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I've heard many people speak of the small hero's fist is that a form or a type of kata(not sure what you call them in kung fu)?
what are all the different katas in Kung Fu.
"The superior man hoards nothing. The more he uses for the benefit of others, the more he possesses himself. The more he gives to his fellow man, the more he has of his own." Lao Tzu
The form you are referring to is Xiao Hong Quan (pronounced shaow hong schwaan). It is a popular basic/intermediate level longfist routine.
You need to appreciate that kung fu is not a unified system, but is an umbrella term for over 300 Chinese styles, each with it's own subdivisions.
A list of every kung fu form that just the people on these forums know would fill a small book (I know 40 odd forms).
"Weapons are the embodiments of fear,
the wise use them only when they have no choice"
Lao Tzu
What does 'Kung Fu' mean?
Like many other terms used in connection with the
Martial Arts today, the term 'Kung fu' is often mis-applied. Translated literally, kung fu means 'excellence through hard work' or 'skilled achievement'. Therefore one could be said to display 'kung fu' at cooking or at computer programming.
There is nothing inherently martial about the term, but in the 1950s, the Hong Kong film industry started using the two characters 'Kung Fu' for their martial arts action movies and the phrase has been closely associated with Chinese Martial Arts ever since - particularly in the West.
Professionals refer to the practice of Chinese martial arts as 'Wu Kung' or 'Wu Shu' which connote the specific martial (Wu) development of skill (Kung) or art (Shu).
What's the difference between Traditional Chinese Martial Arts and Karate/Judo/Taekwondo?
Chinese martial arts were formalised over two thousand years ago, and were developed primarily by Buddhist and Taoist monks. Thus, the Chinese are universally acknowledged to have have the oldest, best-proven systems - almost all other legitimate systems will acknowledge the debt they owe to the Chinese systems, which spread throughout Asia. Methods such as Karate, Judo or Taekwondo were developed hundreds of years after the formalisation of the Chinese systems, and as such, owed much of their development to Chinese martial arts systems - Karate, as first taught by Southern Chinese monks and practised on Okinawa, was originally called 'Tang Te' which translates as 'Chinese Hand'. The characters were later changed to 'Kara Te' ('Empty Hand') during a period of strong Japanese nationalism.