Neil

What so you are allowed to hit them in the face with bare knuckles, hit them in the groin, poke them in the eyes?

Do you think animals in a way represent people, personality wise? And if so what animal would you be and why?

No offence intended but that is just what I have read, not what I think. Since I started training at my Goju club we have been doing some Tiger but mostly White Crane kata, but these past 3 months we have been doing a a lot more White Crane. My teacher does a lot of White Crane as that is one of the animal styles that has influenced Goju Ry karate Jutsu. The other animal which has influenced Goju is the Tiger although we havew only done a few opf their katas. I can remember the names of some of the katas. One of them was pronounced Roo-Ki-Shoo, The other was pronounced Zan-Za-roo (I don't know how theyr spelt). I cant remember the Tiger ones since for some reasen we don't do a lot of them. We do White Crane and Tiger katas to see how are Martial Art of Goju came about. My teacher sais it is important to study history to see where we are going into the future.

Well it started about 5 weeks ago when we started doing the throwing. The first time we did it I was very good at it. But the next week I failed for the whole 2 hour session!! Again after that and after that and after that. I seem to have some disease with throwing. Everything else just clicks and a lot of the time I do great as opposed to average. The times when I krap are is when we do the throwing. I gues I just have to learn to focus on the very techniques by making my body floppy purley for the sake of teching my self to use technique.

well not that I know or anything but my teacher did say that Shorin Ryu was greatly influenced my White Crane.

You know when you go to your club and you are concentrating as hard as you can but for some really stupid reasen your body just doesn't seem to respond to what the mind is telling ti. It keeps happening every wednesday when we get the mast out for 2 hours and some throwing. I always seem to krao it up. I always keep using upper body strengh to trow the person instead of the moment and the whole principle of yin/yang. Even thought you are concentrating and listening and watching like it was the end of the world and your life depended on it you still can't do it!!!! Anyone else have this problem and how do you over come it? thanks, Neil

From what has been said it seems to say that in Kung Fu the most important thing was to 'become the animal'. To act like him, train like him, fight like him, become him. Maybe thats why that website gave an article on each animal 'In Life' to show which personallity goes with which animal. Persoanlly I think this animal styles can get a big cheesy if over characterized. Maybe they should be kept purley as body type as opposed to thinking and acting like an animal but hell I don't know and I am in certainly noi position to argue since I have been only studying and training these animal styles for a few months.

I spoke to my teacher yesterday and he sais that as far as history dictates there is only the Tiger and White Crane. And if you look into any of the Goju katas you cannot see any resemblence to the Leopard but is was still an interesting theory but my teaxcher sais that there might well be. But thats a cool style, the Tiger and the Crane.

What about the 5 elements? Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth. Which element goes with wich style. I already know Monkey is earth so the other styles must also have elements. thanks, Neil

Would I be wrong in saying that in the Karate world of styles Goju Ryu would be the Leopard of the karate? My reason for this is that the Leopard first of all is in the middle between the hardest style (Tiger) and the most Agile and fluid style (white Crane). Secondly leopard style is a close-range fighter just like Goju Ryu. Also it is a complete system like Goju Ryu. Although Goju Ryu has White Crane in it it also has tiger so paradoxly, even if it doesn't have leopard directly the 2 styles make Leopard. Well this is just throry to me.

I have found that motivation only really tends to work with exercise when you are OUT of condition. I find it really hard sometimes to get up in the morning and start training. I just can't seem to find any motivation. I have tried so many techniques but I dont think they really work. You see I have always been in good shape and so there isn't any motivation to think of how strong I am since I am already very strong, or whole good I'm gonna look coz I already look good so all these motivational techniques don't really work for me. I was wandering if anyone else could offer any advice on motivation for me. And please no techniques on how I'm going to feel after because thats the stuff that just doesn't work for me. thanks so much, Neil

So far for lower body strengh/explosivness or fast-twitch muscles I have been doing skipping, Squats (fast as possible), and frog jumps (jumping up from squat position while keeping legs bent. I was wandering do you have to do these type of exercsies fast to acheive fast twitch. For example is it better to do squats slowly, or fast. I know this seems pretty obvious but I just want to make sure. thanks, Neil

