Criticaldog wanted some more activity, so here's a question. The Hyung crane over cloud is very obviously derived from WFH Hung Gar, and the Dan Gum is clearly a form of Wu Dip Do, a weapon that is not seen anywhere else in Asia except in southern China. So where does it come from? I find it highly unlikely one of WFH's students went to Korea before 1910, so it's somewhat confusing.
The origins of Hung gar are widely accepted to be from monastic five animal kung fu. Hung Hie Gung is credited with choreographing the Taming the Tiger set. Tit Kiu Saam is credited with choreographing the Iron Thread set. Wong Fei Hung is credited with choreographing the Tiger and Crane set. Although each form has its own particular emphasis their is a wide overlap in mechanics, power generation, and application between these forms. All of these forms built on pre-existing understanding and in my opinion most likely contain elements of older monastic forms (certainly Taming the Tiger and Iron Thread must do. They were not created in a vacuum). From what I understand weapon forms were shared much more freely between practitioners than hand forms. As I understand it their are no weapon forms unique to Hung Gar.
Widely accepted by who? Why must they and why not? You've missed the point of my question though, the hand form is clearly derived from WFH's Hung Gar, the hallmarks are all there, including the influence of Wong Yan Lam's Hop Gar. Butterfly knives are not unique to Hung Gar, but they are pretty much unique to southern China. If there is a Hung Gar influenced hand form then it's fair to infer that Hung is the source for the knives. Especially as the form of knives used is a late evolution of the weapon and didn't appear until the 1890s onwards.
I thought for a minute a post got placed in the wrong sub form. Yea I'm not sure I can answer your question, as I'm not familiar with Hung Gar, I do know Kuk Sa Nim trained with a Buddhist monk, perhaps that's the connection. As far as the dahn geum, they may or may not be derived from the butterfly knives, but, once we got reprimanded for using butterfly knives in place of dahn geum. It may be that there is some relationship with ship pal ki, which is a form of Korean Kung fu, however I don't know that much about that style
Oh I forgot to ask...How is the Crane over cloud hyung "obviously" derived from WFH Hung Gar, and what does WFH mean? Maybe a video would help. Thanks
WFH=Wong Fei Hung [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XF9mzwbh40"]Hung Gar grandmaster Lam Chun Fai - full version of intro - YouTube[/ame] The structure, the bridge hand sequence, the movements butterfly palm, unicorn step, monk prays to Buddha, various sequences etc all point to it being re-worked from the form Fu Hok Seung Ying Kuen. If you know Hung Gar it is pretty obvious. Sip Pal Gi systems are typically branches of mantis, Huaquan and Bagua, not southern systems.
so we were going over 사계검법 (four types of swords methods) today and something that really was interesting was when i asked my teacher about the shape of the short swords, he talked about traditional daggers and their types. anyone can see that in museums old daggers did have handles and were as long as hung gar butterfly swords but the 단검 were apparently similar in length, but not shape. 단도, or short knives, were held by women and sometimes made of silver to detect poison. used on others and themselves if they were violated. the lesson then went into how the reverse sword's shape isn't actually the shape it traditionally was, and went from there, so i'm gonna deduce that short swords didnt really look like these and that in the 60's they decided this was a cool shape for spectators.
and the talk was also about 5 animals too... something that sounded like 용오포신, so maybe the two styles (ks and southern styles) are inextricably related. hell, if you ask my teacher about circle chops and their reverses, you'll be able to quickly see some quick similarities. but correlation does not equal causation, right?
Except it doesn't. If it were merely similar I wouldn't have asked, however it's "covered in fingerprints" as it were.
To illustrate, here are 3 different branches of Hung Gar. They look less alike than WFH does to Crane over cloud. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08pjIvnvVio"]Chan Honjung (陈汉宗) (1909-1991) - Fu Hok Seung Ying Kyun - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Xxl_TM70I"]Tiger form, Ha Say Fu / Ten Animal Hung Kuen - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPEIyKXYqS0"]90 year old Hung Kuen Master Leung Daiyau performs the Snake guiding the crane - YouTube[/ame]
Ben's on the money,folks. It's not a matter of being "inextricably related". It's a matter of things,including some sequences, obviously being lifted directly from the Fu Hok form. It's quite recognizable as such-can't just be coincidence owing to some general southern CMA influence in KS. KS certainly isn't the only system to take parts of or re-work the Fu Hok form-the signature form of one of the most well known CMAs.Just speaking as a former Hung practitioner who has seen this before.
although i think el medico is correct, im wondering something. sifu ben, do all these systems have a tiger-crane set, or was wong fei hung the first to put the two together. i ask this for 2 reasons: 1) it would make a stronger argument to use each systems version 2) it would put a start date on when the 'lifting' could have begun and from where see we are taught that the origin of what we do is a culmination of what was known by a group of individuals starting in the mid 1950's culminating with the first curriculum in the late 1960's. i wish i could offer more assistance to the idea that some of these lineages must have made it to korea, but i know very little of immigration history of cantonese people in south korea.... let alone what part. case in point: people that immigrated to incheon from china may have come from the shandong area more and have thus influenced their shibpalgi more than immigrants from taiwan (lets just say) to the busan area. maybe the immigrants that came to busan brought the southern styles with them. i know two of the the early kuk sool masters extensively studied chinese martial arts. from there we get the foundation of our palm and some of our forms theories.
i really do wish this kindof history was less oral and more recorded. it would make for easier discussion.
Wong Fei Hung choreographed the Tiger-crane set. Some lines incorporated it subsequently, probably from Lam Sai Wing's book. There may be a few styles that have their own Fu Hok form, but I haven't seen them. As such it's unlikely that it was practised in Korea prior to the 20th Century. I have no problem with that per se, it's just at odds with the ancient Korean martial arts narrative, which leads me to question where it's from.
well, my instructor was there when they put together the forms. he said that they had masters from a bunch of styles, they had manuals, i wouldnt be surprised if LSW's manuals were in there as well. what's interesting is the lens that they saw through. you can clearly tell from the large difference in styles and emphasis' of the first generation of ks masters what theories they valued. for instance, i was watching the first vid you posted, and i couldnt pay attention to the hand movements because i kept wondering why his back was leaning forward in his long stances. well, we dont. but there are a few ks masters that do. we dig our hip into our long stance. is there a reason for the leaning forward? to me it looks like it would make for a more tedious, less graceful balance transfer, but maybe it takes pressure off the back. ill take another look at the hand motions to find the fingerprints after my final
good topic, by the way. you should check out our baek pal gi and see the similarities to springing legs and crushing step forms. i see some stuff in there as well.
Neat thread. I could go into a brief history of Hung Kuen before and since WFH...but that's boring. Key point: WFH used a lot of older material to create the sets that are now associated with him. Some came from his father Wong Kei Ying, some from other well known Shaolin masters of the time like Leung Kwan, who taught the Iron Thread to Lam F00k Sing, who taught it to young Fei Hung and that's how it became the "fourth pillar". Here is Wong Fei Hung's last wife, Mok Gwai Lan performing parts of Taming the Tiger and the Fu Hok (and my favorite, the single chain whip)...she's 83 years old in this old Hong Kong TV clip. This sweet lady learned Hung ga directly from Fei Hung. I don't think I've ever found a video closer to "the source" than this. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st_Fy5Zo8Uk"]Mok Gwai Lan - YouTube[/ame]
Oh and did somebody mention double knives (AKA the Son and Mother Double Knives, 子母雙刀) Our kung fu great grandma in action.
