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Regarding the Choy Mok video in the Southern Videos thread.
Looking at Choy Mok video does this put the rest the Choy Ga and Choy Lay Fut connection via Choy Gau Yee?
I don't even see a semblance of Choy Lay Fut in that form. The hands in Choy Mok are supposedly from Choy Ga and I just don't see any CLF in there.
So who was Choy Fook? Who was Ching Cho Wo Sheun? There seems to be some other influence in CLF that is missing in the Hung, Lau, Choy, Lay, Mok arts. :confused:
You are correct. CLF history is blurry as hell. . . . . . . and no one can ever stop arguing.
Hell, arguing about the "correct way to train" is FAR more useful than arguing about a piece of history nobody can prove anyways.
Peace
Choy Ga is a short to midrange style it consist of claw, phoenix eye fist, and trapping snatching techniques.
CLF has these similar techniques in their sets just applied in the Mid to Long range.
Also remember it is Choy Fook a monk who is credited with teaching Chan Heung.
Your sytles Founder was fortunate to combine these style and blend them with such fluidness.
Ask your Sifu about the comparisons.
Can you post the link for the Choy Mok form? I learned Choy Mok and Mok Ga from my Sifu. Actually, just a few forms, my classmate learned a bunch and we've been taping them recently. I'd like to see it.
The video link is in the 'Southern Kung Fu Video Thread *Read Guidelines First*' which should be a sticky.
Sorry, I just don't see it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Southern Fist
Choy Fook is not associated with Choy Gar. The name is the only thing similar.
Right. But what I'm saying is that seeing this video really confirms it for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by CLFNole
I agree with you completely just pointing out to the others who think Choy Fook = Choy Gar.
Peace.
are you guys saying Choy Fook was no Choy Ga Master? if not, what was it that choy fook was a master of?
hsk
wo bu zhe dao....I don't know???Quote:
Originally Posted by hskwarrior
Cool...thanks for clarification.Quote:
Originally Posted by CLFNole
The way I was taught was the Choy Fook was a siu lum monk. Supposedly some of the northern influence was due to him but I don't know if that can be confirmed. From people I have spoken to never was it mentioned he was a choy gar practioner and I don't think he had any association with choy gar's founder.
I think many people just put the choy's together. If that was the case my sifu Lee Koon Hung and Bruce Lee (Lee Siu Lung) must have been related since the have the same name ;) along with a million other chinese.
Indeed, it is my understanding that Choy Fook taught northern Shaolin. I think it's also a case of people getting it mixed up with Jow Gar (which does contain Choy Gar, and it can be seen in the techniques), indeed I've even seen some Jow Gar sites which say that Jow Gar is derived fro CLF when they mean Choy Gar :rolleyes:
Ben, interesting point about Jow Gar being part of the confusion. The motto of Jow Gar is "Hung Tao Choy Mei" or "Hung head, Choy tail." The Choy in this case is Choy Gar, not Choy Lay Fut and the Choy in Choy Lay Fut refers to Choy Fook and not Choy Gau Yee.
I think at this point we have established that Choy Fook did not teach the same Choy Gar as in the "5 Family Styles" of Southern China.
So what was it? Li Yau San supposedly referred Chan Heung to Choy Fook, who was supposedly Li Yau San's sihing. But if Choy Fook was Li Yau San classmate then wouldn't it mean that Choy Fook knew some southern shaolin style?
If it was "Northern Shaolin" then what forms, techniques specfically might we share with other Northern Shaolin-derived styles?
Some of the stuff you can see is Southern because we share it with other Southern styles. But the Northern stuff is not as clear except for the overall extension of the arms.
Having seen some of the Chan Tai San guys stuff now I also wonder if Lama might actually the influence and not Northern Shaolin which seems to be more linear in nature.
i think li yau san had never heard of Choy Fook, so both CHan Heung and Lee Yau San went to Choy Fook to meet him. after choy fook destroyed the corner piece of the grinder in his palm Lee Yau San skipped out and left CHan Heung there with Choy Fook.
from what i understand as well, is that Lee Yau San was jeong Yims sifu as well. this is coming from fut san hsk.
