Customer Reviews

Praying Mantis Kung-Fu (Bong Po)

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This book is the first in a series written by Sifu Paul Eng. It provides a brief overview of Mantis training and then settles down to specifically examine the Mantis Spear Hand. It does this fairly well, using many smallish but clear photos and adequate written explanations. The pictures allow you to see the postures of a recognized Praying Mantis master. For those of you who can read Chinese there are reproductions of Chinese text.

The author, Sifu Paul Eng, has studied Chinese Martial Arts for over 35 years and is obviously comfortable showing and discussing the forms in this book. It's mostly pictures of postures followed by brief explanations with little on the history or philosophy of Praying Mantis Kung Fu. However, for what it is it's well done and it's obvious that the author is a sincere and dedicated student of Chinese Martial Arts. This book lacks depth but as just one part of an intended series (I don't know if any other in the series were published) it can't be faulted for that. As a matter of fact, with about 150 pages devoted almost entirely to one technique (Spear Hand) you could say the focus is actually pretty deep but very narrow. This is however, what I believe the author intended.