Praying Mantis

Yesterday I found a praying mantis in the house. "Look Shao a Praying Mantis just like Mantis in Kung Fu Panda." Noah was actually afraid of it and didn't want to go near it, didn't want to catch it to keep it as a pet and was generally horrified that it was in his house on the banister. I watched it for a while. It's weird because I got the feeling that it was looking at me too. Now flies might look at you, but you don't see their head turn and stare you in the face.

The Mantis crawled up the banister moving pretty slowly, but it's front little Mantis arms looked like they were hacking and chopping. So even before I saw it fight, I could see some applications of how to use these movements for Kung Fu.

It got me thinking, you know how every system always has a series of movements that you have to learn and pretty much feel like you are stupid while learning and  that have this form and that form and this exercise and that exercise. Now I appreciate the importance of all these things and I was annoyed when people complained about the basics in White Crane and not understanding why they were doing this or that, because to me, from my first day, all the basics had applications that were obvious. And maybe I wasn't able to fight or spar with them right away, but that just has to do with experience sparring. And whenever anyone said Kung Fu is bad or forms are bad because this or that I thought they were nuts. But having seen some other systems forms, which aren't for show, but aren't really for fighting either. More like a lot of exercises for building up strength, but put into an order that is hard to learn and memorize, I saw that if I had started with that school, or system, or teacher, I would have stopped after a week out of boredom.

Okay what is my point.

Well you learn crane, you learn mantis, you memorize forms, and that's great if it comes easy to you. But it doesn't come easy to a lot of people. So why not go right to the source. The creator of the form did not learn that form. They fought and already knew basic fighting and then looked at an animal and learned from that through observation. Well, even if you don't happen to find a Mantis in your house, maybe you should watch some nature programs.

Anyway, I didn't kill it.It had gotten away anyway. Until later that is, when Grace was home and it was still hanging out on that banister. I guess that is it's favorite spot. I figured we could just sort of co-exist with it, given that it was a mantis and special and probably ate flies. But Grace would have none of it. She wanted it dead or out... or just dead.

I captured it and tried to throw it outside. Some how it crawled back in like a little child scrambling at play. I caught it again and set it outside next to the plants. I figured it could do whatever it needed to do their. Camouflage and all that.

Well it looked at me. And wonder what it was looking at? How does it even know to look at my face?

Anyway, I haven't seen it around anymore. So I'm not sure if it is on the porch surviving, or if a bird ate it or it just died.