Hmm, according the history as I learned it it was Li Yau San who was Chan Yuen Woo's Sihing, and Li Yau San knew of Choy Fook by reputation.
As for the northern elements of CLF, IMO the usage of Quai Ma and Tau Ma is very northern (especially if you compare them with cross stance usage in Hung), as is the way Tsang Fu is used.Indeed, the whole stance structure of CLF seems more akin to Songshan Shaolin than other Cantonese Nan Sil Lum styles. CLF also has a general flow that has a distinctly northern character to it.
Incidentally, if you do Biu Jong in a Hok Ma (as found in Yee Jong Bot Gwa for example) it looks very like a Pigua posture.
I remember when my kung fu brother Joe (Sow Choy) went to Shaoling Temple and performed some CLF one of the sifus made the comment of the style having shaolin roots refering to some stances and different palming techiniques.
CLF definately has somewhat of a northern flow to it as pointed out earlier compared to some other southern styles.
Peace.
I also study a style (only a beginner though) called XiaoBeiquan. Its northern Shaolin. The style has allot of hand movements that are very typical of CLF, and it is a very long range style. Only differences I have encountered so far, is that XiaoBei uses very sloppy foot work. Sloppy I mean, its very loose, and fast, but not very rooted. Maybe that’s the Shaolin Connection? The Xiaobei part I mean…
hi folks,
does anyone know whereabouts in hong kong these sifu teach???http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR9vQnGtnE8.
choy mok kuen.
cheers
hakka jai :)
Hi,
I can't view the vid due to work restrictions but I guess its Lau Bill Sifu. Contact either Lee Kam Wing Sifu or Hong Kong Jing Mo and they should be able to help.
Paul
hi paul ,
thanks for the reply, tried both on the search engines ,not giving any contacts numbers at all. if time permits any chance putting me in the right direction.
cheers
hakka jai:)
just wanna throw this out there...
Hung hay koon, who is supposed to have brought shaolin kung fu to the south out of the temple...
What did he bring? Probably Northern style among other bits and pieces, if you wanna believe that story... But if he did exist wouldnt his followers have continued to develop their kung fu with whatever was available to them at the time? Just like these days, lots of cross training...
When I see southern styles I really consider the short hand stuff or should i say non shaolin styles as southern... Hung ga is the father of most of the popular styles, not all and since has branched into many children...
When I see Hung, I see many techniques of the North with a different execution changed for whatever reason, maybe some for power, some for clearer movements... Who knows...
But when you see either of the south or Northern styles done by a very good performer... they look about the same or at least from the same branch...
Choy ga to me looks from another source, I am not familar so cant speak of history only from what i see...
So maybe all the styles are closer then we think...? Thats what happens when things spread through diff people...
Joe
What Sifu Joe said is essentially what I've been thinking the entire time as I read. Shaolin is shaolin. In one life time a Sifu can change his art enough to make it unrecognizable to his class mates (especially if that is what he is trying to do). The style my Sifu and Sisook teach is the same but to someone from our lineage they look different because each emphasises differnet things when they are teaching.
I'm a Student of Religous Studies and Chinese history/language and (not to challenge anyone's family history here) but there iare a lot of scholars that believe there never was a southern shaolin temple at all and that most of the poular history we all argue over was invented in the 18th and 19th centuries as a nationalistic response to foreign colonialism. To be honest the forms of hung, mok, choy, lay and fut ga all are played very differently yes, but their all playing the same basic techniques. In any event if were talking 5 southern fists or shaolin period there is one common source. The ancestral creators of the shaolin frame/style/family.
everything after that is a variation based on experience and prefrence. Right???
Thats why we say stlyes like shaolin are different from things like chen tai chi or northern plum blossom which have radically different styles of frame and methods of generating power.
I'm not sure if anyone will even read this or care, I was just looking it over and decided to put it up. Its and excert from a paper I wrote about a year ago for a class on Confucian(ism). Please excuse the style of language, i just pasted it in, and didn't take the time to edit it. Its still written using a lot of academic terminology.
