Fu Ho Yau Kung Fut Pai

[Andy]

Does anyone here have knowledge or information on a southern kung fu style known as Fu Hok Yau Kung Fut Pai (Tiger Crane Soft Hard Buddhist Sect)? It is distinct and should not be confused with Hung Ga. I study, practice and teach this rare art and am looking for others who do the same or are interested in it.

[Fu-Pow]

Could you tell us a little bit about the history of your style? I've never heard of it.

[David Jamieson]

Hey andy, you got a site or pics we can look at of some of the stuff from the style?

Is it possible this is another "village Hung" style?

cheers

[Andy]

Thanks for your responses. Please see the Fu Hok web site at FuHok.org

[Ben Gash]

We need pictures
Is it a branch of Fukien Bak Hok Pai, many of the schools here refer to themselves as Fu Hok or "tiger crane combination art"

[David Jamieson]

I noticed that on the site there is a section on the five elements, but the five elemenets listed do not concur with the five elements of chinese martial arts or chinese esoteric practices.

I found this interesting.

How did that come to be?

I am curious why air and space/ether are seen as elements and how are they expressed through martial art?

[Andy]

Kung Lek

Thank you for your critique. You're absolutely right. That section of our wesite needs to be changed and update.

Thanks

Andy
Fu Hok Yau Kung Fut Pai

[WanderingMonk]

oh, this is a rare one alright. I google it in chinese and only got one hit. It was only mentioned in passing while talking about style with only a few forms.

I checked with a HK kungfu forum and only one guy remember seeing it. he mentioned there was a school in HK some twenty years ago.

He mentioned the school teached a five animals form, and the style use wing chun like stances.

[One Finger Zen]

Andy, you have my interest......SO TELL ME MORE!!! :D

[Andy]

Wandering Monk:

Thank you for your research and response. It is correct, the style does have very few forms and utilizes pigeon toed stances that are similar to, yet more narrow than the Wing Chun stances.

It was also only taught publicly in Hong Kong for about a 14 year period. I would very much like to contact the people that you mentioned who had seen or spoken of this art. Do you have an e-mail address or any contact information for any of them?

If you could do any more digging and research into this art, it would be very greatly appreciated.


very sincerely,

Andy
Fu Hok Yau Kung Fut Pai

[WanderingMonk]

Andy,

I replied your PM.

wm

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by Kung Lek
I noticed that on the site there is a section on the five elements, but the five elemenets listed do not concur with the five elements of chinese martial arts or chinese esoteric practices.

I found this interesting.

How did that come to be?

I am curious why air and space/ether are seen as elements and how are they expressed through martial art?

Coincidentally, blooming lotus recently had a post stating that air was one of the elements...

[David Jamieson]

ss-

I am no expert in the field, but my understanding has always been that in Chinese, the elements were the typical 5 that we find expressed in everything from geomancy to kungfu (or kungfu geomancy :p).

ie: earth, water, wood, metal, fire.

Where air is viewed as qi, universal life essence and the ether is viewed as void or emptiness.

[sean_stonehart]

Just to throw a wrench in it...

In ninpo from the Bujinkan, the elements were taught from the Gogyo theory (5 Elements) & they were: earth, water, fire, wind & void.

[mantis108]

Sometime the English language may not the perfect tool to express certain eastern concepts.

Hindu and Budhist traditions regards earth, water, wind, and Fire as the elements (as in the weather and environment). Sometimes the void/space is added as the fifth element. Certainly, the first four elements won't exist nor interact without space. BTW, these four elements relate to the bodily humors of ancient western medical science. The major work that uses this five elements in MA was done by Miyamoto Mushashi in 1600s(?). Besides these five elements being startegies outlined in Mushashi's Scrolls of Five Rings, there is an immediate involvement of the five elements in his MA, namely the swordmanship. The body (earth), water (blood/sweat), wind (breathing), fire (core temperature), and the void (mind) must all be present during physcial confrontation. In Kendo, the transition from neutral (no mind) to drawing, to cut, to cleanse, and to reseath should be in unision and perfect harmony as the five elements.

Chinese tradition widely applies the 5 Phases - Water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Not only does this 5 Phases theory demonstrates the concepts of creative and destructive cycles, but it also show a relationship between various ecologies of Heavn, Earth and Men. Chinese medicine is heavily based on the 5 Phases model. Martial arts as a viable preventive medical discipline has alway been promoted through out Chinese history. Taijiquan is an obvious example. Unfortunately, this concept is not well understood and received by the western world. We see that MA in the western world's eye is no more than a sport.

The models of 5 Elements and 5 Phases might seen different at a glance but the core concept of unifying or rather yoking the marcocosmos and the mircocosmos is the same. Finding the axiel alingment and turning chaos into cosmos is the crucial lesson of human survival. The method, however mad it seems, is secondary.

Just thought I share this thoughts with you.

Mantis108

[David Jamieson]

Thanks M108.

I would note that 5 elements/5 phases are one and the same in tcm practice. i.e wood, water, earth, metal, fire.

with shen(nourishing) and ko(regulating) being the yin/yang aspect of their interaction.

Yin Yang thought predates 5 elements/ 5 phases.

I am not certain the void is expressed as an element in tcm though. Or in ayurvedic medicine.

[mantis108]

Glad you enjoyed the post.

You are right that 5 elements and 5 phases are currently interchangable terms. Personally, I feel that when the concept was first introduced to the west, the translation was a bit hazy. The word Xing is IMHO more apporiate to be translated as phase. Elements can be related to or rather meant weather and environment (as with the Hindu tradition) but phases work in a more broad and abstract sense. Elements points to the nature or the core of things which in a sense leads to atomic view. Phases describe a progress. It is the movement rather than the nature of things; hence, I discerned the two in my previous post. I believe it would be helpful to discern the 2 models for future discussion. That is just my personal view.

Daoists through out the ages have been diligently working on integrating the body (physcial realm) and human psyche. In a way, they have come up with the idea of disecting the mind and associating each component with an individual organ (ie perceptive faculty resides with the heart). I believe part of the reason is Daoists were obsessed with the idea of alchemy. The term for the perceptive faculty resides with the heart is mercury or the yin within the yang which is represented by the Fire trigram (heart fire). But the very act of disecting the human psyche illustrates that they actually acknowledged the psyche exists and it can be expressed in different forms. This is therefore in line with the concept of Wu Xing or 5 phases. Thus it is possible to handle the human psyche literally. How practical and what influence it has on TCM is beyond my grasp at this point. So I agreed with you that we can't be certain how void is expressed as an element in TCM. However, as I have said before elements and phases in my mind are not the same model. So, it need not be applied the same way or treats with the same light.

I think you have just inspired me to ponder some more. Thank you. :)

Warm regards

Mantis108

[WanderingMonk]

Andy,

The HK Fuhok instructor's name in chinese.

[WanderingMonk]

Andy,

The name of the area which the HK fuhok school was located.

wm