Techniques against..........Hung Kuen

[bailewen]

[Tid Sin]

Pao ying makes sense in your described situation due to the speed at which it should be executed (although every technique should be done quickly regardless of animal).

Although some animal techniques would be better suited to counter certain attacks, all of the animal shapes could be used regardless. A gung fu player specializing in one animal style, for example, has to use it against all kinds of attacks, assuming that he/she stays true to his/her chosen style during combat.

[bailewen]

You know, in Hung Gar, I'd be really wary of trying to specialize in one form or another. Me experience is that depending on the circumstances, you will probably lean towards one or another naturally but in my mind, there's just Hung Gar. I don't think in terms of the forms. It's just fighting. The 10 forms are just convenient categories for the techniques. They help in describing things online but when it gets right down to it, if I really had to think in animals at all, there's nothing more than tiger and crane.

Dragon has it's techniques but it's also a layer of attributes on top of everything else. Same for snake. What I try to get out of the different forms is not a tactical repertoire but rather their attributes.

I'm kind of wandering here in my post. I guess I can't quite pin down what bothers me about the idea of "specializing" in one of the animals. Maybe it's that I just can't see any of them as having any life of their own independent from the others. I don't switch from Crane to Tiger so much as flow from Crane to Tiger techniques. It's all still the same shenfa.body method (don't know the Cantonese for 身法), the same 4 horses, the same basic power generation and use of angles.

Compare single tiger to the crane attacks from diu ma in Fu Hok. Heck, when we used to work those in line up we just threw punches with the one hand and held the rear hand in an open palm near the chest.

[Tid Sin]

There's a misunderstanding here. Not your fault; my bad for not describing it better.

You think that I was referring to a Hung stylist specializing in one animal? Nope, not at all.

If you read back, I was describing a 'gung fu player' in general whose style reflects one animal (e.g. tong long, bak hok, ying jow pai, lung ying, you get the picture now).

Somewhere between the typing & intention was the misunderstanding. Sorry to have confused you.

On a final note, I have to disagree with you about summing up Hung Kuen to just the tiger & crane. Although it's alias is fu hok pai, there is more to it than that. To say that it just comes down to tiger & crane implies that all of the other animals, elements, and other parts of Hung Kuen aren't really worth studying. Such oversimplification does not do the art any justice IMHO and reveals your experience, with all due respect. Let's all continue to train hard.

Peace.

[bailewen]

[Tid Sin]

[bailewen]

Take care man.

I almost got up to review the sets before I posted but I decided it wasn't that important. Didn't want to break my train of thought but I will look for them shortly.

Incidentally, I have noticed a few people here seem to think that Ng Ying can be pronounced Ng Hang which seems to imply that they are thinking it is 五行拳。I don't think that is accurate for several reasons. The correct term is, I believe, 五形拳 for Ng Ying and 十形拳 for Sup Yin.

形 not 行

Only 行 has alternate pronunciations. 形 does not.

[PM]

ng ying kyun 五形拳 = five forms (ie. five animals)

ng hang kyun 五行拳 = five elements

ng ying ng hang kyun 五形五行拳 = five animals, five elements = another name for sap ying kyun 十形拳, ten forms

[bailewen]

So what name is used for the "5 forms fist"?

YC Wong doesn't teach either 五行拳 or 五形拳. When I was there in the 90's the progression was from Fu Hok, straight into Sup Yin. My understanding was that Ng Ying was redundant with Sup Ying.

Sup Ying is definately 十形 as only 形 can work for both animals and elements. Are you saying that schools that teach the "5 Forms" spell it both ways depending on the school? If so, does
"5 Forms" refer to the animals or the elements? I am not talking about the linguistic term “5 forms”. I mean the actual set that is taught in many Hung Gar schools after Fu Hok but before Sup Ying.

[Tid Sin]

Ng ying kuen, as per Pavel's previous post, referring to the 5 animals set specifically. As you'd said, ng hang just refers to the elements.

[PM]

as for ng ying,/ng hang/sap ying: at Wong Feihung's time, there was only ng ying kyun (five forms, ie. animals). sap ying kyun (ten forms, ie. five animals, five elements) is Lam Saiwing's; however, at his time ng ying kyun was still taught. later, as you said, it became redundant. today, ng ying kyun is not taught at Lam gwun at regular basis any more.

some old sources speak of ng hang kyun (five elments) as if it were a separate set, however, i am not sure about that. does anybody has more info?

[vaulander]

I don't know if this has any bearing on serious discussion, but in my 'pirate' raids of Youtube I came across a clip from a Sammo Hung movie, the end fight or some other pivotal part of the movie. Sammo is using Five animals vs some guy who is using Five elements, implying that they are two separate styles/forms. Then again, what you see in movies from the kung fu craze of the 70's is best taken with a grain of salt, or maybe a whole bag.
In the educational DVD's of Kwong Wing Lam there are two, plain Five Animals, and then Five Animals Five Elements, as if the Elements section is just some 'extra credit' on top of the Five animals. The DVD mentions that the Five Elements can be skipped for a shorter workout.
V.

[bailewen]

So, just to clarify the terminology, if someone refers to "Ng Ying/Ng Hang" they mean Sup Yin, not alternate pronunciations of 五行？

It confused me because in Mandarin 行 can be pronounced either "xing" or "hang" so it looked to me like ying/hang was a reference to the alternate pronunciations of 行 but a quick google seems to indicate that in Cantonese it's only pronounced "hang" or "haang" or something else very very close. No "ying" for 行。

[Tid Sin]

[bailewen]