Thru out kung fu history we hear of many Monkey boxing performances, but very few complete Monkey boxing systems.

I do not wish to discuss TSPK in this thread.

Basically I want to discuss the different Monkey boxing systems and why they are very few modern ones. We hear of many kung fu systems or orginizations that teach 1 or 2 Monkey forms but not a whole system. Even Bak Sil Lum ( Gu Ru Zhang lineage) has several Monkey forms in it.

I myself catorgorize Monkey into 3 divisions:

Opera Monkey - Strickly for performance. Used in stage performances and shows. Very little martial value.

Wushu Monkey - Competition or performace style. Very acrobatic and dynamic. More martial in nature but many of it's partricipants are only interested in tournament performance.

Pure Fighting Monkey - Tactics of the Monkey are used and related to human fighting situations. More of a traditional fighting style. This is what I am only interested in discussing here.

Also, in the Mantis system there is mention of Monkey footwork brought into the system by Wang Lang. I aslo heard this was more of an Ape / Gorilla style and not the smaller Monkey style? So what system was it? Does it still exist?

So where did all these Monkey systems go? Or were they only techniques in many systems? Why don't we see more pure Monkeys around today?

ginosifu