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The Seven Animals of Me'je Oruka, Part V
The Monkey (Hou Quan)
Namaste’ Students and Fellow Martial Arts Enthusiasts!
The fourth of the seven animals in the 7 Circles System of Southern-Northern Shaolin Kung Fu is the Monkey (Hou). Monkey Style Kung Fu is perhaps the style that comes closest to recreating the postures, gestures, and movements of the animal totem of the style. A southern style, agile, flexible, unpredictable, fast, cunning, strong, comical, and dangerous are all terms that can be accurately used to describe Monkey Kung Fu.
To a martial artist training in a traditional southern style, the focus is on maintaining a solid stance and steady balance, characteristics that are believed to have developed because of the lifestyle of working, living, and fighting on boats. The martial techniques of the southern styles are aimed at developing super-fast reactions to attacks, and practicing the strategy and principle of attacking and defending at the same time. Therefore, in many of the southern styles, both arms and hands are moving and acting at the same time.
The essential aspects of southern styles of Kung Fu generally, and the Monkey Style Kung Fu in particular are to react instinctively, spontaneously to an attack, shower the opponent with a relentless series of blows, but never allowing any limb to be grabbed, and avoiding attempts to throw an opponent.
Hou Quan, (Monkey Boxing), is believed to have been developed in China around 200BCE. History does not record a Founder, although lore has it that it was developed by Wang Lang who reportedly began mimicking the movements and gestures of a monkey he happened to see coming out of a cave. He had come upon a group of monkey that were playing, play-fighting, picking and eating fruit, and running about. He observed all of their behaviors and began developing what is now called Hou Quan by integrating the traditional Kung Fu movements he already knew with the new movements he had observed of the monkeys.
Other sources attribute modern Monkey Kung Fu to a man names Kou Si, who observed monkeys from his prison cell and while in prison developed what came to be known as Hou Quan. Kou Si developed a number of variations of Monkey Kung Fu. For example:
Drunken Monkey – Part of the effectiveness of the Drunken Monkey is the way it offers the attacker a highly skewed view of the fighter – making them look susceptible. This deception allows them to launch a devastating attack, most often to a susceptible area like the groin or eyes.
Stone Monkey – asks practitioners to become powerful like a primate. The Monkey fighter expects to exchange strikes with the opponent. Stone fighters leave a less vital area open for an opponent to attack while they look to strike more vital areas on the opponent.
Lost Monkey – in this style, the practitioners exude the state of being lost by emulating the movements of a monkey that might find themselves in a foreign group of primates for a moment, before striking when no one realizes it’s coming.
Standing Monkey or Tall Monkey – unlike other monkey styles that move low to the ground, with a lot of rolling and tumbling, the Standing Monkey is about launching upper level attacks to vital areas and pressure points.
Wooden Monkey – the angry primate is as dangerous as they come, and this style harnesses that energy into something fierce and devastating.
The Monkey fighter uses ape-like movements and gestures to launch very unorthodox, acrobatic, and lethal attacks. The attacks are launched from unusual angles and positions creating confusion and disorientation in the opponent. The monkey uses a clawing technique, a fist, a palm, and a hooking hand movement. More than any of the other animals in the 7 Circles System, the monkey uses floor-fighting techniques moving across the floor first on one side, and then on the other, while delivering very effective kicks with one leg or the other.
In the 7 Circles System we borrow the unorthodox movements, unusual angular attacks, open palm smacks, hooking hands, deceptive postures and gestures, and fist from Monkey Boxing.The ideal student for Monkey Boxing is small in stature, strong, flexible, mentally relaxed, agile, and daring. However, even taller and bigger students can utilize some of the techniques used in Hou Quan.
Students of this style develop:
Flexibility
Agility
Speed
Arm and Leg Strength
Confidence
Inner Calmness
Ref: The Fighting Arts, by Howard Reid and MIchael Croucher, Simon and Schuster, N.Y. ISBN: 0-671-47273-9 The Way of The Warrior, by Chris Crudelli, Dorling Kindersley Limited, Great Britain, ISBN: 978-0-7566-3975-4 A History and Style Guide of Monkey Style Kung Fu, ThoughtCo.
To be continued: Mantis
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