My mate Andy is really good at Wing Tsun and Judo, and he told me that southern martial arts are WAY better than northenr martial arts but I don’t know if that’s just because he does judo.
Do any of you know which is better?
I was thinking of learning northern like eagle or something but now that Andy told me southern is better I don’t know- so maybe Hung Gar or somehting.
any advice from you?
Neither Northern or Southern is better or worse than the other. Its the practioner of the art not the art itself that wins fights. A poor practioner of the Southern styles can loose to a skilled practioner of the Northern styles, and vice versa.
My advise is ignore what your friend says, and visit both the Northern and Southern styles around you and find a school that you like and feel comftable itraining at.
The typical northern style are long fist (changquan) derived; hence, these style are a bit more tertiary in nature. Meaning, the two-dimensional aspects are obvious, e.g., tantui (snapping leg), etc. However, long fist derived styles conceal their techniques, i.e., tertiary aspects; hence, being commonly refer to as flowery hands.
Consequently, southern styles are more primary and secondary in nature; in a colloquial speech, ‘You get what you see!’ Thus, being direct in nature; hence, a practitioner could typically learn his arsenal quicker.
However, in the typical nature of Chinese martial arts, ‘what is obvious isn’t.’ Meaning, some style don’t follow these norms; for example, bajiquan (eight extremities boxing), which is non-long fist based style, is very direct in nature, just like xingyiquan (shape thought boxing). Then you have southern style like cailifoquan (grass plum Buddha boxing), who possess very intricate lu (way) at its advance level, which can be perceived as flowery.
In closing, ‘the man makes the style,’ but you do need a shifu, who knows the way of the style…
I think that there is alot of truth in what you said. Being a student of Choy Lay Fut and Chen Taiji I can tell you that Choy Lay Fut is a lot more straight forward and easy to apply. Chen Taiji has this “mysterious” quality about it that makes it hard to understand.
Then you have southern style like cailifoquan (grass plum Buddha boxing), who possess very intricate lu (way) at its advance level, which can be perceived as flowery.
Don’t you mean “turtle plum buddha boxing”? Haha…remember that Choy and Lee are family names, they don’t refer to the literal meaning of the words. But you probably already know that!
Anyways, Choy Lay Fut has Northern roots as well, hence the perception that it is flowery. Choy Lay Fut is almost like Northern kung fu applied in a Southern way.
Fu-Pow,
Indeed, you are right; however, sometimes surnames possess a hidden meaning that may be over looked. For example, Baker: English
Occupational name for a baker, derived from Middle English bakere.
Simply Put
Northern = Complex fancy hand movement, and very high kicks.
Southern = Not so fancy hand movements, but low very practical kicks.
Spirit Fist (my style) has northern hand movements, and southern kicks. Great stuff for self defense. 
I personally find northern styles more developed with more advanced theories and applications.
Northern China had historically been more war-prone, also it has also historically been the civilization center of China. Hence its combatives arts are more developed.
For a simple example, the power generation difference between northern and southern arts is vastly different. Northern art’s body structure in power generation is vastly superior to southern’s.
To say that northern arts is fancy hand movements and high kicks is incorrect. Most of the famous major style in CMA are northern: XingYi, Taiji, Baji, BaGua, ChangQuan ( these include Cha, Hua, Hong…etc ), mantis, etc etc.
Comparitively speaking, southern arts are only known in their immediate area. Go to China, and ask them about WingChun and CaiLiFuo, they’ll say “who?”.
The false idea that northern styles are fancy is propagated by the ChangQuan forms in contemporary wushu. While it’s similar to the movement in the Cha, Hua styles, it contains none of the power generation, and combative ideas in these arts.
Of course, with any martial art, if one trains diligently in it it’ll be very applicable.
*That being said, many people feel that the southern arts further refined the technique and developed their styles in order to defeat their northern opponents, the Ching. Otherwise, why would they still be practiced? Also if you go to China, you will find many people are well aware of Wing Chun and Choy Li Fut. Perhaps you were asking tourists! Did you ask in the dialect of that region? Or did you say Wing Chun to people in Beijing? Young Chun would be closer to the mark. But then again, I doubt they know what a Hot Dog is in Frankfort either. Est’ que vous avez french fries?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! 
My mate Andy (Judo grandmaster) told me that in the north they ONLY use kicks and there are no hand techniques. I am guessing that means that in the south they only use hands and there are no kicks.
I reckon it would be really cool to see a fight between north and south-
north would try to kick south loads and if south punches then north will block with his kicks. This sounds really cool!
Any videos of this?
“Power comes from the mind of the spiriutal tiger. The dragon is the essence.” Ninja saying
Choy Lee Fut, wing chun, and Hung ga are three of the most popular styles to come from southern china. to say that people in china wouldn’t know them is incorrect. in fact the choy lee fut name is so big that people who come to america and see my schools name “Hung Sing” immediately recognize it as CLF.
usually in tournaments, i notice choy lee fut comes out the winner. i’m sure other clf fighters have fought against and won against northern stylists.
i don’t know how much clf experience you may have had, but clf was created during times of war, and fine tuned during those turbulent times. the southern chinese were some very hardcore fighters, and would kill without thinking twice.
off the subject, did you guys know that in some parts of southern china the famine was so bad they were serving up human meat pork buns. i recently read somewhere that many children were missing because the parents were selling them off to the highest bidder.
No, absolutely false.
It is interesting the kicking (ti) misnomer continues to be fanned, as southern being all hitting (da).
In reality, they are few northern styles that actually use high kick per say; the most common being spring leg (tantui), which is executed at waist level.
Actually northern style use a lot of hitting (da) theories, just like any other southern style; for example, fanziquan (thumbing center boxing), use the liquan (standing fist), just like yongchuanquan/wihng cheun kyuhn (forever spring boxing).