I also want to say again, none of this is meant as a challenge to anyone's version of history. To be honest I have no idea exactly what China was like 150 years ago, no one does "exactly" But I find this an enlightening point of veiw. But to reiterate, I too have my oral, family history which my Sifu taught me and that I believe. However, this is one contemporay historical veiw of our mutual histories from outside our closed ciricle of familys etc...
Excerpt from, "The Roots of Lineage in Chinese Gung Fu"
In the wake of ongoing civil unrest in China's late imperial period small non-agnatic fraternities formed a loose network of secret societies in the 18th and 19th and 20th centuries, loosely referred to as the Tiandihui. They have traditionally been portrayed as a grass roots revolutionary movement, but they were more probably a cultural and nationalistic response to the then ever increasing international pressures and eruptions of violence.
The formations of late imperial corporate lineages were organized around the concept of family. The concept of family possessed extremely fluid boundaries and was itself organized around the concept of obligation and not exclusively around blood decent. These corporations materialized in the form of non-agnatic (non-biological) brotherhoods that can best be understood as ..aggregated lineages... These aggregated lineages represent a re-implementation of the ancient Chinese method of social cohesion; sacred obligation and its reorganization into a new ideology as a form of resistance to foreign colonial oppression. As such these individuals can be seen, as taking these family relationship very seriously, the oaths of associations would have most often been taken with life and death seriousness.
Most commonly the formation and existence of these aggregated lineages was believed to be the result of the spread of the White Lotus religion. That the devotees of the White Lotus were Ming loyalists fighting for the reinstatement of a ethnic Han government and redaction of power from the Manchurian usurpers of the Ming throne.
Scholars of Chinese history no longer commonly accept this highly romanticized version of history. It is however still held for the members of modern brotherhoods who trace their genealogy to these groups but its validity cannot be substantiated academically. It is more likely that these associations arose for the purpose of mutual protection of property and land. ..The Tiandihui were thus at base a self-help brotherhood rather than an anti-Manchu political organization... However it seems obvious that the social climate of the late imperial period contributed to their formation, simply not in the way most commonly imagined.
These ..brotherhoods.. can be seen in a myriad of different ways but in the simplest sense they represent a pooling of resources ..a united front.. which had direct social benefit but also economic benefits in the case of corporate farming lineages. These would also have taken the form of trained Militia as they had traditionally. But that this new kind of cooperation would have been caused by social and political forces that did not exist prior to the late imperial period.
It is in this milieu that the concept of a marital arts brotherhood is established . And as the title brotherhood will denote this social organization employed the Confucian concept of family relationships to solidify the new ideology.
Reviving this thread because I'm really curious what connection CLF has to northern styles. A lot of the northern styles have connections to each other, so I'd expect CLF to have a connection to one or more of them.
Tong Bei Chuan comes to mind as a northern influence because it has the swinging arm movements and quick-stepping of CLF and influenced many other styles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIo6S4ebe0
Also, anecdotally, my branch of Chen taiji actually incorporates some Tong Bei movements and they feel completely natural to me having done CLF for so long.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fu-Pow
I don't know what branch of Chen Tai Chi that I do, but it does have some similarity to CLF in that the arms are more extended and rotated from the center. Never really thought of that connection until you mentioned it, even when I have done both on the same day...Quote:
Originally Posted by Fu-Pow
IMO, the jin used is very different. Chen Taiji looks relaxed but is like a stiff steel spring inside. Choy Lay Fut is more whip-like, using centrifugal force to generate power.
I do Hun Yuan style, which is an offshoot of Chen Taiji, but also has some Xin Yi and Tong Bei mixed in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by YinOrYan
Yeah, I see the spring analogy, but more like a watch-spring. One Chen form I do winds one way for the first third than the other way for the second third, and then symetrical for the last third. In the next few months I will put a video out there with the kitty doing it to see if anyone recognizes the form. BTW, did anyone recognize the CLF form I put out there a couple weeks ago???Quote:
Originally Posted by Fu-Pow