So im about to delve into my first Hung Gar class this week. From what I hear its going to be a Doosey. Im mid 40's and in good shape. MA and yoga a few times a week. What should I be expecting besides many hours of horse stance? Thank you,
Well I had my first Hung Gar class at one of the Yee Schools and to tell you the truth I loved it. This was last night and I still feel my legs throbbing from sitting in Horse and moving in and out of horse into other stances. Im sorry if I dont remember the name. The good thing was I was able to move in and out of these stances (Not easily) because of the similarities between Hung Gar conditioning and Yoga, yes Yoga. Most of the deep long stances come right from yoga and made the class "Slightly" easier. Basically I was able to get thru it. After about 20-25 minutes of conditioning we went thru some drills. The drills were definitely intense. Front stance, someone attacks with a punch to the head. Drop back into horse and block, Scootch in(Yes scootch, sorry terms) punch to the face and what seemed to be a shudo (Japanese term for chop) to the center of the chest. This went on for awhile till the end of class. The sensation in my legs after class was similar to a HEAVY squat day at the gym. My recommendations to the 40+ people looking to start Hung Gar. Practice your horse stance everyday, if your serious do some real yoga(Vinyasa, Hatha(Big Pose holding yoga) and put some time into it. Im thinking it will pay off. Thank you for listening to my rant. More to come.
Glad you enjoyed your first lesson! Hung Gar is a pretty fun style of kung fu with a lot of variety in my experience. Enjoy your training
Just noticed that you do aikedo. Lots of overlap. To me the foot work in hung is closer to that of judo than aikedo (more feet parallel than at 90 degrees) but much of the mechanics of the cranes wing and crain's head techniques have an "aikedo flow". Also although beginners often focus on the muscle tension used in techniques in fact the key to Hung gar is relaxation. (This is true for all martial arts it's just that Hung often looks so tense on the surface it can be hard to see the relaxation underneath).
I did notice the instructor doing some stepping off the line to the outside with a block. That in essence is straight Aikido. So im guessing I will be seeing some similarities which will help. I was trying to find an art that would compliment what I now and I think I have found it. Right now I only know what was explained to me from a friend and read in a bunch of articles. Without the yoga I have done I dont think I would have made it thru class last night. Sitting in those poses for as long as we did. Seemed like a bent over horse stance. Thought I heard someone say turtle? Dont quote me on that.
If you like stepping off line you are going to love Hung gar - one of the big four stances is crane stance. It's specifically designed for stepping off line forwards or backwards in straight lines, circles and spirals. All the fun of the dynamic sphere.
Depends - I am from a different school so our slybus will be in a different order. But there are only six key stances - tiger (also called bow and arrow), horse, cat, crane and dragon. So should not be long. Names can vary, In our school the stance below is called crane stance. The name refers to the legs only. The arms have their own names. NOTE you often see double griping hands, e.g double tiger or dragon hands accompanying crane stance, imagine what happens if the guy in the picture has a grip on the opponent with both hands and unwinds anticlockwise into a horse stance from this position.
We did that stance last night. But they had us turn all the way around and look at the back of our foot, stretching purposes.. It was extremely intense. The funny thing is Sifu said he was surprised I made it thru class. The School is a Yee's Hung Gar. We also did Dragon but I dont remember how it was done. I was just trying to make it thru the class.
That would be crane spreads wings and is a technique (or rather a still taken from several techniques using combinations of rising, clearing, circling, and kneeing). It is not one of the 5 fundamental stances in the way that horse, tiger, or our "crane stance" are formal stances that drive the nuts and bolts of movement and power generation in the art. As far as it being confusing to have different names for the same thing, well, yes, but I suspect that it was ever thus. It is a problem with an art that uses poetry and metaphor to discuss it's principles and practice. However it shouldn't really mater that much what you call it. what maters is how it is done and how it is applied. Anyone looking at the picture bellow should be able to see the potential for application in the movement. the picture above is not off someone from the school to which I belong. I picked it because it is just a great example of the stance, a link to the school for the photo is included bellow. http://southerncranekungfu.com/about-sck/history-of-tiger-crane-combination/ Does CLF employ this stance?
Its the lower picture. We assumed that stance and turned back as to see the back of our foot. Really good stuff..
Can one of you recommend some reading? Maybe a good book or something? Also what are the 5 fundamental stances? I guess I need some reading material so when they speak to me in class im not totally clueless...
Unless someone else who does Yee's Hung Ga weighs in, I think the least confusing approach would be to just carry on going to classes and just following along. You can always ask the teacher/sifu questions about terminology if you want. Don't forget, everyone else in the class who knows what they're doing now started where you are, and most likely learnt what they know through continued training. There is lots of material out there on Hung Gar, both online and in books, but it is a style with many variations and branches. Different schools use different terminology, teach things in a different order, use some different training methods and just do things a bit differently. Different of course doesn't necessarily mean better or worse, but sometimes too much information too early on will only slow down your learning.
The names vary but these are the main five stances you will use over and over again. Huoxingyang is right about not looking at books or the internet too much at the start. I tell my students not to look at the internet at all for the first 6 months of training. There is a lot of surface variation between different schools of Hung ga. In my opinion most of this variation is just an expression of the different skills and interests of key teachers over time. Schools teach the same art just a different emphasis. However to a beginner this can appear confusing. The thing to remember about stance training is that it is not about being tough or building toughness. Although you do need to be tough to do it. Its about building muscle memory and body awareness so that over time you will not only learn how to flow from stance to stance when moving, but also learn how the stances allow the creation and delivery of power in locks and throws and strikes. In short you can't do too much stance training. The five major stances in arbitrary order (1) Tiger / bow and arrow (2) Horse (3) Crane on left (4) cat on right (5) dragon Note: personaly I would say that the tail bone should be tucked under a little and the hips rotated forward, rather than "pushed forward" as stated in the illustration. If you are a Hung practitioner what do you call stances 1-5 ? Note: it occurred to me that this might be a good start for a wider conversation about stances in martial arts in general . so I have started a new thread - stances, do you use them?