Does anybody know what the first "gar" or family art was in southern China, as there are quite a few with similarities and so it would seem that one borrowed from another in succession?
yes, from the southern shaolin temple, but which family style came first from the temple and what is the history surrounding it?
Don't know, nor do I much care, since most of the gar styles are basically the same now. For me, there's no real need to go searching around for histories that I don't want or need to know, sure, it might look good because I can recite it to other people who ask, but I care not about looking good. Besides all that, it's down to the artist, providing the club you go to contains all of the basic elements, it's down to you to learn them, develop them and apply them correctly.
From what I gather, lau was a later art, hung was developed over some time till it was known as hung gar, mok gar is similar that for a while it was a system but was just known to its students as shaolin chuan (or siluam kuen) till it was passed into the mok family and developed from there. Have no idea about Lee or Choi plus the other southern family arts, Yau gar etc.
First of all, southern china kung fu has two main branches: Ling Nam and Fu Jian. The 5 families that we commonly referred to these days is of the Ling Nam branch, and the 5 families are: Hung, Lau, Lee, Choi and Mok. I can't say which one came first, but historically, Hung has been referred has the head of the 5 families. Legends such as Hung Hei Koon (Creator of the system), Wong Fei Hung (that's the doctor character that Jet Li played in a few movies) are all Hung Kuen practioners.
So what are styles from the Fu Jian branch-would it include Hakka styles such as Southern Mantis, Bak Mei etc?
With ragard sto Lau Gar, the full name of this style is "Lau Gar Keun" which translates into " Lau Family Fist". This just meas that this style belongs to the Lau Family. The founder of the style of Lau Gar practised today is a Staff fighting Tiger hunter called (in english) " 3 eyed Lau" because he had a deep scar in his forehead which looked like a third eye from a distance. Just putting my bit in :yeleyes:
