The Lee Koon Hung line does not have an elephant form. CLF has plenty of forms if you are missing some here and there it doesn’t matter. Besides the majority of forms have repetitive sequences anyhow.
Some can be different for example our Crane Form or Hok Ying Kuen has a completely different flow and feel compared to the others.
I this form is also unique it might be worth checking out; however after looking at the pictures of the elephant postures on that website, would you really want to waste “cough” I mean spend the $50 bucks?
I had the chance to view the photos of the person doing the Elephant, after seeing my Sifu show some of the actual skills as well as some si-suk’s, that not Lau Bun’s Elephant Set, if he’s claiming to have gotten that from Doc Fai Wong, he got the wrong end of the stick, or maybe Doc showed him a B.S. version of the set or maybe the guy pieced it together from the article that Doc did on the set, but one thing I know for sure, thats not what I’ve seen before and I believe with my Si-Gung Prof. Jew Leong as Lau Bun’s Successor and my Sifu Dino Salvatera as his successor, I think I can speak on this. Just my opinion, I could be wrong and if this is from Doc all I can say is WOW!!!
After looking at those pictures again and then picking myself up off the floor I think the form is made up. To me it doesn’t even resemble CLF. But then again there is always some nut out there with a flute on his back that will buy the video.
However as the saying goes…“You get what you pay for.”
This guy is real haughty, and acts very ‘sifu-ish’ on the Shuai Chiao board - he didn’t realize I’m his senior by a good stretch, and when I happily accepted his ‘challenge’ he backed down.
I don’t know him. His own Shuai Chiao teacher strongly disagrees with him on many things.
Better for me to just get back to class, and train with Sifu Mak.
BTW CLFNole, you have been keeping in touch with my Sihing Eric (you know him)???
I’ve emailed him a whole bunch of times and haven’t gotten a reply yet.
Thanks alot
But when I checked my Kwoon out in march, my Sifu seemed pretty happy to see me. . . . . well, at least I’m trying to train the hell out of myself at home.
Hung Fut and Black Tiger both have Elephant forms within them as well as Elephant techniques. I don’t know of a complete system based on Elephant , but both styles do contain sets.
Choy Lay Fut seems to utilize Leopard and Crane the most.
Next would be the Tiger, Dragon, and Snake in that order.
I’m not sure if each animal has its own form, in the LKH family we have Tiger, Crane and Leopard forms. Not sure about Snake or Dragon. Although I have a book by Leo Chu that is supposedly the CLF Dragon form.
The other 5 animals are more obscure and the forms may have been lost to time. Apparently the Chan Family has retained many of these individual forms.
The horse form stresses footwork.
The lion form stresses grappling and throws.
The monkey form has rolls, sweeps and trips.
The elephant form has all the heavy handed techniques.
The “golden deer” or “Biu” utilizes thrusting strikes and kicks (Biu also means thrust in Cantonese)
The you also have 5 animal and 10 animal forms that combine them all together.
CLF is so big there is always more Tao Lu to learn.
I don’t think so. The animal forms that he teaches are Crane, Tiger, Leopard and 5-animals (which also has dragon and a little bit of snake.)
I believe that the former students of LKH in Florida (like CLF Nole) have a Snake vs. Crane form and I remember something about a Dragon-Tiger form.
The Chan Family seems to have more of the obscure animal sets so if you wanted to learn something in particular you might have to go outside of the LKH family.
Anyways, the thing is that even if you only ever learned Sup Ji Kau Dah and learned it inside and out that would give you enough of a foundation to be a pretty bad a$$ fighter. Sifu MaK has around 40 hand and weapon forms to teach and that’s enough to keep anyone busy for a while. After all, do you want to be a fighter or a forms historian?
Most of the forms in CLF are designed to show you slightly different aspects of many of the same principles and techniques. The animal forms are little bit more specialized technique-wise but they still adhere to many of the same body principles and fighting strategies.
For me personally I like to keep learning new forms because it keeps me thinking and helps to reveal new things about techniques or prinicples that I learned before. However, at last cound I have learned 26 CLF hand and weapons forms and I probably know how to apply very little of all that I know (especially in regards to the weapons).
