This sword form has two sets of names. A list I have already posted gives the traditional poetic names of the movements. A different list names the moves as instructions, usually the stance plus the sword technique (jianfa). So, for example, Da Kuixing (the Big Dipper or Major Literary Star) is duli fan ci (stand on one leg and reverse-stab). I’ll post both lists here:

• 56-Sword names (PDF)
• 56-Sword instructions (PDF)

The numbers of the moves agree: #23 on the second list is the instruction for #23 on the first list. Here is a beautiful walk-through demonstration of 56-Sword with names. Elsewhere I have posted links to Li Deyin’s tutorial on 56-sword, broken into short segments. Here is an earlier version, also by Li, as one two-hour tutorial with the same person demonstrating (Fan Xue Ping).

• 56-Sword walk-through
• 56-Sword tutorial [one two-hour video, Li Deyin]

You would be amazed how much you can understand of a Chinese instructional video knowing the terms for sword techniques, the names of stances, and a few miscellaneous instructional words, a total vocabulary of less than a hundred words. That vocabulary covers all the instructional names in the list above (which is why I have not bothered to translate that list into English).