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Thread: Forms of Hung Fut? 10 animals?

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by LaterthanNever View Post
    TeaSerpent,

    "on the five lower animals depending on the style or lineage. But the ones you posted are the same as found In Hung Fut and in the ten animal Hung Gar practiced in the Ha Say Fu region"

    Excellent input..thank you. Re: Ha Say Fu being a 10 animal. I was under the impression that the HSF Hung Kuen only had 5 like the LSW/TF lineages but the main difference is that there is a separate set for each of the 5 animals. Are you saying this is not true? If so, there does not seem to be any masters in the States who teach the remaining 5 animals in either solo sets or in a combination set.

    When you state "lower" animals, am I to understand that lower in this case refers to less often seen?
    The term 下四府 Ha Say Fu literally means Lower Four Prefectures. With today's advances in infrastructure and communication, despite an increase of many fold in population density the world is a functionally smaller place. So most of the older prefectural divisions have been redrawn, so the old four prefectures of Qing times are today's Zhanjiang and Maoming prefectures (also today they use the word
    州 Zhou rather than the older 府 Fu).
    So basically Ha Say Fu just describes an area within guangdong. Specifically the far southwestern corner. Zhanjiang is the Leizhou Peninsula that stretches to towards the island of Hainan. Maoming is the area it attaches to at the base, bordering Guangxi province.
    Kwong Wing Lam changed the writing of the name to 下四虎 Lower Four Tigers, which has the same pronunciation in Cantonese although not in Mandarin. He did this because that is not a traditionally used term and is his own invention, so he would be able to register the name as a trademark. (unfortunately this type of **** has become a major trend in martial arts with people like Richard Clear copyrighting "One Touch Knockout" and Sam Chin copyrighting, well everything he possibly can, but that is a completely different topic).
    So basically "Ha Say Fu Hung Gar just describes Hung Gar from Maoming or Zhanjiang. Hung Gar is extremely popular in those areas especially because of historical events. In 1898 the french demanded that the Chinese grant them Concessions including a hundred year lease of an area encompassing Guangzhou bay and stretching over 35 miles inland in very direction.
    The people sent many petitions to the government leaders, however the local government officials had already been bribed by the French and the imperial government in Beijing was too weak and corrupt to even try to help, So the French demands were accepted.
    During this period a local Hung Men leader Wu Bong Jaak who had been training the local militia in his town, stood up to fight the french. He organized the training of militias across Zhanjiang and organized a successful resistance. The resistance troops would fly banners stamped with the character for gold, representing Wu Bong Jaak's saying "Every inch of our land is as valuable as pure gold".
    In the end they were able to force the french into only accepting an area of 10 miles inland as opposed to the 35 originally granted.
    Several different Hung Gar schools were involved in this struggle. These schools are still around today. Even after that the Hung Gar schools in the area continued working for the people, organizing underground resistance against the occupying Japanese during WWII, and helping on occasions of natural disaster to keep law and order, prevent looting, and donate and distribute clean food and water and medical aid to the local people.

    Sorry kind of went off on a tangent, but back to your actual questions, most schools in the area practice ten animal sets. But this doesn't mean that all of them do.
    The Upper/Lower thing doesn't necessarily mean that one is less common. I would assume that the Upper five animals refers to the fact that those are the animals usually considered to be the core of Hung Gar and most other Guangdong "Southern Shaolin" styles. In opposition to the lower animals which are part of the system, but not necessarily core components?
    As for Kwong Wing Lam, His stuff seems pretty in line with what is usually seen from the area. It could be that the lineage he learned only had the five animals.
    But when reading his accounts of learning the style it could also be that the man he was learning it from simply didn't teach them to him. If you think about it he wasn't his main teacher but was teaching him as a favor to his teacher. So he in that sense while LSW was learning from him he wasn't really a disciple, also he only learned from him for a relatively short time. K.W.L. also wasn't from the same area and although it isn't said most of the old established historical schools of Hung Gar are all tied into the Hung Men or similar societies, so not being from the same area it is almost certain that K.W.L. wasn't in the same hall / lodge / branch or whatever you want to call it that he was. So it wouldn't be surprising if he didn't teach him everything, in fact it would be very surprising if he did.
    So it could be that the lineage he happened to learn from only had the five animals, but it is also likely that he only learned those five.

    There is no one that I'm aware of that teaches Ten Animal Hung Gar in the U.S., although it doesn't mean that no one does.
    But Zhanjiang and Maoming are more rural and you probably aren't going to see a lot of people from that area in the U.S. either.
    Also the term Hay Say Fu is still used to describe the area, but it is an older term. If you are trying to find a teacher you would probably have better luck looking for either Ten Animal Hung Gar / Hung Kuen, or Zhanjiang / Maoming Hung Gar / Hung Kuen.
    Last edited by Tea Serpent; 07-16-2013 at 06:36 PM.

  2. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Tea Serpent View Post
    Lam Sai Wing changed the writing of the name to 下四虎 Lower Four Tigers, which has the same pronunciation in Cantonese although not in Mandarin. He did this because that is not a traditionally used term and is his own invention, so he would be able to register the name as a trademark. (unfortunately this type of **** has become a major trend in martial arts with people like Richard Clear copyrighting "One Touch Knockout" and Sam Chin copyrighting, well everything he possibly can, but that is a completely different topic).
    Are you sure that the reference to Lam Sai Wing is correct in your post ? (seems more like your referring to Kwong Wing Lam ?)

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Howard View Post
    Are you sure that the reference to Lam Sai Wing is correct in your post ? (seems more like your referring to Kwong Wing Lam ?)
    yeah sorry, sleep deprivation does that.

  4. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by lkfmdc View Post
    10 animals of southern kung fu

    tiger
    crane
    leopard
    snake
    dragon

    elephant
    monkey
    horse
    lion
    tiger cub
    No donkey?

  5. #35
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
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    out there fer sure
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    Thanks all for your fine commentary. I'm clear on the animals aspect. Thanks. To reiterate my original question..


    Does anyone have a list of Hung Fut forms? Thanks again.

    LTN

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