Originally Posted by
boh
Hi, sorry I came in a bit late into this conversation.
Xia, the Monkey description here may interest you.
A preamble: I am from the Malaysian, Chee Kim Thong Ngo Cho School. Have been practising it for > 30 yrs.
Speaking from our lineage's perspective, lets see if I can describe our art in a way that is less confusing.
NCK consists of 5 styles, sort of melded into 1. The 5 styles each contribute their respective characteristics, which include the physical movements/strokes, the footwork, power generation, internal Qi development & deployment.
for e.g.
White Crane, BaiHe whipping, explosive power, fluid & fast arm
techniques, some footwork, mostly long &
mid-distance, with some close-in techniques.
Strikes are mostly with open palms, fingers and
phoenix-eye.
Monkey, HouQuan quick, tight footwork, tight,close-in defense &
attack, locks & takedown, a lot of quick sneaky
techniques. Hands are in 'monkey paw' (open
hand with thumb tucked in). Has superior use of
body-mechanics, allowing smaller frame persons
to take larger opponents. We have low squat
stances, a few tumbles and somesaults, but far
lesser than other monkeys styles I've seen.
TaiZu very hard linear style (hardly any circular
movements), using the forearms & hands as
knives. Lots of power chops and slices, and
spearhand thrusts. Emphasizes a very upright
and 'face front' posture with very tight & solid
defences and attack, mainly at middle-distance,
with some long and short techniques.
LuoHan Similar to TaiZu with a very bold, upfront
posture, but with powerful but more 'looser'(less
close-in) movements, both circular and linear;
and a different power generation system. Mid to
long distance.
More use of fists.
TatMo Does not contribute physically to the forms, but
contributes the breathing, meditative and Qi
development aspects, to complement that of the
above arts.
* note: 'long-distance' means distances between outstrecthed arms to kick-reach.
'mid' is between out-stretched arm to forearm length distance.
'short/close-in' is anything less than above.
For us there are 18 forms, starting with Sam Chien of course. In the forms, each of the 5 styles are blended in, so within the 18 forms, we don't have a Monkey or Crane form, they are Ngo Cho forms. But within the froms, with some strokes, you can tell quite clearly its from Crane or Monkey etc.. With other you can't. For e.g. our Sam Chien is about 75% Crane.
In addition to the 18 forms, our lineage also has Sam Chien for each of the 4 styles, ie: one for Monkey, Crane, TaiZu, LuoHan, which you get to learn when you're more senior.
So when you learn Ngo Cho, you learn Ngo Cho, and not Crane, TaiZu etc.... at least in the beginning. But having said that, as you get to master Ngo Cho, you also get to understand/learn the specific techniques of its component styles. Once you can do that, you can then 'manifest' a stroke, say a block, with the nuances of Crane, together with its power generation/Qi techniques. OR combine a Crane type strike with Monkey footwork.... this is when it gets really interesting! Learn Ngo Cho and get 4 styles for the price of one! But seriously, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".
Also, in our lineage, we emphasize a lot in the internal Qi development, as musch as (or more?) than the so called "internal martial arts".
We also emphasize a lot on 'sticking & listening' (like Wing Chun ChiSao), for profficiency with sensitivity with hand-to-hand contact. 'Hardening' and hand-conditioning' exercises are standard, and bruises on forearms are not uncommon during training.
For us, we neither call our style hard of soft, close-in or long distance, because we have it all. The 5(4) styles give a profficient Ngo Cho practicioneer many techniques to choose from, in application. For example, in an exercise/sparring our techniques may start of soft, but power thru with a hard attack, then change to soft again... Part of the mastering the art is to be able to switch fluidly between the different power-systems/techniques, hard or soft, close-in, mid, long distance.
We also have this thing called "heavy hands", which means being able to deploy power to the arms so that its difficult for an opponent to deflect or block an attack. And this "heaviness" can be used irregardless of whether the stroke is hard or soft, at long, mid, short distances. To develop this we do a lot of 2 man exercises, where we use the 'sticking & listening' with 'heavy hands'. And this is not just 'push-hands' or 'roll-hands', but with fairly powerful push/pulls, strikes and blocks; where if an opponent makes a mistake, he may be 'bounced' 2 or 3 steps backwards. The 'heaviness' and sensitivity training is intricately linked with the 'internal' aspects of the art.