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Thread: Where are all the Complete Monkey Style systems?

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by B.Tunks View Post
    Anyway, on a more serious note Gino kicked it off with some very interesting questions about Monkey styles and this is where it got to. My own interest is due to having trained monkey boxing, mantis boxing (with the obvious monkey/ape aspects), studied Chinese history and zoology. Couldn't help myself. Gino kept reinforcing the big tailless primate angle and therefore I had to point out the obvious. In all honesty, looks to me as if its if it's a modern creation from outside China. As a keen researcher I'm sure you are not far off the same conclusion.

    BT
    As I said previously:

    Quote Originally Posted by mooyingmantis View Post
    To set the record straight:

    2. The style was originally a marriage of Northern Shaolin basics, Di Tang ground fighting and Monkey Boxing.
    3. It was passed to me as Monkey Boxing (Houquan)...
    This is what I was told, that is what I know.

    If you focus on the first few seconds of the form, that is only designed to get the attention of those watching, you are really missing the point. The meat and potatoes come afterwards. 'Nuff said!
    Richard A. Tolson
    https://www.patreon.com/mantismastersacademy

    There are two types of Chinese martial artists. Those who can fight and those who should be teaching dance or yoga!

    53 years of training, 43 years of teaching and still aiming for perfection!

    Recovering Forms Junkie! Even my twelve step program has four roads!

  2. #62
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    Oh, i could care less about the fancy stuff, but I would like to see it in action against resisting partners (ie a little sparring ).

    And I am recovered forms junkie myself, 7 years clean with only a minor step back here and there lol.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fa Xing View Post
    Oh, i could care less about the fancy stuff, but I would like to see it in action against resisting partners (ie a little sparring ).

    And I am recovered forms junkie myself, 7 years clean with only a minor step back here and there lol.
    Agreed! If it doesn't work in combat, it may as well be ballet. Combat has ALWAYS been my emphasis in CMA.
    Richard A. Tolson
    https://www.patreon.com/mantismastersacademy

    There are two types of Chinese martial artists. Those who can fight and those who should be teaching dance or yoga!

    53 years of training, 43 years of teaching and still aiming for perfection!

    Recovering Forms Junkie! Even my twelve step program has four roads!

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by B.Tunks View Post
    Anyway, on a more serious note Gino kicked it off with some very interesting questions about Monkey styles and this is where it got to. My own interest is due to having trained monkey boxing, mantis boxing (with the obvious monkey/ape aspects), studied Chinese history and zoology. Couldn't help myself. Gino kept reinforcing the big tailless primate angle and therefore I had to point out the obvious. In all honesty, looks to me as if its if it's a modern creation from outside China. As a keen researcher I'm sure you are not far off the same conclusion.

    BT
    I have studied Northern Shaolin (Gu Ru Zhang lineage) for over 20 years. The founder of the our Monkey style, no doubt had an in depth knowledge of Northern Shaolin. In the forms, if you can look past some of the simian or monkey gestures, you will see the Shaolin influence, however the theory and strategy is Monkey oriented.

    Maybe I should have not put the Chimp and Gorilla reference with the Tail less part. It was just to separate our Monkey from all other Monkeys styles that may have tails.

    The founder was from a northern province (Shanxi) and if I had to guess it would be Gibbons that people were emulating up there. However, there is no relationship to Tong Bei or White Ape boxing in our system. I am not sure why everyone thinks that all Gibbon boxing is either Tong Bei or White Ape though?

    ginosifu

  5. #65
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    All cool. Very interested in this stuff, though it's usually not a sensible use of time. Fascinated (but not obsessed) by origins/development and spend a fair bit of time digging through my own material to find sources - generally not what they are publicly presented as. Even recent history is very murky...

    T

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by B.Tunks View Post
    All cool. Very interested in this stuff, though it's usually not a sensible use of time. Fascinated (but not obsessed) by origins/development and spend a fair bit of time digging through my own material to find sources - generally not what they are publicly presented as. Even recent history is very murky...

    T
    Brendan,
    Agree on all points!

