Kung Fu

So I'm quite into my martial arts. I'm learning kung fu (Yin Jow Fan Tzu - Eagle Claw Kung Fu* & Southern Lion Dance) and Chen tai chi. Done a (very) little bit of Judo and Aikido. I also like doing my research on things...

*Look at the bottom of this page for a better translation and explanation of the style's name. If you're interested in that kind of thing.

In my ramblings I'm going use style and system almost synonymously, and I'm going to use the term 'martial art' as opposed to 'combat system' or anything like that. While combat system is probably a better description for most of the styles out there, the term martial arts is more well known and accepted.

There's a few subpages I've made with regards to the martial arts world, a brief look at 'using' self defence (spoiler, there are better things to do), what to look for in a martial arts school (as a general look, not plugging ANY school), what McDojos are and why to avoid them, and my opinion on chi (another spoiler - it doesn't exist, but the idea can be a useful model).

What is kung fu? (and tai chi)

Kung fu itself does not mean martial arts. Or boxing. Or fighting.

It doesn't particularly translate well, in part due to there being no commonality in the source languages between English and the various Chinese languages and dialects. Language plays an important part in *how* people actually think - did you assume that people in other countries just have the same style of thoughts as you do? You'd be surprised.

The best translation for the idea is 'skill through hard work'.

Notice there's no mention of fighting in there. Technically, kung fu is any skill that has be honed to a high level. It could be playing an instrument, cooking, academic teaching, wilderness survival skills... or indeed fighting.

I thought you just said kung fu wasn't fighting!

All skilled fighting is kung fu, but not all kung fu is skilled fighting. Saying that, the term 'kung fu' has become synonymous with especially Eastern fighting styles but the basis of the term is far more broad. 'WuShu' was the closest Chinese term for 'martial arts', although WuShu has since become synonymous with performance or stage martial arts.

WuShu / Martial Arts

So... Kung Fu isn't fighting, and WuShu is acting?

Language is a funny, and continuously evolving thing - read George Orwell's '1984', specifically take note of how "Newspeak" is used.

Huh, back to language stuff again? I thought this was about kung fu?

Fine. Kung Fu. The modern Western meaning has become an all encompassing 'Chinese Boxing'. Practitioners use it to mean 'the science of fighting', although Western fighting styles are just as much of a science.

At last. Kung fu is boxing but with different rules! Thank you.

Hmm.... nearly. Near enough. Kinda. Notice just above where I said (typed) "all encompassing"? Kung fu isn't one system. It isn't even different 'dialects' or styles of one overarching system. It is many systems, and most of them vastly different to each other (as different as you can be when your model, your goal is manipulate the human body. There are only so many different ways to effectively control or efficiently break it).

Kung fu, in terms of fighting, can be anything from a stage performance style (modern WuShu or Shaolin), to a more passive/soft style (tai chi - yes it's a fighting system), to a fully aggressive every move is bone shattering style (hung gar? certain animal styles) and everything in between.

Ok. That kinda makes sense. Today 'Kung Fu' for Chinese martial arts is like having one term for Western fighting that would include boxing, wrestling, savate and stuff.

Yes. See what I mean about language being funny? We just have 'Fighting' to cover everything, or having to use regional descriptors - Eastern/Western martial arts etc.

Wait. Tai chi? Isn't that slow and for old people? It looks like Yoga. How is that fighting?

Tai chi started as a Chinese martial art (and is therefore under our defined banner of 'kung fu'), and certain styles of tai chi still are very effective martial arts. It's more of a long-game system than most kung fu styles, it generally takes longer to get the skill to a combat level, but once there it is just as effective as any other pressure tested system, AND due to the style's training has the substantial advantage to remain useful far longer into old age than most other styles.

A lot of modern tai chi has been modified, declawed if you will, to make it more accessible for older people to jump straight into it. Those styles are far more focussed on the health and body benefits than being an effective fighting system, and pretty much all styles that have done this are very honest about it. They don't parade around pretending to be a fighting system for the older generations.

