Can Anybody tell me anything about Village Hung Gar ?

[FIRE HAWK]

Like forms ,stances , techniques , its history ?

[Ben Gash]

Village Hung Gar is a generic term referring to Southern Shaolin systems that are said to have originated with Gee Shim/Hung Hei Gung but branched off before the Wong Family's involvement.
It's hard to give you much of an overview, as this refers to a large number of styles, which evolved separately and in areas with differing martial arts traditions. For example Hay Say Fu comes under this category, and looks to have been influenced by the systems of Fukien.
The variant I study is Toisan five animals Nan Sil Lum. This is a longarm system which shares many characteristics of Hung Gar, but as my Sifu always likes to say it has more "flavour". As you would expect the main stances are horse, cross, cat and bow, but the footwork is more dynamic than in Hung Gar. The hand techniques are a fusion of orthodox longarm and 5 animals (although eagle and monkey are also employed).
Forms are numerous and varied, a selection being: Gum Gong Kuen, Jong Da Kuen, Siu Pak Hok Kuen, Joy Lohan Kuen and Ng Long Kuen.

[jmd161]

FIRE HAWK,

I'm not sure if this is what you mean ,but this is a Hung gar site that also teaches Ha Say Fu.

Here's the link.

Hung Gar & Ha Say Fu (http://www.fuhok.com/mainindex.htm)

They have video of forms from both.Pretty long videos at that.Has to be one of the nicest sites i've seen.

jmd161:)

[phantom]

Hay say fu has a complete form for each of the five animals. Wing Lam teaches this style, and has videos available on it. To find out more, go to www.wle.com. I hope this helps. Peace.:D

[GeneChing]

I wrote most of those videos on Ha Say Fu for my Sifu, Wing Lam, although I never formally studied that art. If you really must know, I did an article for IKF on the subject of comparison between the two Hung styles (and some others.) They even reprinted it in a book (without telling me or compensating me.) It is frequently cited, probablly the most cited of anything I wrote for other magazines back when I was freelance, and you can look at most sites that mention Ha Say Fu and find that their research is pretty derivative. One dead giveaway is their terminology - we were the first to translate a lot of those terms (particularly the names of the weapon sets*) so if their names match with ours, it's probably derivative of us. Since Wing Lam put out the video series, a lot of people built their curriculum around those videos.
I beleive that IKF article is posted online at their site - it was titled Original Hung Gar, ironically. I'd post the link, but it would seem pretty silly to link to our competitor's site on our site, so just go web search it yourself

*one of those weapons sets is rather poorly translated and it is highly unlikely that another translator would arrive at the same translation. It's a dead givaway and I wish I could say it was an intentional trap, but really it was just my inexperience as a translator back then. Which weapon was it? heh, heh, I'll never tell.;)

[desertwingchun2]

Originally posted by GeneChing
[B I'd post the link, but it would seem pretty silly to link to our competitor's site on our site, so just go web search it yourself
tell.;) [/B]

Gene - Your mag sets the standards. All others are playing catch up. In this man's opinion you have no competition!!
-David

[TenTigers]

let me also say, Gene, I have a four-foot stack of IKF dating back from their third issue. They have certainly changed over the years. When they first started, they showed forms, techniques, comparitive styles, and showed some pretty obscure styles as well. I think ever since they had the cover with Arnold holding the nunchaku, they started to plunge. Your mag is the benchmark now. Well researched articles, interesting topics, and good pics, and well written. Keep it up, and don't succumb to the flavor of the week. Remember-you are Hung-Ga-stand Tall with integrity! yeah, yeah, I know. I got carried away again. Could ya hear the orchestra in the backround playing "Pomp and Circumstance"?

[GeneChing]

Thanks for the props, guys. We do our best.

You know, it's interesting to compare IKF, WLE and us. I've worked for all three companies, in fact I was a founding contributor to WLE. After all, Wing Lam is one of my Sifu's. We all started out as supply companies.

IKF started out as Mantis supply. They eventually abandoned the supply company and because it wasn't as profitable for them since as a supply company, they could advertise competative product. Since their main income is videos, books and advertising, they evolved to be very commercial. It's quite a testament that they have stayed on the newsstand so long.

WLE grew out of supply company too, with Wing Lam's videos at the core. I brought in Shaolin imports, and from there, they springboarded to be a vendor of many different smaller vendors. They have a nice catalog, with trappings of a magazine, yet no newsstand. They still send it to you free if you ask, so who's going to subscribe to that? Being so tied to the Wing Lam's school is a two-edged sword for them. They can be very focused on CMA, but they are also limited to CMA, specifically their own schools of practice.

Now we are a supply company too, but first and foremost, we are a wholesale company - Tiger Claw. So we don't rely on outside ads. Also we don't really target retail, although of course, there are a lot of ads for www.MartialArtsMart.com, but that really isn't where we make the bulk of our income. Plus, we work with all styles. If you knew how many non CMA masters ask me to be in our mag - man, I'm telling you - and to be honest, I have no problem with running non-CMA styles, as long as they trace their roots or compare it to CMA. Not relying on ads give us a lot of luxury. I feel very priviledged to explore all kinds of CMA research. And to be honest, we haven't barely scratched the motherlode.

Thanks for your support of us. And I hope you support the others too. We're all one family, fighting cousins maybe, but still...