Animal Styles

[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

[Kensai]

There is alot to this, if you are interested, Shaolin Kung Fu by Wong Kiew Kit is a god book. Also, if you are interested in the Wudang Kung Fu internal styles anything by Sun Lu Tang and Wong Kiew Kit.

 

Here is a some good link:

 

http://www.shaolin.com/page.asp?content_id=972

 

Hope this helps.

[Red J]

Check out this thread. It may be of some help. The last post has two links that give good descriptions of the 5 animals.

 

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=4190

[Kyle-san]

Hm, the Aki-Jujitsu style that I was studying had 5 animals in it. Tiger, Crane, Snake, Mantis and Monkey. Although, it isn't traditional Aiki-Jujutsu, but rather it seems to be a hybrid of sorts.

[Neil]

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?

[Kensai]

Well Neil, the Chinese consider their arts sacride. They are the passion of the nation. They are past from father to son and from Sifu to student. They dont want the wided-eyed white man knowing to many of thier secrets. And, seeing what we (westerners) have done to some of their systems do you blame them. Where is it that you live in our mighty nation? There are some good teachers in the UK. Many are in London and the surrounding counties.

 

Take Care.

[Iron Arahat]

They are past from father to son and from Sifu to student. They dont want the wided-eyed white man knowing to many of thier secrets.

 

Hmm...a little sterotypical.

 

The thing here is that in the past the Chinese did not set up chains of schools (commercialize). It is more like family. Many Chinese Masters care about the quality of student, and their ability to maintain the integrity of the system, and lineage.

 

It's about trust, not race.

 

Animal styles are typically sub-systems of kung-fu, a small part of a larger art. Beware of those who just teach "Tiger" as a whole system. People will have their specialties though. In larger Kung-fu systems you will often see people learn an animal style that suits their persona, and body type.

[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.

[Neil]

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

[Kensai]

I always thnought the elements went with the Wudang kung fu.

 

Take Care.