NaamKyun.com Discussion Forum

I knew this would one day come back to bite me in the ass...

ok, being the kind of mischievious child that I am, every time I see someone (usually at a tournament) with tattoos of the dragon and tiger on their forearms, I say,"Ohhh..the Dragon goes on the LEFT and the Tiger goes on the RIGHT.." (if they have the dragon on the right, etc) Then I mention, "It's Dragon fist, Tiger Claw in the bow, or Dragon Claw, Tiger Claw, if I need to reverse them. Then I wait until their face shows the shock, and then I tell them I was just messing with them...maybe.

I did this several years back at a table full of friends and Sifus to our buddy, Dragonclaw. The entire table fell silent. Then we all burst into laughter. Priceless.

Ok, so the brands are a myth. The line, "When two men of Siu-Lum meet they present their forearms showing the symbols of the dragon and the tiger.." described the Siu-Lum bow, Dragon and Tiger Emerge., the hand signifying the Dragon and Tiger-the throne of the emperor and the restoration of the Ming Dynasty..yadda-yadda...

No one has ever seen a Monk with the brands-which makes sense. After all, if the Chings were executing all Martial Artists and rebels, why would they brand themselves? That would be like the Jews tattooing themselves during Nazi occupation.

So, if one were to get a Dragon and Tiger tattooed on their forearms, which arm gets which?

Hmm, I always understood the dragon to represent the internal and the tiger the external.

I know of a school who is named the tiger and dragon school. In his language dragon and tiger sounds weird, tiger & dragon sounds better. But for the Chinese dragon becomes before everything else, as you dont want to piss it off
So in China, this sifu had to explain to everyone why he chose tiger & dragon, hihi.

Question is, how is the dragon put first in chinese? Left tiger claw and right dragon fist? Was the Chinese writing originally not from top to bottom from right to left? Hmmmm ...

Curious what others say. Don't really have more to add., sorry TT, just an anecdote

Hey TT,

I believe the saying is Jo Ching Lung, Yau Bok Fu. Left Green Dragon, Right White Tiger. I could be wrong.

Peace

Jerry

How translates that to our greeting? We make a tiger claw with the left and a dragon fist with the right, right? Or am I mixing the two up? Is it dragon claw and tiger fist? Or do you need to look at it from the onlooker?

Hey Jerry,
yeah, but is that your left or my left?

Is "Dragon" always first?

Let's see...

Lung, Fu, Pau...

Yep, sure is!

Gin Laih/ "To Meet With Courtesy"...

As our Hung Kyun salutation form is traditionally designed for the other person to see, it would certainly seem to follow that, in "reading" from right to left, the palm (Dragon) is "first", and then the fist (Tiger), therefore, is "second"...

Personally, I think it would be a great idea for modern commercial Kung Fu school operators to have their students branded...

Just think about the bite it would take out of student rank attrition!



Laffs,

Daifong