Old Fut Gar Article

Thanks to James for sending this to me. I had not seen this in a long time. The Fut Gar article was an article that was posted on the wall in Master Chen's old school. The other interesting thing, I believe I actually have this particular magazine somewhere (from the cover) but was not teaching Fut Gar at the time.



Not sure how the embedding will work but hopefully you can see it.

Chinese Story About Filming on Leung Tin Chiu

Thanks to Denny from Michigan who passed this along. Denny has dropped into the school a few times to visit in the last couple of years while in Toronto for other celebrations and holds a great deal of enthusiasm towards Fut Gar Kung Fu.

This link speaks about the filming of a 26 part TV series on Leung Tin Chiu...unfortunately it is only written in Chinese right now but you can certainly get the idea by plugging it into something like Babel Fish. For those that are not familiar with the name, Leung Tin Chiu is the founder of Fut Gar Kung Fu as taught at my school.

Looking for Details

Our school is still awaiting further details on the filiming of a 26 part series on the founder of the Fut Gar Kung Fu Style, Leung Tin Chiu, to be filmed in China. It sounds like it is confirmed to go and Master Chen will connect with them in China when he returns there in late October. The background on this is from last year's visit to the grave of Leung Tin Chiu by a group of Fut Gar students including Master Chen who is a direct disciple of Leung Tin Chiu. It seems that this sparked some interest as people realized that there are living disciples of Leung Tin Chiu who are still practicing the Fut Gar style. The details are not completely clear to me from there but it seems like a great time for our style as Master Chen is excited that his Sifu is finally getting some recognition. This was a person that was very well known as possibly the best martial artist of his time from his performance at a national tournament of over 2000 competitors that were rated on overall skills. There was one person that mentioned that he saw something posted on the future release of this series but I have been unable to find anything. Anybody that sees a link, please do share with us.

DVD Set Released in U.S.

The Kin Mon Sil Lum Gung Fu group in the U.S. released a DVD set. Although the school clearly states that they are not a Fut Gar school, they do trace back to Leung Tin Chiu, the founder of Fut Gar Kung Fu as taught at my school. The forms that are practiced at Kin Mon Sil Lum Gung Fu are similar in name and execution to some of the forms I teach. I have not seen the DVD's yet but think that it is great that the school went through the effort to put together a compilation of their forms. Information can be obtained on their site.

Visitors

It was almost 2 weeks ago and has taken me some time to get these downloaded from my camera but I finally got it done. On August 10th our class had a visit from Sifu Norman Mandarino and a few of his students. They have a Kung Fu school in Buffalo, NY and asked if they could come visit our class. It is always nice to meet other students that have some connection to the founder of our style of Fut Gar, Leung Tin Chiu in their background. By coincidence we also had a visit from another student from Michigan who also is training in Fut Gar techniques. I had asked Grandmaster Chen Rong En to come meet the students as he is always interested in seeing other people that have a connection to our style. Here are the pictures from that visit.

Weapons Forms of Fut Gar Kung Fu

In Leung Tin Chiu's branch of Fut Gar Kung Fu there is a heavy focus on staff work. This agrees with the theory form my previous blog entry about the most important weapon in Martial Arts. Here is a list of the weapons forms as I was taught by Grandmaster Chen Rong En.

• Double-ended Staff
• Shooting Star Chasing the Moon Staff
• Tiger Taming Staff
• Left Handed Staff
• Flying Dragon Staff
• 2-Person Flying Dragon Staff
  
• Dragon Well Sword
  

There have been other forms that Grandmaster Chen has taught but they were not from this style. Years can be spent just training in the proper techniques and applications of these forms.

The Hand Forms of Fut Gar Kung Fu

Leung Tin Chiu's Fut Gar Kung Fu is still taught in its entirety by his disciple Chen Rong En. I was fortunate enough to become a disciple of Grandmaster Chen Rong En and learn all the forms in the style. Here is a list of the empty hand forms in the Fut Gar Kung Fu style that are designed to teach all the techniques of the style.

• Sup Bat Lohan - 18 Arhats
• Siu Bat Sin - Small 8 Immortals
• Dai Bat Sin - Large 8 Immortals
• Siu Lin Wan - Small Connection
• Dai Lin Wan - Large Connection
• Maang Fu Ha San - Fierce Tiger Descending Mountain
• Say Hung Fook Fu - 4 Heroes Taming Tiger
  
• Chin Jaang - Entire Elbow
• Loong Fu Seung Voy - Dragon Tiger Meeting (in Conference)
• Tai Gee Kuen - Prince's Form
• Gee Mo Kiu - Son and Mother Bridge

Some of these forms also have other name (nicknames) such as Dragon Claws (Loong Jow) for Chin Jaang but they are definitely the same forms. Although not all are contained in the curriculum for our school, all these forms will be taught to students over time. It is likely some time after the students become instructors that they would learn the forms not taught in the core curriculum.