Well, because CLF is “easier” to apply (“easy” is, of course, a relative term) it makes sense that you would find some very good CLF fighters.
Just because Northern arts have a higher level of complexity doesn’t mean that everyone is going to achieve that level. For example, Taiji is one of these higher level arts but the way most practice it, it would not hold up against someone with equal experience in a “working man’s art” like Choy Lay Fut.
However, in my experience the higher levels of Taiji (in terms of Yi, Jin and Tao ie intent, body mechanics and strategy) go way beyond anything Choy Lay Fut has to offer. But how many people have the time, talent and initiative to get to that level that makes Taiji so effective? I would guess not many.
So where is your priority? To learn something that won’t have a pay off for at least 10 years of study? Or to learn something that is easier to understand and immediately applicable but doesn’t have the same kind of potential?
I guess in my case I chose not to answer that question and so I try to learn both ways. 
I’ve never found longfist particularly hard to apply. Indeed, teaching a newbie to apply Sow Choy can be quite difficult. I’m sure if your friend Andy did his Judo without a partner, some of it would look like northern kung fu
There are very good schools teaching very effective self defence from both camps, and folklore and generalisations are not particularly useful :rolleyes:
We must take into account that northern styles are indeed influenced by their environment, i.e., winter climate, and their heritage, i.e., military. Hence, the uses of restricted clothing would definitely limit certain movements; thus the use of big movements, e.g., tongbeiquan, piguaquan, etc. However, we must realize these styles, especially pre-Qing dynasty, were actual military style, i.e., taizuquan, sunbinquan, etc.; were also restricted physically by armor; this can seen in the applications, i.e., use of the shoulder, forearms, etc., in Chen shi taijiquan.
Therefore, taking these notions into account; northern styles by norm have more time on hand to developed particular theories that weren’t visible to the naked eyes, i.e., tertiary techniques/flowery, because of the winter climate and their military heritage.
Hey, what can someone do for four months, i.e., winter season, out of the year; just practice, practice, and more practice!
Congratulations to Vasquez on the birth of his son, Mega_Fist!
He is a (cow) chip off the old Block(head) !
Nice to see he is continuing the dynasty.
A new poster boy for Pro Choice and Planned Parenthood
Your friend is wrong.
Most northern styles rarely execute high kicks, the high kicks you see in forms are for practicing range of movements. When they do execute high kicks, it’s when they have you controlled with their hands, then the kick comes out.
It’s false to say that northern styles takes longer to apply than southern. How can a style that is taught in military takes a long time to learn? Soldiers need to be combat ready as soon as possible, they don’t have 10 years to master anything, they have maybe a few months max. Any MA taught properly should produce competent fighters within a short range of time ( yes, that includes taiji ). Mastery of the more complex theories will take time, but that’s true for anything.
You must remember that most northern arts like Baji, XingYi, Pigua, Fanzi, ChuoJiao, Cha, Hua..etc ARE the working people’s art. They were passed on in rural areas by farmers of the yellow plains. Even taiji was passed on for a long time in the farmer village Chen JiaGou before it became as wide spread as it is today. Where do the soldiers came from? Farmers. What do the soldiers do when they retire? Farming. This is true even today in China.
Pardon GFX,
Not certain if you are referring to my comments or not? When I mention military, I was referring to the use of armor, especially styles that go back to the Song Dynasty.
Indeed, northern styles don’t take longer per say, then southern styles; however, we must look at the intricacy within certain northern styles, i.e., fanziyingzhaoquan, liuhetanglangquan, etc., possess very intricate da (strike) notions, which takes time to master.
However, you mention a few styles here that have roots in military, but were transmitted to peasant; for example, a military officer, Hua, Zongqi passed his knowledge of jiaziquan to the peasants of Guanxian County, Shandong Province. Then, Hua invited his classmate Cha, Yuanyi to assist him in transmitting the art of jiaziquan to this community. In time this art would be divided into two styles, carrying the surname of their respected Shifu, i.e., huaquan and chaquan.
Then you have the case Chen shi taijiquan, which was originally transmitted by Chen, Wangting, who was an officer under the Ming Dynasty and was greatly influence by General Qi, Jiguang, who author a manual on military fighting arts.
Indeed, you are right- warriors, traditionally emerge as farmers and at the end of their military lives they return home to harvest the crops; this cycle still continues to this day in age through out numerous societies.
However, because the nature being of a farmer is waiting for harvest- it gave them the opportunity to developed intricate style, because time was on their side, not like styles like yongchunquan, which was designed to learn quickly, i.e., less lu, etc., because the practitioners were traveling actors.
However, the actual problem here is - nothing in Chinese martial arts can be actually stereotyped; hence, describing one style may not work for the next one. :o
.
The answer is simple. The better “gong-fu” man wins. The method is really secondary. I study the Internal Arts and have for some time, I don’t really think it would give me any advantage over a superior “external” boxer. I may be a better “boxer” beacuase I work hard and have a good method, but the fact remains is that there are “external” and “internal” boxers that are so much better than I.
What I have seen in CMA? There are techniques and counters that run through all arts. In my Bagua we have some Mantis hand, a ton of Shuai Jao and some Pheonix eye fist. No one re-invented the wheel, they just changed training
according to emphasis.
I competely agree with you Baihe and Mulong.
The point I was trying to make was that don’t stereotype other styles of martial arts based on such misinformation as mentioned in posts before. I’m trying to bring more information to the other posters so that they may think for themself and try to seek out more information about this themselves.
I was also in the same boat when I was learning southern arts, and was exposed to the “northern is fancy kicks” or “northern is advanced, takes a long time to learn” mentality.