Hung Ga (Designating “the House of the First Ming Emperor”) was originally founded as a Han Chinese patriotic coalition, more specifically, an anti-Qing fraternity. With the Opium Wars, “The Eight-Nation Alliance”, and Japanese involvement with the Qing Court, we again see Han fraternal bonding as an answer to foreign incursion, by the formation of the “Ten Tigers of Gwong Dung”, and other like-minded associations, all under the blanket name of “Hung”. Continue reading
My Sifu told me that the “oldtimers” always squeezed the fists hard when training the sets for strength, slowly, each movement one by one. Think Jai Kiu, “Controlling Bridge” in “Taming the Tiger” or “Iron Thread”.
Old time Masters also used many other devices to train the grip – jars, bundle of chopsticks, stone locks, head long poles – grip strength was obviously very important to them.
To train the grip is a very demanding endeavor not only for your hands and fingers, but your CNS as well, so it is advise to have a long rest between the “sets”. Best would to train the trip throughout the day – but it is not very practical to carry a jar, a brick, not to mention a stone lock or a heavy long pole….
Grand Master Lam Sai Wing had a secret weapon against the (hand) weakness in his sleeve – literally. Continue reading
Chinese martial arts have an array of various training tools – stone locks, wall bags, sandbags, kicking poles, and – various wooden dummies.
Some systems include specialized dummies not only for barehand fighting, but multiple opponent fighting too, as well as various weapons. Wing Cheun has “Long Pole Dummy” (Gwan Jong), Choi Lei Fat “Three Stars Knive Dummy” (Saam Sing Dou Jong), or “Plum Blossom Long Pole Dummy” (Mui Fa Gwan Jong). Continue reading
How to celebrate the Chinese New Year of Fire Monkey?
With some good Gung Fu, of course.
Grand Master Gang Dak Hoi was a sworn brother of my Si Gung, late Grand Master Lam Jou. Some of the Lam Family Hung Kyun weapons as well as sparring sets come original from Daai Sing Pek Gwa Mun, ie. the sabre and the sword. My Si Gung used to teach Hau Kyun, “Monkey set”, as you can see on the photo above, but he has stopped teaching it long time ago. He always praised Gang Dak Hoi’s Gung Fu as top notch. Continue reading