 中文 | English |
| --- | --- |
| 仙人指路 | Immortal Points the Way |
| 魁星獻鑽 | Kuixing Presents the Spike |
| 跨虎橫刀 | Sitting-Tiger Stance, Blocking with the Halberd |
| 青龍昂首 | Blue Dragon Holds Its Head High |
| 白猿出洞 | White Ape Leaves the Cave |
| 腰斬黃巾 | Slicing Through a Yellow-Turban Soldier |
| 白蛇纏槍 | White Snake Coils Around the Spear |
| 雪花蓋頂 | Snowflakes Cover the Headtop |

The posture **白猿出洞 ("White Ape Leaves the Cave")** shares its name and image with the empty-hand mantis form of the same title — one of the recurring animal motifs that thread through the whole system.

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="white-ape-leaves-cave" text="White Ape Leaves the Cave (白猿出洞) — the empty-hand form that shares this posture's name" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="mantis-liuhe-staff" text="Mantis Liuhe Staff (螳螂六合棍) — the long-staff foundation for pole weapons" />

<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), *春秋大刀* (Hong Kong, 1958), Mantis-school transmission — full open English translation by Paul Brennan: [Spring & Autumn Halberd](https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/spring-autumn-halberd/). 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)).