Southern Similarities

[omarthefish]

I'm starting this thread to take the off topic part of a conversation I started in the WC forum that went no-where (because of the cool aid I think) and am thinking the topic deserves its own thread.

For those of you who have direct experience with more than one southern style, let's take a look at some of the similarities and also the differences. Which differences/similarities are superficial and which are profound. There's a lot of overlap between all of the southern styles and it's not for nothing that they are grouped together in one forum.

Since I cut my teeth in CMA in learning Hung Gar in San Francisco's Chinatown, I have direct experience with Hung Gar, Choi Li Fut and Wing Chun. I trained Hung Gar for about 8 years so that is my base but I also am very good friends with some of the top Choi Li Fut and Wing Chun guys in the city. HSK Warrior can confirm this. Heck, much of what I understand about Choi Li Fut I learned from him. My Wing Chun friends would probably rather not get pulled into an online discussion like this but he knows who they are.

Anyways...

Hung Gar vs. Wing Chun
similarities:
- Same stances. (with different emphais)
- Same basic vocabulary of hand "shapes" (Hung Gar is more varied but tan, wu, pak, lop and biu jee are prominently featured in both).
- Same emphasis on building or destroying bridges as apporopriate.
- Same use of centerline theory (although WC "obsesses" about it more)

differences:
- Hung Gar power generation places more emphasis on driving off the back leg; WC more on "wrist/elbow power" and on dan tian or "spinal whip" power.
- Hung Gar spends a lot of time transitioning between bow and horse stances; WC mostly sticks with the "goat stance" (in Hung Gar we call it a "figure 8" stance)
- Hung Gar incorporates a very broad range of tactics including many looping long arm movements; WC is almost exclusively "small frame".

Basically, from what I have seen so far, everything in WC can be extrapolated from Hung Gar material but not the other way around. Hung Gar is a broader system where WC tends to specialize. The overlap is mainly in the Hung Gar Crane and Snake techniques. To my mind, the differences are far more superficial than the similarities. They are mainly just matters of emphasis and are not absolute differences as both systems allow for a great deal of freedom of personal expression.

I know less of Choi Li Fut than Hung Gar but after training with Frank (HSK Warrior) for a while, I was fairly stunned how similar they can be at times.

Differences:
- Choi Li Fut is softer overall. More emphasis on "throwing" the fist out; Hung Gar "drives" it in.
- More sharply turned in front foot on bow stance; In Hung Gar you only turn it in slightly.
- More waist twisting in Choi Li Fut; Hung Gar uses waist power but on the bow-horse transition, for example, in Hung Gar you are more likely to lean forward on the bow stance for the punch; in Choi Li Fut a verticle spine is maintained much more strictly.

Similarities:
- Same 5 animal vocabulary and associated hand shapes.
- Very nearly the stances and use of stances. (minor differences here and there)
- "small frame" Choi Li Fut is startlingly similar to Hung Gar tiger movements.

Anyone else care to add their observations?

[hskwarrior]

i'm about to make a statement risking the idea i could be completely ignorant of some information, but, it seems when the north came and started teaching gung fu to southerners, it seems like ALL southern Gung Fu contains the same techniques, the only difference is the where its coming from. we all can have the same stuff, but its how we perceive it that matters. IMHO.

Hung Gar, Wing Chun, and OUR CLF, comes from Fut San, yet White Crane, Lama, looks sooooo very similar to to the previous 3.

and, omar, you still have a copy of the info in chinese i needed you to translate.....hahaha you skipped town with company records.

[hskwarrior]

It would be pretty interesting to see one system combined of Hung Gar, Choy Lee Fut, and Wing Chun.......FUT HUNG CHUN!!!

[omarthefish]

Oh snap.

I'll take a look. I don't think I have that folder with me. If you can email me a scan I would still be happy to try and transcribe that stuff for you. At least with a scan I could zoom in. The thing you gave me looked like microfilm.

But yeah, Fut Hung Chun!!! lol.

I seem to remember Coach Ross saying something a while back about some particular Hung Gar master who actually did trade techniques with some old Lama guy. The implication was that the Hung Gar paahl choi and other long arm stuff actually does come directly from Lama.

[jdhowland]

Omarthefish, that's a nice, succinct comparison of three styles.

I have often pondered whether some Fukien styles should be classified as southern systems distinct from Cantonese styles. With so much mutual influence among southern styles it is difficult to separate their histories and features. I have seen southern lion that superficially resembles southern mantis and Fukien white crane, which may resemble some styles of small frame hung ga which...

Similarly, some styles of Fut Ga are hard to distinguish from Hung Ga or CLF or generic Siu Lam.