The older tai chi styles (generally referred to as tai chi chuan), especially Chen style - one of the oldest and founding tai chi styles - to this day retain their martial proficiency. The trick is to find an instructor who is both familiar and competent with using the style with resistive partners.

That's bull. Tai chi can't be that useful in a fight.

Yes it can. My favourite example at present:

There's an MMA coach who is currently teaching in Beijing - Ramsey Dewey - who has full contact MMA experience. A good martial history. And a habit of calling out martial art bullsh!t in a very watchable way. He has sparred with an old - 80 years old IIRC - tai chi practitioner. And he lost. Many times. And not by going easy on the guy. https://youtu.be/Y_T0qJmXMSU. This isn't some wannabe MMA fighter, this is someone with repeated experience *winning* in the ring (or square. whatever MMA rounds are fought in).

There are many other examples all over the internet where people of the 'older generation' have schooled far younger people. Sometimes decent sparring, sometimes just a couple of movements - enough for the younger people to back off and think twice about doing anything more. Admittedly there are also examples of 'tai chi masters' being too confident in their own ability and losing sparring matches in a hilariously short time, but they tend to be more ego-shows rather than impromptu demonstrations or defence.

What is Lion Dance?

Basically, lion dance (or dragon dance, there's also monkey, even unicorn... all mostly the same as each other in intent but different costumes and 'personalities' to emote) is a public performance.

For the public it is a pretty demonstration designed to ward off evil spirits and bring forth good luck and good fortune for those present.

For the practitioners it's a way of demonstrating their exceptional martial skill without having to hurt an opponent, without having to stage a choreographed fight, and without boring the audience - try watching (and I mean *just* watching) form sequences for 15-30 minutes and say you are still interested at the end! And then you get told there's more to go through... Even multi-person weapon forms will have trouble there. Lion dances are far more varied, can be somewhat interactive, can be used to tell stories.

Click the graphic

Why am I learning it?

Not to fight. Not to compete.

Mostly to stay in good health. I get bored at gyms, the repetitive nature of it, and the lack of reason for most of the muscle based exercises.

Kung fu allows for constant learning on top of exercise. And the muscle groups that are getting a workout tend to be those that are actually used day to day, instead of 'vanity muscles' that gyms tend to focus on.

The Lion Dance helps with the timing, stamina, and was in part designed for practitioners to show off their martial arts school's skill without having to actually fight each other (though fights did often break out between these lions). Taking part in the booked performances also help massively with confidence, planning, and on-the-spot adaptation when the customer decides they need something new done mid-performance, or a bystander tries to interfere (normally with the lion. yes, like that.) because they're intoxicated and think it's funny.

I find it interesting. The teaching at this school, although without explicitly stating it, revolves around physics, physiology and psychology. I like seeing the physics part, a lot.

So, what do I mean by that?

Physics: This is what you are doing with yourself, and what you are observing. There is angular momentum (and moments in general), conservation of momentum, centre of mass for both stability & tipping points, force (mass x acceleration, not Star Wars), levers fulcrums and pivots... There's a lot of hard, 'base science' in fighting and it turns out I really enjoy working out the appropriate physics models for the techniques and applications being used.

Physiology: Mostly, this is how you physically manipulate your opponent. The rest is how to stop yourself being manipulated. This revolves around how the various joints work (or rather, don't work with their range and limits of motion), how muscles and tendons are used and can be interfered with (locks, grappling), and where suitable targets are to cause your desired effect. Accuracy being far more important than power, and only marginally more important than speed (my opinion).

Physcology: This is your 'scenario'. How do fights start? What are common targets? Common places? Combos? Can you 'predict' a next move? Can you 'force' (magic trick 'forcing' this time) a particular move? Trick your opponent into falling into a pattern? Alternatively can you use it to change how your opponent views you - more scary, or less of a threat? Outside of the actual fighting, can you use it to avoid the fight entirely?