    And that is why I never put much stock on anyone's lineage. Almost every lineage that I have researched in both Japanese and Chinese arts eventually came down to folktales and speculation.

    I present our Monkey lineage as legend. Learn from the moral story behind the legend and don't sweat the details.

    As for me, I prefer knowing what the guy standing across from me can do, his ancestors won't be hitting me.
    Richard A. Tolson
    https://www.patreon.com/mantismastersacademy

    There are two types of Chinese martial artists. Those who can fight and those who should be teaching dance or yoga!

    53 years of training, 43 years of teaching and still aiming for perfection!

    Recovering Forms Junkie! Even my twelve step program has four roads!

  7. #67
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    When it comes down to fighting, yes lineage means nothing. However, when it comes to passing on a valuable tradition, I think it has its place.

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by mooyingmantis View Post
    As for me, I prefer knowing what the guy standing across from me can do, his ancestors won't be hitting me.
    That is one of the smartest things I have read on here!

  9. #69

    monkey style

    I plan to post the complete mi tsung i system and lineage to answer some questions about pure monkey kung fu styles. In my view, the monkey "antics" that are so prevalent in some monkey styles were either added for performance effect or to pay respect to the monkey king connection to budda. If you think about the characteristics of monkey style rather than imitation of a monkey, you will see that monkeys stay very, very low to the ground and are very cruel and viscious. Last year, a pet monkey ripped the face and testicles off it's owner. This is how monkeys fight, ripping, tearing, gouging, breaking, smashing. Very fast and agile, very low to the ground. Hsing yi monkey, mi tsung i and di tang {grand earth) have none of the comic, useless antics in most monkey styles because it serves no purpose in combat.
    phoenixdog

  10. #70
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    Quote Originally Posted by phoenixdog View Post
    I plan to post the complete mi tsung i system and lineage to answer some questions about pure monkey kung fu styles. In my view, the monkey "antics" that are so prevalent in some monkey styles were either added for performance effect or to pay respect to the monkey king connection to budda. If you think about the characteristics of monkey style rather than imitation of a monkey, you will see that monkeys stay very, very low to the ground and are very cruel and viscious. Last year, a pet monkey ripped the face and testicles off it's owner.This is how monkeys fight, ripping, tearing, gouging, breaking, smashing. Very fast and agile, very low to the ground. Hsing yi monkey, mi tsung i and di tang {grand earth) have none of the comic, useless antics in most monkey styles because it serves no purpose in combat.
    This is very true. Just in the news recently a chimp ripped the face and hands off of a woman. It was all over the news how she got a new face thru facial reconstructive surgery.

    You are very right about fighting Monkey, it should be viscious and should not carry the "Antics". I think we can all say that the Antics were added for audience pleasure. Many kung fu master of old would demonstrate their skills for marketing purposes. Even now we all need to market our stuff so we add things that our target audience will enjoy.

    Anyways I am anxious to hear your history and info on Monkey style

    Thx

    ginosifu

  11. #71
    Sorry to be joining this thread months late, but I am a monkey style student and I can fill some of the unanswered questions in the last 5 pages.

    Monkey style does still exist in Taiwan; though it is rare. I'm just back from teaching English there for a year where I studied with Master Hisham Al Haroun (German-born Syrian) in Tainan. He teaches southern monkey fist combined with Wing Chun and uses them to train MMA fighters. You can get the full details on Antonio Graceffo's Martial Arts Odyssey. He's done two episodes "Monkey Master" and "MMA in Taiwan" on YT and two articles "Monkey Master in the Cage" and "Wrestling the Monkey Master" (Google will find them). I'm afraid I do not know precisely what style or lineage this is apart from southern. Master H feels that all monkey styles are part of one family (he includes Hanuman techniques from Muay Thai) and used to be frustratingly vague about his exact lineage. However, I know he studied with two masters and from my own research, I believe one of them was a southern Taizuquan based monkey system (possibly even Liao Wu Chang, Taiwan's "monkey king" lineage) and the other southern Shaolin; I've seen him use and teach classical patterns like "Monkey washes face" and "Spiritual Monkey steals peach" which you can see in other southern monkey forms. He also told me that monkey is rare (in Taiwan) because it's considered so devastating that the masters are very selective about who they'll teach it to. One of his teachers practised monkey, but taught white crane and Hisham was the first student he'd shared monkey with in 20/30 years. Disappointingly, he never taught me any of his monkey forms. He teaches monkey techniques as part of his combined wing chun system with forms reserved for his "indoor" students (by which he really does mean disciples). I'm not interested in tying myself to one teacher in that fashion, so I only stayed for a year, but he did teach me some amazing stuff.

