hung gar techniques

[baldmantiz]

thinking about joining a hung gar school:

are there any/many throws/joint locks in the system or is it mainly hand strikes?

what are the main principles of the system

[Gold Horse Dragon]

Yes there are locks and throws as well as hand, elbow, knee and foot strikes. It is a comprhensive art. One of it's main principles is to destroy the opponents bridge while crossing it and delivering a strike to the body, head.
I do Southern Sil-Lum Black Tiger (Hak Fu Pai) which is a close cousin to Hung Fist.

GHD

[illusionfist]

Hung Kuen stylistically has 18 joint locking methods that are used to orgainze the techniques into a concise model. There are a few throws, but its nothing as sophisticated as some of the throws you might find in a throwing art per se.

Typically, Hung Kuen is a great middle to short range art so therefore the bridging methods allow for a ton of joint locking opportunities, if you so desire. If you are specifically looking for a joint locking type style however, I dont know if Hung Kuen would be the art for you because striking is emphasized over locking (mainly because it is very hard to joint lock). Hung Kuen has a rather large repetoire of techniques, so where one decides to specialize can be drastically different from individual to individual.

Peace :D