The Circles in Sup Bat Lohan (18 Arhats) Form

Students of Leung Tin Chiu's version of Fut Gar Kung Fu are likely to learn the Sup Bat Lohan form as part of their early training. Our school teaches this form at the first level of training in our system. The form begins with a series of circles with your arms (White Crane Spreading Wings) and looks like a balance technique with little martial arts value. The technique definitely has a purpose. The purpose of the technique is for breaking of a grab to the upper body (arm, shoulder, neck). By continuing the circles in the techniques, the opponent is forced to let go of their grab. The important points are to keep your elbows bent through the technique for leverage and keep your palms facing down throughout the technique. All techniques in Kung Fu have a purpose. Students should make sure they have a good understanding of these techniques as they progress in their training.

10 Elbows of Fut Gar Kung Fu

Students of Fut Gar Kung Fu will be familiar with the elbow techniques contained in the forms. Elbow techniques are so important to the style that there is even a form that focuses on building these techniques (Chin Jaang/Whole Elbow also known as Loong Jow/Dragon Claw to some). Here is a list of 10 of the elbow techniques contained in the forms:

1. Kai Jaang - Standing Elbow
2. Waang Jaang - Horizontal Elbow
3. Gung Jaang - Forcing Elbow
4. Pow Jaang - Cannon Elbow
5. Cup Jaang - Covering Elbow
6. Bau Jaang - Wrapping Elbow
7. Chum Jaang - Sinking Elbow
8. Tit Jaang - Slicing Elbow
9. Jing Jaang - Center Elbow
10. Hok Jaang - Lifting Elbow

How Good Is Your Fighting?

While training in Kung Fu it is natural to wonder how good your fighting is. How do we know how good we are? Who should we compare to? How do we measure? We train initially in basic techniques, then learn forms, then learn how to apply the techniques and combinations, then practice applying them in set exercises and finally try to use the techniques in free fighting practice. It is difficult to know how good you really are.

One way to measure is to compare yourself to the other students in your school. This gives you a good idea of how your fighting ranks but this is not perfect. You could be the best fighter in the class but later realize that nobody in your class can fight or you could be frustrated about being the worst fighter in your class only to find out that it is because your class is the best group of fighters around. Since this does not work, you then need to attend tournaments to test yourself against other schools or in some cases, other countries. Does this guarantee that you can measure yourself? It is better but still not perfect because the best fighters might choose not to compete. In the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is you are good enough to survive a life and death fighting situation.

Since I started training with Grandmaster Chen Rong En I found that he has an interesting way of rating how well people fight. He generally wins in free fighting situations, even at his advanced age so he measures by counting how many times you block him before he hits you. We have had discussions about people he has tested. He will say this person is not able to block me at all but this guy is pretty good because he blocked my first 4 attacks before I hit him. This is him speaking about instructors that he has met over time.

Why is he able to fight the way he does? It goes back to one of the fundamental theories about fighting in Fut Gar Kung Fu. The theory is that every technique has a counter and in turn that counter also has a counter. The person that wins the fight is the person that knows (and is able to execute) the most counters. So Grandmaster Chen started by learning the entire Fut Gar style but followed up by dedicating the next 3 years working with his Sifu, Leung Tin Chiu perfecting the execution, setting up of techniques and the theories behind the fighting of Fut Gar Kung Fu. This is the reason why he automatically executes a technique when someone attacks and unloads a barrage of attacks in return without effort or thinking. He has an answer for any fighting theory question including the very annoying what if questions that students often ask :)

So how good is my fighting? 4-5 blocks before getting hit by my Sifu, Grandmaster Chen. This rates quite high on his scale.

Generating Power in Fut Gar Kung Fu

Students of my school will understand that generation of striking power in Fut Gar Kung Fu is different from the generation of power of most other Martial Arts styles. Fut Gar does not use a Gung Bo (Front/Bow Stace) in its hand forms. The theory is that pushing your weight forward into a Gung Bo to generate power will produce too much forward momentum which allows another martial artist to pull you off balance with a quick grab and pull.

Generation of power in Fut Gar Kung Fu comes from a combination of pulling backwards with your non-striking arm and turning at the waist. Pulling back the non-striking arm should be done as hard as possible as if you were throwing an elbow strike. Grandmaster Chen Rong En speaks about Leung Tin Chiu as someone who would create a snapping sound every time he pulled his arm back. As students train in Fut Gar they will be instructed on where the elbow should end up based on the strike being thrown. The pull will generally be in the exact opposite direction of the strike being thrown. The back should be kept straight and the body should pivot on an axis that is straight up and down.

