Northern or Southern? which better? and monkey question

[ChinoXL]

I remember watching the discovery channel, it said that back in the old days one was much more dominant over the other and i forgot which?

 

And my second question is about monkey kung fu, is it even effecitive in a fight? My father said no they suck, but i'm hoping hes wrong or what not since it is a martial art.. and which one is better or are they even debatable Shaolin Monkey, Ta Sheng Monkey,Whu Shu Monkey, Pek King Opera Monkey i know i sound like a idiot but i want to know should i even take it since my friends say i fight like a monkey

[InsaneTigerCrane]

my tiger crane is a mixture of southern tiger and northern crane. at first you train them seperately so you can understand there distinct differences.

northern styles use longer range of movements and utilize more kicks. southern styles are more tight, close range power, and use really low stances. cant say which i think is better if you can even say one is better than the other. my body is more adept to northern styles cause of my lean body structure, but i like close range fighting more.

it's difficult to show in clarity when your using a southern or northern technique in your forms. i dont' know if i answered your question but i hope i gave you at least a little insight.

[striking_cobra]

the southern styles have lower stances and all of the kicks are waist high and lower. reason being in the south the ground is very flat.

the norther styles utilize higher kicks ect...because of the rockier terrain and they were influenced by the korean arts.

if you live in the usa or somewhere that has streets, sidewalks ect, as primary, you can guess that a southern style would be more appropriate...though anything you can learn or study will make you a better martial artist. i wouldn't suggest boxing yourself into one style only.

[granmasterchen]

monkey can be rather effective in a fight due to the unique and unorthodox movements and techniques, the use of these techniques and teachings by a practitioner that is good at the art can create a very unpredictable fighter and cause a skilled opponent to lose his cool and calm and become angry and therefore sloppy and end up losing a fight.

[JusticeZero]

Probably something to the whole body type thing. Cousin of mine is built like a bear. Seriously. I've seen actual bears lankier than him. When he was in my area, he trained taijiquan. It seemed as though those at that school ended up gravitating to certain techniques they liked most. With him, the adjustment he ended up making for his own body was that he LOVED deep stances. The stuff I do is pretty deep, but just watching him practice his forms made my thighs hurt. He'd hold bow stances where you could literally balance a glass on his thigh and have a long conversation. He sparred with a boxer punk we knew and ended up winning because his stances were so deep the boxer had to bend down, fouling his footwork and stance, to reach him - his knee was in the way. But he could still glide across the room fast, and was pretty darned mobile. He didn't think the high stances were mobile enough. Made some other comments on why he liked the deep stance stuff that seemed to fit with his structure.