ABOUT KUNG FU
Kung fu, or traditional wushu, is an umbrella term for Chinese martial arts.
Being a "traditional" martial art, it means kung fu:
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oriented on self-defense,
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has historical context,
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is holistic, focusing not only on fighting but also on health, longevity, mind tools and overall life quality,
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includes forms (sets of movements) to document the techniques and strategy
There are many styles of kung fu. To categorize them, usually we use the geographical approach (Northern and Southern styles) or external/internal styles. However, no style is truly external or internal. To make it more complicated, almost every village in China could have their own family system of martial arts.
What is Hung Gar Kung Fu
The style I train and teach is called Hung Gar or Hung Kuen. It is sometimes also nicknamed Tiger and Crane style, because out of the 5 elements and 5 animals that we have, tiger and crane are the most popular. Hence we can also explain this nickname as one of the characteristics of the style: although it is famous for firm stances and strong punches, there are enough fast and soft techniques. Hung Gar also includes many weapons, such as a sword, broadsword, spear, stick, halberd etc.
Kung Fu is taught hierarchically, which means each style has its lineage to show the quality of the training and belonging to certain masters of streams of the style.
My lineage is: Wong Fei Hung > Lam Sai Wing > Lam Jo > Wong Lei > Leung Kam Kwong > Wong Chung Man > Veronika Partikova
I also did the bai si ceremony to vow my loyalty to my teacher. This is a solemn act and it's life-long binding.
Hung Gar Kung Fu Curriculum
I have developed this curriculum for teaching Hung Kuen.
As I have been training in other systems, such as karate, BJJ, MMA... I was inspired by the structure of such training programs. With that experience, I designed my curriculum to clearly state the goals and content of the training.
Usually, my students seek one or more of these goals:
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Health and movement,
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Holistic development, physical and mental health
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Self-defense and fighting,
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Competitions,
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Complete martial arts system including its culture
About the Curriculum
This curriculum is the outcome of many years of my thinking, work, and past curriculums. Thanks to my karate background I could experience the tidy curriculum of Shotokan karate and in my own teaching, I always needed a similar approach with defined goals and methods. In kung fu in general, it is not that common that a style would have such clear stages because the way of Japanese and Chinese style of teaching are different. I must admit that a full-contact combat experience (sanda, MMA, boxing) made a big difference in creating this, and I am grateful for that lead. This curriculum is a core of techniques and forms of the Hung Kuen style, which were carefully hand-picked from the enormous content of Hung Kuen. All other techniques are still taught in the forms, and forms that are not chosen as the core are still offered as part of the so-called “complete system” for those, who wish to study deeper.
This table shows the flow of the curriculum, including levels (stages). You could say that the basics are covered in the first two years while reaching the blue stripe.
At each level, specific techniques and forms are taught. However, students can learn another/different forms and techniques at different times, depending on their needs. The level is not about collecting forms though, but rather a technical education.
For example, stances are dosed at several levels. But in fact, both kids and adults would learn all of them quite soon. But it will take time and depth to really explain, understand, and use the stances, for example, to generate power while changing direction.
The core techniques are sorted according to the color stages. For example, for the white stripe level, 3 specific stances, 2 hand attacks, and 1 kick are required. Below is an illustration of the techniques (incomplete).