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.

Leung Tin Chiu in Competition

If you try to find out about Leung Tin Chiu (Chee) you will find a variety of stories about his technique, fighting, form and how good he was. A common story is about his participation in a national Martial Arts tournament set up by the Chinese government. The tournament was set up with the best Kung Fu practitioners from across China competing. There were supposedly over 2000 competitors at the tournament. Competitors were ranked on a variety of categories including fighting, forms, technique and weapons. It is clear that Leung Tin Chiu did very well in the tournament but the final results have been reported in several ways. My understanding of the final results is that the overall winner was not clearly identified (possibly due to political reasons) but that Leung Tin Chiu was one of the top three. Other stories have him listed as 3rd overall, 1st overall, 1st in fighting, etc. What is clear is no matter where he finished, it was a great accomplishment in a tournament of this stature.

Our school is proud to be teaching Leung Tin Chiu's style as taught to his disciple, Chen Rong En. I am one of the original 9 disciples of Chen Rong En and unfortunately the only one of the original disciples that is still teaching Fut Gar Kung Fu. We have a sister school in China now which has been in operation for about 3 years.

The Kung Fu Family - Terminology

The Kung Fu school is very much set up like a family. You will be able to find many references to this if you do a search but here are the relevant terms to the members of our school.

The head of the school (Father) is the Sifu. There can only be one Sifu in each school unless it is a school that has different instructors teaching different styles. A female would be Simo (I shudder when schools call their female instructor Sifu) and could also refer to your Sifu's wife even if she did not practice martial arts at all.

The proper way to address a Sifu from another school or style not associated with your style of Kung Fu is (last name) Sifu such as Lee Sifu. You would not refer to me, your own Sifu as Chow Sifu but only as Sifu. In Western civilization we now also sometimes switch it so the last name comes after Sifu such as when I refer to Sifu Lee.

Your Sigung (Grandfather) is your Sifu's instructor, in our case it is Grandmaster Chen Rong En but also includes anyone that was an instructor of your Sifu in the past such as Chan Tai San in our case. Our Jo-Si (founder) is Leung Tin Chiu.

Students that are senior to you within the class should be referred to as Si Hing or Si Jeh in the case of a senior female student. Students that are junior to you are referred to as Si Dai or Si Mui if female. These terms refer to your fellow students as older brother/sister and younger brother/sister. To further clarify who you are referring to, the most senior student is referred to as Dai Si Hing/Jeh (Eldest brother/sister) and could count down from there to Yee Si Hing/Jeh (2nd older brother/sister), etc.

The other terms that may come up in our school would be Si-Bak which refers to your instructor's Si Hing (in our case that would be my brother Chow Wun Dak "Dick") and means older uncle. Si-Sook is the proper way to address your Sifu's Si Dai and refers to a younger uncle...there are quite a few of these that you could meet over time.

Keep in mind that we refer to elder and younger but do not mean by age. The only thing that determines seniority is amount of time as a member of the school. This does not have anything to do with belt/sash level
or the ability level of the students. You cannot surpass another student in seniority no matter how much more knowledge you possess or ability you have. Your Si Hing is always your Si Hing.

Get The Facts Straight - Or Don't Try to be a Kung Fu Historian!!!

It's finally time for me to rant about this website in Australia which is magically making up some details about the Fut Gar Style. This guy would have had the same degree of accuracy if he went on YouTube and randomly chose some forms and listed them as forms taught in the Fut Gar style.

Their site says:

There are now ten empty-hand forms starting with a hard, almost karate-like form, all the way to an internal form similar to taiji quan. The forms are:
· Seah Ying Diu Sau (Snake Form)
· Tai Ji Kuen (Prince's Form)
· Bak Mok (White Hair)
· Lohan Kuen (Monk's Fist)
· Dai Lin Wan (Large Connection)
· Dai Gum Gong (Big Solid Body)
· Chut Yup Bo (Out In Step)
· Maang Fu Ha San (Fierce Tiger Descending the Mountain)
· Tien Jaang (Complete Elbow)

First of all this guy can't count....he has listed 9 forms when he says there are ten. Secondly there are 11 hand forms in the Fut Gar system but the last form was traditionally only taught to the most senior, loyal students of the style...don't worry, all my students will have the opportunity to learn the form at some time :) Thirdly only 4 of the forms listed were actually Fut Gar forms.

So...why do I care?
Reason #1: As someone that has been asked to continue the lineage of Leung Tin Chiu's Fut Gar Kung Fu, I like to see as much information as possible available to the world but it would be nice if the information were correct.