    Monkey does indeed exist in Wuzuquan. Lot of people don't realize this, but most wuzuquan lineages have an incomplete syllabus. Overall; there are 18 basic wuzuquan forms (made by combined techniques from all five systems) then 18 forms from each of the original systems (18 crane forms, 18 Lohan, 18 Taizu and 18 monkey forms) then 18 advanced wuzuquan forms (mixing techniques again) and then Qigong and weapons forms. This builds up to well over 80 and even more when you consider how many wuzu forms are designed as 2-man sets. According to one Master in Fujian I read an interview with; it is very rare to find someone who knows the entire syllabus and classically, students would learn the basic 18, then pick one of the original systems to study, and after that choose as many of the advanced forms and weapons as they wanted; which probably explains the different lineage syllabus's today. Alex L. Co's book only lists 44 forms for example.

    After time I spent some time in Hong Kong trying my hand at northern monkey under Master Teddy Lai. He's a student of Master Alex Tse (world famous for Mantis) and they have a small monkey/ape style (incidentally, Master Lai used the terms interchangeably) that consists of one hand form and 4 weapons; starting with "Drunk Ape Steal Peach" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UO-FUbzRfY) It was a good system, but I had to quit early as I'm a not-terribly-flexible six-foot gwailo and I found the upright low squatting positions just too uncomfortable. Southern monkey, with its rolls and kneeling techniques was much better for me and I'm now trying to get back into it. I'm exchanging emails with the teachers at a Sek Koh Sum lineage school in Singapore that I found via Master Eric Ling. You can read about it on
    http://wulin.proboards.com/index.cgi...splay&thread=5
    and
    http://wulin.proboards.com/index.cgi...read=48&page=1

    Master Low has passed away and I'm talking with the inheritors of his school about becoming a student so will hopefully have more info in the future.

  12. #72
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    Hisham knew monkey before he ever came to Taiwan. I don't know where he learnt it either.

  13. #73
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    He had spent some time researching an eagle claw master in Tainan but that didn't turn out well. Later he returned to Tainan from some travelling around the world and set up shop in Tainan city.

    I was impressed with his granite rock that he beat with his hands.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by Tainan Mantis View Post
    Hisham knew monkey before he ever came to Taiwan. I don't know where he learnt it either.
    Yes, sorry. Forgot to mention this. He studied with a monkey master in Berlin for 4 years, but quit because he felt it was lacking applications. Again, he never told me this lineage, but most likely candidate from my research is one of Hu Jianlong's Ta Sheng Men European students or maybe, given the lack of applications, a Wushu version. (Please note; Ta Sheng Men is completely different to the monkey part of Tai Shing Pek Kwar). He has studied with Taiwanese monkey masters; I've seen the pictures in his school, and yes, very impressive breaking skills. I've seen him go through marble myself and split a watermelon nearly in half with a two-finger eye gouge strike.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Tainan Mantis View Post
    From the death of Zhao Kuangyin until the first NON fiction mention of a martial art descended from him passed a period of about 500 years.
    There is a lot which was never recorded to history books but it still exists. I think it is and was nothing unsual in China. Also after how much has been lost alone from the "Cultural Revolution " we dont know.

    ---

    Alexander Tse Sifu from Hong Kong also has some monkey sets. If I remember right they were called Lar Jar as style.

    Heaven Gate Staff
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO9twURYMtg

    Earth Gate Jian whip
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C25M0jaCy8M

    Gold Hard Ring full form
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zYGy...eature=related

    Drunk Ape Steal Peach-full version
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UO-FUbzRfY


    Kind regards,
    Xian

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