what I'm looking for

Since I started learning Six Harmonies Praying Mantis Fist from Liu Jing Ru Laoshi, I have been seeing praying mantises like I never have before. I wouldn’t begin to suggest this is some kind of Divine Sign of Mantis Approval, but it has been quite curious.

It started last summer, in the middle of Liu Laoshi’s annual visit to Tokyo. Coming home one night from a few drinks after one of my first Mantis practice (heh heh), I found a mantis on the glass door of a temporary ATM facility just outside my train station – not the usual place to find such critters. (see last year’s post)

So here he was and there I was and we communed awhile and then I decided to take him to a small park near my home where I sometimes practice – crowded spaces in front of train stations are not good habitat for mantises. He bit or clawed me or something and DAMN it hurt, even drew some blood. Maybe that was the Divine Sign of Mantis Approval? Anyway I released him in the park and hope he found a nice place to live and was not captured by insect-hunting human kids.

No big deal, probably just chance, but it kept happening.

Some months later, there was one I found on the steps of Jindaiji Temple, where I had taken my visiting mother for a visit. She must have thought me crazy as I bent to study the brilliant green creature.

This year, I found another mantis outside my mothers’ house in Texas (ironically, I had been practicing Compulsory gongfu forms – maybe he was telling me to dump the competition stuff, and return to tradition?). I lived in Texas six years as a child and don’t recall ever having seen a praying mantis in that time.

Late this autumn – well after the time they are usually to be found – I spotted another praying mantis on the side of our neighbor’s house. I have not seen any other praying mantises in our neighborhood in the nearly ten years we have been in this house. I had been practicing Compulsory Southern Fist forms…

And the best one – about a month ago at our monthly tang lang quan / mantis fist gathering in the park. Obviously I was working on a tang lang quan form at that time. I noticed something fall down from above in front of me. Lots of leaves were falling, so that was not unusual. But I noticed it in the brown carpet of leaves below – yes, another mantis, also well past the season when they are usually seen. A female, she had already given birth (I was told by our resident mantis expert). She played on my hand a bit, showing no signs of wanting to leave. I walked her over to the giant tree, placed her on the trunk, and she scampered upward at a brisk pace.

Yeah yeah, I know, we find what we are looking for and all that. If I were to start, say, snake fist, I would probably begin seeing all kinds of oh-so-symbolic and meaningful snakes all around. But there have just been too many coincidences for me.