gim sau anyone?

[dedboy]

I'm a 7-star player, Wo Hon Fon lineage. In my kwoon, we spend a lot of time practicing 'gim sau', a mantis version of sticky-hand fighting.

Besides other Jon Funk descended guys, who else plays this type of sparring? I've been led to believe that it's a rarity, so I thought I'd ask around.

cheers, all

[Scarletmantis]

As far as I know, I'm not in Jon Funk's lineage, but my Sifu taught us Gim Sau. It was the first two man set I learned. First we began with a short form called Gim Sau Kuen, which basically reiterates eight basic hand techniques. They are all perfomed in a forward facing stance. After the student gets pretty smooth, we started mixing up the techniques. Then we moved to varying the footwork, and finally ended up throwing in other techniques from the other forms we learned. It's a lot like Tai Chi push hands (but not so gentle), or Wing Chun sticky hands (but not so static). Sound familiar?

[dedboy]

Sounds very familiar!

I think we've got 7 or 8 sets (I know three), but they're all very similar.

So what's your lineage? I heard that gim sau was a late innovation of Wo Hon Fon, such that his older students didn't get it from him. My teachers get it from Funk, who received as part of his training from Al Cheng.

[Scarletmantis]

I trained with Dr. Benjamin Oh (M.D.) for many years. Sifu learned from his father who claims a lineage with the Chin Woo organization.

Sifu never has owned a "storefront" style school but instead taught just outside of Balboa Park (in San Diego) for several years.

I am not really too well versed on the Chin woo lineage, perhaps you can fill in the blanks? Did Wo Hon Fon have anything to do with them? Maybe Al Cheng?

Keep in mind that Sifu Oh has been in the U.S. for over thirty years, so any connection would have to be a fairly old one.