Saturday, January 19, 2008

The Basis of Fut Gar Kung Fu

As students progress in their Fut Gar Kung Fu training, they will become exposed to a variety of forms and training theories. I previously discussed the 5 Methods of Fut Gar Kung Fu which apply to Leung Tin Chiu Fut Gar's theory during free fighting scenarios. As you learn the forms (empty hand or weapon), you will see that they are based on 2 main theories. These theories are described by Grandmaster Chen Rong En as Fei Loong and Fook Fu.

Fei Loong is the Flying Dragon group of techniques. They include the training of your wrists through circling them and teach things such as reversing a grab (Siu Fei Loong) and breaking a grab followed by a strike (Dai Fei Loong).

Fook Fu is the Tiger Taming group of techniques and include control and strike (Dan Fook Fu) and double downward strikes (Seung Fook Fu).

Along with these are a mixture of of other dragon and tiger techniques such as Seung Loong Chut Hoi. There are also some complete forms that focus on improving these techniques such as Chin Jaang (Whole Elbow) which is known in some places as Loong Jow (Dragon Claw) because of the focus on the dragon techniques.

As Fut Gar students learn staff forms, the focus does not move away from these theories. Students of the style will learn Fook Fu Gwun (Tiger Taming Staff) and later, Fei Lung Gwun (Flying Dragon Staff) which I spoke about in a previous post.

While training in the style, looking for these theories will help understand the basis of Fut Gar Kung Fu.

2 comments:

Kai said...

sifu,

I think you (or someone) mentioned that dragons are technically more intricate and tigers and stronger. Is this the correct concept? I only know Siu Fei Long and Seung Fook Fu so far I think, so I can't really compare.

SifuChow said...

I think you can generalize this way in some cases. It is not the only way to think of it but works because the application of the Fei Loong techniques is normally more intricate. You could also look at it as reversals of grabs vs strikes. I don't remember mentioning this in class but it is possible we were discussing a specific concept or situation as well.