Reason #2: This person basically scraped my school's website for any mention of form names and included them in his site...it is clear from our website that although we focus on Fut Gar, we also teach Lama and Choy Li Fut at our school so we list some of those forms on our site. The list of forms are all forms that are listed on my site and definitely are not a combination of forms that are taught anywhere else...it is impossible to "acquire" the list from anywhere else.

Reason #3: No attempt was made to contact us for clarification that the information they were quoting was correct. I am happy to help with appropriate information when asked and would definitely have clarified.

How do I know that the information was scraped from my site? Since he linked to my site, I know he has read my site.

So then they talk about weapons:

The nine original weapons were staff, spear, straight sword, broadsword, butterfly swords, kwan do, tiger fork, three-sectional staff, and the monk's spade. Some of Fut Gar weapons’ forms include:
· Hak Loong Dao (Black Dragon Broadsword)
· Fook Fu Gwun (Tiger Taming Staff)
· Ng Ma Quite Show (Five Horses Returning to the Feeding Post Staff)
· Loong Chien Gim (Dragon Well Sword)

Nice try again.....but only 2 of the forms listed are Fut Gar forms. Once again, these forms are taken off of my site and an assumption was made that they are Fut Gar. On top of that, in our branch Fut Gar Kung Fu there were not nine original weapons. Not sure where this information came from....could it be from some pictures on the website? To be clear, Fut Gar focuses on hand forms, staff forms and has one straight sword form....that is it.

To be fair, they did includes some other information that seems correct and I appreciate the attempt by this person/people to create some sort of background on Fut Gar for the benefit of their students but truly believe that they would have been better off telling the truth when it came to some of the things I have mentioned....they just don't know!!!

Fut Gar Flying Dragon Staff - YouTube

Here are a couple of YouTube videos of some people training on Flying Dragon Staff techniques. This is the most famous staff form in the Fut Gar style and was known as the "King of Staff Forms" in China. The person may or may not be a Fut Gar person but those that know the form will see the techniques here.





I encourage my students to view these videos for interest and to see some interesting uses of the staff techniques...I agree with some and disagree with some but remember that I always teach that a technique that is incorrect in theory becomes correct if you can prove/execute it successfully in a fighting situation. They identify the people in the videos but I don't know them. If they were serious Fut Gar practitioners, Sigung will know them so I will try to remember to ask him.

I am not sure if it is for demo/practice purposes but I can't stop wondering why the people are getting knocked down or off balance so easily...am I missing a rock that they keep tripping on? I also wonder why they allow themselves to be locked up by a staff....it is not a joint lock where you have to break out, you can let go of the staff before the opponent has levered you into the ground. Hopefully they were happily playing along with the training and not hanging on to the staff for dear life just because they didn't know what to do.

The 5 Methods of Fut Gar Kung Fu

In Siu Lum (Shaolin) Fut Gar Kung Fu the practitioner is guided by a set of theories on the way to be most successful in combat situations. It is important over time to ensure that these theories become automatic in the practioner's way of practice and eventually automatic in fighting situations.

These guiding principles are known as the 5 Methods of Fut Gar Kung Fu:

1. Keep your heart open
2. Ensure your eyes are clear
3. Hand movements are quick
4. Body movements are quick
5. Keep your foundation moving

Students of The National Fut Gar Kung Fu Training Centre are taught the indepth meaning of the 5 methods over time, the 5 consequences of not integrating the methods into their fighting as well as how these are tied together by 5 theories of engagement. As these are the basic principles behind Fut Gar's fighting theory, all Fut Gar schools in the Leung Tin Chiu Fut Gar system incorporate these into their training.

Grandmaster Chen Rong En

Members of The National Fut Gar Kung Fu Training Centre all know Grandmaster Chen Rong En (Chen Wing Yun) the head of Fut Gar Kung Fu worldwide. He is known as the only person that is still able to teach the entire Fut Gar Kung Fu system and has taken particular interest in the students of our school in Toronto, ON, Canada as the school that will continue to spread/keep alive the style in the future. We now have the help of a sister school in China that was formed a few years ago and an International Fut Gar Federation that was formed about a month ago. There are other schools in the world teaching our branch of Fut Gar Kung Fu (also known as Shaolin Fut Gar/Siu Lum Fut Gar), which was founded by Leung Tin Chiu (Chee) but most are teaching a portion of the style and do not include all the forms. As far as we know, no others are focused entirely on Fut Gar but we would love to hear from anyone who is.

The following video was from a past visit that Grandmaster Chen made to our school and is a slowed down performance of the Dai Bat Sin form. At the time of this video he is 82-83 years of age.