Tibetan White Crane, Hop Ga and Lama represent a migration of western styles into Gwangdung and can be lumped together as a separate branch of southern gung fu. But they picked up the nomenclature of Cantonese Siu Lam styles from their founders' experience with those systems, and the blending continues. Many of TWC headmaster Ng Siu Jung's students had been Hung Ga or CLF practitioners before getting into the Tibetan style. It is pretty well accepted that Wong Yan Lum's lama style had a huge impact on some teachers of other systems because of his personal accomplishments. Despite differences in theoretical approaches between the styles, I know of several Tibetan stylists who teach and/or train in a branch of lama and CLF simultaneously, considering them to be "sister styles." As a student in the '70s I heard about a supposed rivalry in Hong Kong between Hung Ga and Wing Chun as allied parties and CLF and TWC as the opposing family. Perhaps this was not widespread, but only involved certain schools. It serves to show that alliances are sometimes based upon recognized features in common and not upon lineage.

It seems to me that, in comparing superficial features, southern styles can be grouped into four or five types (of course, grouping is an intellectual exercise and has little to do with anyone's "reality). I'm not sure the same could be said about the huge variety of systems from the rest of China.

Be well.

jd

[kal]

Do all these similarities point to there being a likely common source for Southern CMA? Maybe the legends about a "Southern Shaolin Temple" do have some basis in fact after all?

[omarthefish]

Nah.

Take a look at some of the info jdhowland just added. There's a lot of historical overlap and interaction but there are no clear boundaries. It's more like there were just these really influential schools and ideas much like the way most MMA is so similar today. It grew out of a specific historical context. The various southern styles grew out of different, but equally specific, historical and cultural context. It's just like how you have slightly different strategies propagated by different MMA gyms but with everybody using basically the same vocabulary and differing primarily (although not exclusively) in their specialties and areas of emphais.

Same thing. LOT's of mutual interaction (ie. they fought each other a lot) and that's why you see far less overlap with the northern styles. IMO, it's just geography.

[jdhowland]

...it's just geography.

Absolutely.

[TenTigers]

Hung-Ga's short hand has many similarities to WC, SPM,Fukien/Hakka Kuen.
Hung-Ga's long hand has many similarities to Lama/Hop-Ga/Bok Hok, CLF.
We are the original Chop Suey!

[SavvySavage]

I believe that when these styles were developed during battles there were no names. Everyone just did martial arts. Then peace came and people started examining what they did and tried to make it different from everyone one else just to be special. So from that basis I believe there are no such things as styles.

If a hung gar guy was fluid like choy lee fut which one is he doing? I was chi saoing once and the other guy told me my energy felt like southern praying mantis since he plays with a lot of them. He was off the mark a bit as I've only barely studied southern mantis.

A common criticism from the mma community is that we have all these "different" styles that look the same when fighting(looks similar to kickboxing). That seems to be true if you wanted to look at kung fu objectively with an open mind. I don't think the problem is that kung fu looks like kickboxing when we fight but the problem is that kung fu people perpetuate this different style/look mentality. Then there is a superiority complex within the Chinese martial arts but now I think I'm getting of topic.

Then there are those that say you can "feel" the difference in styles when touching hands. These "feelings" are based off of stereotypical ideas of a style. Kung fu stereotypes: Hung kuen is hard, southern mantis is soft, choy lee fut is fluid, ba gua feels circular, hsing i is explosive, tai ji is soft. People use these imaginary terms to try to define or demonstrate differences when really all kung fu styles have all of these qualities at different times and which manifest differently in different people.

[TenTigers]

before there was Hung-Ga, CLF,Wing Chun, etc there was Siu Lum, Fut Ga, Lo-Hawn Kuen-generic names. The marketing came later-much later.

[Mano Mano]

They’re just all part of the spectrum that is CMA.

[omarthefish]

before there was Hung-Ga, CLF,Wing Chun, etc there was Siu Lum, Fut Ga, Lo-Hawn Kuen-generic names. The marketing came later-much later.

You know, I've never even heard YC Wong say that he teaches Hung Gar. When people come in to the school to ask what sort of kung fu he teaches, he gives them the same answer he gave me: "Southern Shaolin".

[Lee Chiang Po]

I have read all sorts of stuff concerning CMA and Gung Fu, but I think most of it is simply made up and represents very little of the actual truth. Marketing or whatever, but when dealing with Chinese history we can get some real BS. One thing I can say for certain is that in 1955 WC was called Hung Fa Wing Chun or just Hung Fa by everybody I knew that practiced it. So called after a fellow by the name of Hung. And this version at least came out of Canton, China.
I wish I knew something about Choy la fut or Hung Gar, but I don't.

Chiang

[Tid Sin]

Great discussion! Just thought I'd add that <sits back in the corner> lol