Finger tip pushups Rope pull ups (hold onto a 2 inch rope and perofrm pull ups) Nigiri Game are fantastic and I am starting to use them. Don't use those sqeezers as I have found them to be useless compared to these exercises. That is strengh. For condition it is a good idea to start of slow. I wack with finger tips into my bag. I have been doign this for a few weeks, but took a while to get up to a standerd of really waching them into the bag. The bean, sand, water bag thing where you plunge your hands into a bag full of these things teaches the hands and fingers to resist pain and so conditions them. Although I just would stick with the above. Neil

For the past week I have been studying the animal styles of Kung Fu. Through the katas like Saifa I can see a little of the resemblence of white Crane, and when I did Sai-Ich-In (I'm not sure how its spelled but thats how it sounds) you can clearly see that it is related to Tiger Kung Fu. I know that there is white crane and Tiger in the style of Goju but is it made up of more than just these 2 animals? Maybe this is how you get a mixture of both soft and hard techniques. Maybe there is some Leopard in it as well as it is a close-combat style. Just guesing here but is there any experianced Goju people here who can shed some light on what animal styles affected Goju and other styles. Such as Shorin Ryu there is a lot of Crane in that style, and you can clearly see the Tiger in Shotokan. thanks, Neil

http://www.shaolin.com.au/animal.html I found this site to be very informative. Oh yeah Kensai that came out a bit wrong, I gues you could say there are virtually none in the south, so I can't really say there are none in the western world Today my teacher went through some of the animal styles. We did some tiger and white crane. We also went through some Goju kata to show how the animal sytles of kung fu has influenced Goju Ryu as wells as other Karate styles such as Shorin Ryu and Shotokan. Some katas show the Tiger influence with the strong hand techniques and stance, and some of the other katas like Saifa which shows the White Crane side to it. It's really interesting when you explore other arts to see how your art came along. It's really very important to have theory behind Martial Art, not just training.

Thanks that was very interesting. My teacher also studies a lot of White Crane. I like the idea of Dragon Kung Fu. I would love to try one of these animal styles but there doesn't seem to be many of these in the western world, why is this?

In terms of my routine I pretty much do everything except stretching. I do avoid it since I have little knowledge in that area. Although I never really need a lot of flexibility I have heard that stretching is till good but there are so many books out there Im don't know which ones to get. But what I want is to strenghen that new reange of flexibility since there a re alot of peolle who can have high kicks but are weak in that area of movement. I want to strenghen the movement not just promote flexibility in that movement. I trhink its called pnf stretching where you strenghen the range of movement and thats what I want. It would be great if someone could tell what the best books out there are since I have very little knowledge when it comes to stretching thanks for your time, Neil

Hello I just started on this forum 2 days ago and I thought I might ask a quastion that I have been dying to ask for ages. What are the animal styles in Kung Fu all about? There seems so many. First I thought there was only 5 which was I think tiger, leoperd, snake, dragon, and crane. Then I found out about praying mantis, monkey and so on. I know monkey exists since my teacher recalls the time when he played pushing hands with them and said how they would hang off your fists and forearms like monkeys. This is a really interesting topic to me amd I'm sure to many others so just how many animal styles are there? And what is each animal styles charateristics? thanks for getting back if you can Neil

I'v never really been on any of these types of things before so I better just inroduce myself. My name is Neil as many of you might have guesed from my user name, and am 16 years old. As a kid I did some boxing (over sized novelty gloves), some Sport Karate and well thats about it. I have now been training in Goju Ryu Jutsu for about 6 months and am thourely enjoying that. I have trained in a few other styles and am keen in combatitive sports as well as Martial Arts. I am hoping to start Judo soon just so I can get a bit more bashed about on the mat for a bit of fun (not that I already get enough bashed in karate). Well then I guess I'l look forward to speeking to you all. If you would like to contact me just contact my e-mail and I'l get back to you since I don't tend to spen much time on the internet so I have time to keep coming back here to check. Also what is this 'Diasable BBCode in this post' and 'Disable Smilies in this post' mean. Sorry but I'm not really compatible with computers. well then see ya Neil