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Tag: 5 animals

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Kung Fu

Shaolin Kung Fu 5 Animals Self Defence

ed from beginners to second level black belts with everyone enjoying the whole 3 hours which passed very quickly. Sifu Craig explained in his entertaining and humorous way the origin of the adaption of animal fighting styles to martial arts. One story was that a monk trying to shoo a crane from a vegetable garden was unable to hit the crane with a stick, every attempt to strike the crane would be averted with the monk realizing that the crane’s method of defense would be useful in martial arts. The 5 animal styles form part of the golden lion syllabus but does not define golden lion; rather it adds to a very broad and extensive body of knowledge. The 5 animals which are taught at golden lion are ‘best of class’ and represent the most efficient and skilled fighters for that type of animal. The 5 animals also represent 5 different types of abilities and related skills allowing the Practitioner to change between animal fighting styles when required. The animals themselves include the Tiger, leopard, Crane, Snake and Dragon. The Tiger is the largest and most powerful and tends to charge the opponent and attack directly with brute force using circular arm movements to overwhelm the opponent. The hand shape resembles a tiger claw which is used to strike and rip. The spirit of the tiger is fierce and fearless and is best used when an opponent is smaller or weaker. The Leopard is smaller and not as powerful as the tiger, it relies more on speed and accuracy with its strikes and targets: soft-tissue regions and other vital areas such as the neck and temple. The Leopard uses the second set of knuckles to strike in order to reach areas that a traditional fist shape could not access. The Crane is a skinny hollow boned bird with little muscle power; it uses evasion, speed and accuracy to overwhelm the enemy with rapid strikes and evades using circular movements. The crane’s weapons include the crane’s beak, wings and legs. The crane’s beak hand shape which if formed by placing the tips of the fingers and thumb together to strike soft areas such as the eyes, throat, ears and heart; sides of the head; ribs. When facing a more powerful opponent, using the speed and evasiveness of the crane style can be used rather than trying to match an opponent using power. The Snake has no fists and relies on coiling motions and rapid and accurate striking to the vital parts of the body, especially the eyes, face and throat using the ends of the fingers to emulate the snakes head. The snake utilizes simultaneous striking and locking techniques to evade and strike at the same time assuring that the practitioner has a high chance of causing extreme damage with little strength. Like the crane, the snake style can be used against a more powerful opponent. Dragon is an internal, Chi cultivating style and is characterized by grabbing, breaking and locking techniques using apposing thumb and fingers. The style combines the elements of the four other animals. If you are ever lucky enough to have Sifu Craig demonstrate the dragon claw strangle on your throat it is something you will never forget. Sifu Craig showed us a drill for each of the 5 animals and when the class was able to perform the exercise a further extension would be added to give us some very effective and powerful techniques. Some of the drills involved sending your opponent to the ground forcibly (which most people agreed strangely) provided quite a sense of satisfaction. Each set of techniques involved quite different movements ranging from striking the side of the neck with snake to using transition to a dragon stance to send an opponent to the ground. It was also stressed throughout the seminar that correct stance work was essential for any of the 5 animal styles to be correctly applied. Dave Mallon M’Beena student

Shaolin Kung Fu 5 Animals Self defence seminar by Sifu Craig Rayner was held on 21 September at Golden Lion Rowville, assisted by Sijie Joey Baful. Attendees ranged from beginners to second level black belts with everyone enjoying the whole 3 hours which passed very quickly. Sifu Craig explained in his entertaining and humorous way the origin of […]

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