I'm also interested in learning the culture behind it. It can only improve my own being, my own behaviour, if I am familiar with other countries customs, beliefs, and traditions. This is not saying I have to adopt them as my own, but more to understand and respect them. The more you learn about other cultures the more it becomes apparent that the people behind them really aren't different. There are the same base drives, just different ways of projecting them and building up to modern life.

And lastly, it helps keep me occupied. If I wasn't learning kung fu odds are I'd be in front a TV or a computer.

Why did I choose, and then stay with this style?

I chose the school without doing any of the research I have recommended on this site, or any other.

I saw the school out in Camberley, in the walkway outside the small Halfords store & where Woolworths used to be. They were mainly giving out leaflets but a few were demonstrating their skills (mostly acrobatic jumps & kicks).

I went along to the classes just to give it a go, and stuck with it as it was fun, I was getting faster and more flexible, and there was a reasonable amount of sparring. I could also really learn from the instructor - this is really important. You can have a fantastic instructor but if you cannot learn from them, and they cannot adapt their teaching methods to you, then you should find another school.

A couple of years into my training the instructor shifted system from Long Fist to Eagle Claw. A very similar style, but with a far stronger lineage to learn from. The instructor's teacher had retired, leaving the instructor without a path to improve himself, and so be able to teach his students to a continually higher level. Many instructors would just stick to teaching what they know, they are now the highest level of the style they are teaching! Excitement! But this instructor actively sought out a new teacher with specific criteria. He wanted:

A similar style. It didn't have to be the same style as he was teaching then, but it shouldn't be so different that everyone, him included, would have to undo all their training.
A stable kung fu family. An active lineage. This way if something happened to his new instructor there would still be resources for him to draw on without having to start over again.

So he found a teacher for the Lau family Eagle Claw kung fu system, worldwide teachers, history and respect.

This fork of Eagle Claw has a genuine 'martial pedigree', a history of being pressure tested and improved upon, and with instructors right up to the highest level who are more interested in teaching their skill than satisfying any ego.

It is incredible to hear a martial arts instructor, when confronted with a marial question (how does this odd looking move work, how would you counter X etc.) that they do not know the answer to, admit they don't know and resolve to go up through their instructors, to the top if necessary, and find out. There have even been refinements to movements based from these types of questions. A system that is self critical, and through that is evolving. Is becoming better.

Any style that does not improve, does not evolve for 'tradition's sake' is doomed to fail as other styles adapt and become better.

To my instructor's great credit he has stuck with the Lau family through a 'political' squabble within the UK branch of the school that, if he chosen otherwise, could have irreparably damaged his reputation in the world wide traditional martial arts community (as in just mentioning that he was training under the forked school would have sealed how others regarded him). The situation ended with his immediate teacher forking his school and teaching independantly of the Lau lineage, while my instructor remained with it.

One of the actions that impressed me is that after the forking: no bad words were allowed regarding his now ex-teacher, that teacher's skill, or what had happened. The split school was not to be insulted, put down, or in any other way bad mouthed. This was expected to be followed both in and out of classes.

The teacher's history in the school was not erased, and from day one of it all his influence in teaching my instructor is still acknowledged.

The offending party was then (and to this day still is) not so gracious when mentioning any Lau family school or practitioner, and most definitely less than gracious when mentioning my instructor and his school even today (the fork happening in December 2015, still hearing about mid lesson 'heated & extended comments' regarding us in December 2018).

I think my instructor chose his side wisely and would have lost a lot of his adult students had he either allowed a retaliatory toxic environment to take hold, or if he had chosen to go with the forked school and in doing so supported an openly toxic attitude from what would be the highest level of 'new' style to the Lau family to become standard in the classes.

The Lau family teaching method pressure tests, has light sparring, explores application and body mechanics in detail, is social, invites (polite) questions and works to improve itself wherever possible.

Why would I not want to train here.

What does the future hold for my training?

To continue to grow and learn. I'll stay at this school for as long as I am learning from it. At some point I may look into additional schools and cross-train, but that is not required given my current goals for learning a martial art.