At this point I’m more interested learning to apply what I know and apply it under pressure. You do that by drilling and sparring not by learning more material
You see this in most people that are in kung fu for a while. They start out greedy for forms but eventually they say "Sifu, don’t teach me anymore forms…I’ve got to work on what I already know!!! " :o
I don’t practice forms that much, as opposed to drills and applications, or taking parts out of forms and training in them bits at a time.
I’m actually not worried about how many forms I learn at all. I want to train to become a good fighter (btw, are we open on Sunday?) Saturday I have a test. . . . before that I have work. . . . ******!!!
Don’t get me wrong. Form practice is important. Especially at the beginning of training. It sets a solid foundation for further training. Essentially, it gets you in shape…so that you can get in shape!
In addition forms act as kind of a “compressed file” that stores a lot of information in a neat little package. However, eventually each part of the form must be uncompressed to reveal the possiblities that are contained inside. Only your Sifu can really do that for you in an efficient way. Sure you can do it on your own through practice but it takes a lot longer. Sparring and drills also helps to reveal a lot.
(Also as I stated before sometimes learning a new form from the same system can reveal things about a previous form…so having a well rounded system is a good thing…but be careful!)
What you often see in kung fu today is people who know a ton of forms either by learning them through various teachers or videos or whatever. Essentially they know the “compressed version.” They don’t see the possiblities contained inside. They don’t have the whole picture. No one ever showed them how to “uncompress the file.”
So I’m not too impressed with how many forms people know but rather how well they know what’s contained inside them and how well they can apply it…especially under pressure.
wouldn’t training in mixed martial arts be more your thing than CLF? CLF is good for fighting, but mma folks drill fighting techniques and fight all the time, full out - that is all they do. since they don’t do things like forms, they spend more time fighting - which is the only true way to become a better fighter.
i personally dig on CLF b/c it has so much more to offer in addition to being a good fighter, but that’s just wimpy ol me. i don’t get into fights and have nothing to prove to anyone, so knowing how to fight for me is something that aids in understanding forms and make my forms better. I can make the case of why forms training is more practical and directly appliabe in today’s society than training to be a fighter. But again, that’s just me.
So, what is the appeal of traditional Kung-Fu to you if there are other arts out there that get at your goals more directly? (and I ask in all sincerety, not pomposity - i really do admire your enthusiasm for our art, and wished there were more like you in my area).
For me, Choy Lay Fut is one of the most brutal forms of striking anywhere. More so than kempo, kickboxing, karate (including kyokushin), even American boxing in terms of pure, raw power (generated by acceleration, gravity, centripetal force etc. . . . not getting into physics here).
I think CLF is on par with Muay Thai, Bando and any other striking system. I’m taking it because I like to fill more gaps in my Chinese heritage (if I was Thai I would be taking Muay Thai. . . . . . get it?). If I didn’t think it was as powerful as the striking systems used in MMA, I wouldn’t be taking it. And I did my research and calculations as well, both theoritical and mathematical (not doing it again).
And BTW, grappling is not my cup of tea, so obviously I wouldn’t be training in MMA. If I was entering into competition, it would be San Shou, San Da, K-1 etc (considering if I EVER get good enough). And I would be using 100% CLF as well, not some horribly mutated version of amature kickboxing.
Sihing Fu-Pow – Do we have class on Sundays??? I have a test and work from Thursday - Saturday (and tomorrow I have a trip), as well as the Monday after that, so if class is open on Sundays (I heard Azime mention something about Sunday sparring sessions), that would be great.
Or I could call Sifu. . . . . . grrr why didn’t I think of that possibility at first.
smacks himself with self-inflicted Sao Choy gone horribly wrong. OUCH!!!
Very true…just remember that it is more important to fight the individual than the style. You can have the hardest strikes in the world, but someone from another system can dominate you by having better distance, timing, and speed - those are the things that win the fights. And the only way to master those elements is by constantly fighting.
But I agree, CLF’s method of generating power is pretty unique and effective.
Anyways, back to original topic -
I got more information on Elephant Style Kung-Fu guy, and as I guessed, he’s not a CLF or for that matter, a southern arts guy. He learned the one form from Doc. My gf went to visit his school, and she said that he said he also teaches/practices the most popular form of kung-fu, which she said began with the letter M! What styles begin with M? She couldn’t remember, and I was thinking maybe Muay Thai? But she said it wasn’t that, that it was definitely Chinese. Any guesses?
