There is a neat school (class schedule here) near my job that provides training for, among other things, San-Shou. I’ve asked around and got good props about it (including a positive comment from teh Omega). So this school is one possibility for me…
But I’m curious. I like to know the history of a given martial arts, specially if it’s from a serious school such as this one. As I read about the school, I see that the main art being taught is Choy Lay Fut. As I read more about the art, I see that it is a “Five Animal/Five Form” southern Chinese MA. Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Snake, and Dragon… what exactly does that mean? Is there a relation to Five Ancestors?
Information is spread out, scant, and thin, so I though this may be a good topic for a thread where pple in the know can pitch in…
Might be wrong but I think Choy Lee Fut and “Five ancestor fist” kung fu are seperate arts. Choy Lee Fut is credited ro one guy who had three masters and he named his art after them (Choy, Lee and “fut”).
I really don’t know the history either, just because I’ve never had to sit through any history lessons, too busy learning the style.
Plus, anytime you talk about CMA history, you never know what parts are correct and what is myth. You have to cross reference and second guess everything.
That said, I can tell you that it is Shaolin based. 5 family is not necessarily 5 animal. As the story goes, 5 animal is a style that came out of what is sometimes called the “Great Consolidation” maybe it happened in the 15 or 1600’s Three guys (Li, Yuan, Fung) all went out and gathered all the knowledge they could by fighting across China, then they went back to Shaolin to teach the monks, and restore Shaolin with the 5 Animal system that supposedly consisted of 170 techniques.
Then, down the lineafter the Shaolin temple in Henan was destroyed by the Ching, it’s said 5 ancestors escaped, and that what they knew was somehow the basis of the knowledge that comprised 5 Ancestors.
Then down in say 1890’s or something, you had 5 monks in the South (Hung, Li, Choy, Tao, Mok) whose combined systems were 5 family, maybe? I don’t really know for sure. Choy Li Fut is supposedly a combination of three of those styles.
All looking back to Shaolin roots in the long run.
Interesting, interesting. DAYoung, I saw those posts by DerAus, and that was one of my main motivations for starting the thread - apart from the fact that I like that San Shou/Choy Lay Fut school.
Mantis, many thanks. That’s a good starting point for me to do further research. As you said, a lot of what I found over the net is partly history, partly myth, and it’s kind of hard to put all that together in a coherent, bs-free manner w/o knowing the background of it…
I just went to the effort of walking about 14 feet to my MA bookshelf, and was reminded of how little I have on CMA. Nonetheless, I did pick up the awful The Martial Arts by Lewis, which has these dodgy things to say:
Ok, I’ve read the “history” section in a few kung fu books so, just going by my general knowledge on kung fu styles, this may or may not be accurate.
Mantis contradicts what I’ve read on a couple of counts here, particularly re Choy Li Fut (/Choy Lee fut/Choy Lai Fut etc etc) being decended from three of the “5 monks” of Shaolin. Choy Lee Fut - Lee is generally said, rather specifically, not to be the same Lee as in the “lee” as the big five. But Hung Gar is apparently one of the five styles going into the Choy Lee Fut pot - possibly via “Fut” which means monk and was the nickname of one of his masters. The monk was apparently “the Greengrass Monk” but that story is dejunked by some notable CLF masters as only a legend.
Anyway, on a seperate point, there is a completely seperate style calling itself “5 ancestor fist” (Ngo Cho Kun) which is apparently a mix of Funiken White Crane (Pe Ho? ) and four other styles.
Yeah, gee, maybe you should find somebody on the board that actually has done 5 ancestors. 5 Ancestor Kung-fu has spawned several different styles most notably southern systems. Many styles claim to be linked to the 5 ancestors. Sometimes translated as the 5 houses of striking when refering to the techniques alone. 5 is a very key thing and it’s not a direct style per se as much as a group of styles. Choy Li Fut, Hung-gar, Lohan, Fut Gar, and Eagle Claw all lay claim to the lineage. Hung-gar specifically likes to lay direct credit for the spawning of kempo lineage in American culture.
But what do I know I’m just a MMA fighter. I wouldn’t look into the history all that much except to say that most teachers could not lay claim to the lineage without having strong fighting background. Usually eluding to connections with the triads.
AFAIK, There’s the legend of the so-called 5 Ancestors who were connected to Shaolin Temple. There’s thousands of variations on who they were and what they did.
Then, There is a style Known as Five Ancestors Fist (AKA Ngo Cho Kun, Wu Zu Quan) that got its name because it was based on five separate styles. It was developed in Fujian, China. Some of its forms are quite similar to Goju Ryu and Uechi Ryu Karate. Considering that Okinawans interacted a lot with the Fujian Chinese, then it seems quite reasonable to assume that it could have influenced these Karate styles.
A similar art to this is Fujian White Crane. It is separate from Shaolin White Crane, which again is different from Tibetan White Crane/Hop Ga/Lama Pai. The first two previously mentioned white crane styles also claim to have influenced Okinawan Karate (dizzy yet?)
Anyway, these are all separate from Choy Li Fut. CLF was developed in Guangdong province, where the Tibetan White Crane/Lama Pai/Hop Ga also flourished.
Bah! Your chi-blasts are weak and you don’t prance on one leg…
Thanks pple for your responses. Besides the history, I was also interested in knowing what makes Choy Li Fut the style it is. I’m not looking to this style vs this other style kind of thing, but an overall description of it, from a technical and impartial point of view…
Another question for teh Omega… based on your experience with 5 ancestors, do you see a commonality (or lack thereof) between the style(s) you have trained and Choy Li Fut?
Holy shit. In all this time, I never actually looked at styles label thingie to the left :eusa_doh:
So what exactly constitute “Five Animal”. Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Snake, and Dragon… what exactly does that and each mean, from a technical point of view?
Those are the 5 animals comonly referred to as 5 animal. Each has their own particular way of moving. Each has their own emphasis.
I will just scratch the surface for you to give you a general idea.
Tiger is powerful and very direct. Crane is expansive, has lots of kicks. Leopard is very fast, and has an interesting way of striking. It will strike a striking arm so that it will aid in the muscle contracture to bring the arm back faster for another strike. Snake requires a very supple waist, has an intersting blocking and striking pattern and generally focuses on striking soft areas on the body. Dragon is also serpentine, commonly uses a claw hand. Each “animal” has its own designated hand positions used in striking.
I’ve heard of a kung fu style in the UK (via Hong Kong) explicitly called ‘5 ancestor fist’
(wuzuquan I think was the mandarin pronounciation). A huge guy called Roy Pinks who did some full contact competition (who passed away recently) taught it.
As to the more generic references to ‘5 ancestors’ these pepper the lineage/creation myths of every ‘southern shaolin’-derived style I’ve ever read about (including Wing Chun, Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut).
Truthfully speaking, I have never seen anything I’ve done even remotely look like anything in Choy Li fut. Choy Li Fut is a hard hitting style but I think their movements are gay. Arm swinging tree huggers, I swear.
The huge differance between what I learned and what is most commonly accepted is that we don’t have snake we have Eagle which is supposed to be a stronger version of Crane. Each animal was commonly named for it’s fist or claw, except dragon and crane. So it was Leopard’s fist, Eagle’s Claw, Tiger’s Claw, Dragon, and Crane.