I may look into additional weapon seminars, for fun. I'd love to properly learn how to use a rope dart or sectioned chain whip. The three section staff looks great as well.

While I enjoy assisting during classes I have no aspirations to run my own school.

'My' Style

My style of kung fu

Generally referred to as 'Eagle Claw' kung fu, Lau family lineage.

The shortened traditional name is Yin Jow Fan Tzu. The longer name includes the translation to "Northern Shaolin" as well, as it's of northern Chinese origin, and everything wants Shaolin roots.

Back to the shortened name. Yin Jow refers to the Eagle Claw 'flavour' of the actual style. It turns out the 'primary' style is Fan Tzu, and has a specialisation within it for using the Eagle Claw grip. This means there are other Fan Tzu (Fanzhi) styles with different specialisation out there that would be 'cousin' styles.

So what is Fan Tzu? It has been translated as 'tumbling boxing', explained essentially as fists rolling over each other in whatever mix of offense and defense is required (think rabbit punching from Wing Chun, or when Neo is getting really close to actually hitting Morpheus at the start of the first Matrix film.

Skip to 4:24

Part of the 'Eagle Claw' addition to the Fan Tzu style includes expanding the 'rotating' theme to the stance transitions.

Eagle claw has been described as 'vicious gliding', with the quality of the stance strengths, and the speed and fluidity of the stance transitions used being well above average when compared to most other TCMAs.

The fast and fluid transitions drive the power behind the strikes, kicks, throws and (standing) grappling, with a huge focus in stance stability throughout every technique. There are no 'over-committed' strikes or kicks, the main ethos behind that being that over-committal, while allowing for slightly further range and power, leads to easy predictability if the technique is blocked or avoided. It has the additional and more serious side effect of the person being far less stable while the technique is being performed (no matter how short of a time period that may be).

Most of the classes consist of a standard warm up, continuing into sets of kicks and footwork transitions (still done as a warm up). There is then technique improvement work, making the base moves for kicks, strikes, throws, stances & transitions etc. better (more efficient, better mechanics/stability/balance and so on). This usually takes an hour out of a 90 minute lesson. The last half hour is spent working on whatever is needed for the students' current grading (usually split into grading groups). Most of the time this is refining form sequences and testing applications from those sequences. This time can also be used for further testing of applications, seeing which other scenarios a technique can be used in, and increasing the resistivity of the application practice. Students will also go through various levels of sparring practice.

This is a 'standard' class, but all of them are different, and will cycle through what is 'in focus' (teaching a bit of everything in each lesson does not make learning easy). Sometimes there will a specific focus on a particular technique family that takes up half the lesson, or padwork, or any number of other things.

The gradings currently consist of a quick demonstration of training techniques, a short break and then your current form sequence. Every fourth test you must demonstrate all previous form sequences as well and are expected to show martial improvement on all of them.

The heads of the lineage are looking into modernising and updating the grading method, at least in the UK, and is shortly expected to start including mildly resistive application demonstrations, and once that has been satisfactorily integrated then the plan is to also include a very short & controlled sparring session (from what I have heard, more akin to a freestyle pressure test of a couple of applications, as well as the staged applications).

My style of tai chi

The Tai Chi style is Chen style Tai Chi Chuan, through Master Wang Heijun (his own website seems to be in transition between domains, and not currently showing anything. Google is your friend here).

I find this compliments the kung fu very well, helping to internalise movements and increase the proportion of 'soft power' to where it should be (one of the main areas that I am working to improve).

This being taught by my kung fu instructor means that on top of the forms and general body mechanics, that we are also going through the applications, and where possible right up to resistive training. Mixing some of these techniques and applications into my kung fu sparring has definitely given me an edge in both practical ability and conserving energy while sparring.

Tai Chi Skill Knowledge

The link/buttony thing above goes to an infographic type page of someone documenting their journey through learning tai chi, and I find that it is very good, very useful, and well worth a read.

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