5 Family Mok Ga

[bigphatwong]

was surfing the 'Tube the other night and stumbled across this neat clip of what appears to be a younger Ark Wong demonstrating a Mok Ga set. Chanchu, Franklin et al will probably enjoy this clip.

[Franklin]

thanks

it is an interesting clip

but i have doubts as to if it is Ark Wong
(because the way the stances and transitions are preformed- from the videos I have seen of Ark Wong he has a certain flavour that is different from this performer)
it might be him though I don't know


here is a clip of Ark Wong doing Mok Ga




franklin

[ashe]

the second clip is pretty snazzy. now tell me more about mok ga!

[Chris Fleming]

Didn't GM Wong also have some good iron palm methods too?

[Franklin]

Ashe-

That is my grand teacher- Ark Wong
His style is- Five Family Style
it combines the five families of southern shaolin
Hung, Mok, Choy, Li, Fut

i have heard some of Master Wong's earlier students say that he taught separate forms for each of the family styles (Hung, Choy, Li, Fut, and Mok)
but the curriculum that I learned from my teacher (who was also an instructor at Master Wong's school)
has the five families combined in the forms (no seperate forms for each family style)
the core of the system is 6 basic acts (forms
salute
small cross
butterfly
blackbird
combination
palm
and the five animal forms
snake, tiger, dragon, crane, leopard

after these there are more animal forms

as to what each of the five families contributed to the curriculum i have heard different things from different teachers of the style

Mok Ga - we get kicks- also as Master Wong demos in the video- there is a chicken heart punch (but this does not show up in any of the forms except Chicken Act- it uses this hand a lot-but it does not really resemble the Mok Ga demoed in the vid- the chicken form is pretty rare though- my teacher learned it from Ark Wong's grandson Se Ming Ma and I don't know how many people my teacher has shown it to.)

on the whole though i would not refer to the style as Ark Wong's Five Family Southern Shaolin

I really don't know much about the individual family styles except what is put out in the public- through vids etc.
like Hung Ga is fairly well known
but Li Ga, and Mok Ga- not so much,

for info on Mok Ga check out this link:
http://www.plumpub.com/info/knotebook/boxmokgar.htm


Franklin

[Franklin]

Didn't GM Wong also have some good iron palm methods too?

Chris

Yes he did.

In some of the old articles and in his book you can see some of his training setup in the background
some it was large barrels filled with stuff to pierce your hands into

I did not learn this style of iron palm from my teacher
the one i learned was the more common "bag" method
where the hands are conditioned through slapping a bag.

the method uses dit da jow
breathing exercises (which can be done in the iron palm training regimen or separately)
and hitting the bag

i had also learned iron palm before so I also have a few more methods

I would say the big plus of the method I learned from my five family teacher would be the breathing exercises
(they have a passing resemblance to the "passive" method illustrated in Lee Ying Arn's book- except there are more of them)

the other interesting thing was that my teacher said that you don't have to practice the iron palm method (hitting the bag)- just doing the five family forms will give you more than you need
in the animal forms the hands make rhythmic stretching motions with the movements and this conditions the tendons of the hand and fingers

franklin

[Chanchu]

Nice find BPW! good stuff guys... Yeah Mok gar is cool. hard to find it these days, just seen some short segments of it. I had a HK english magazine with a long article on it- but gave it to someone years ago..

I think there are some Mok Gar gyms in HK still teaching it -be fun to visit them if they would talk about their system.

Old Master Ark Wong was great- never met him but visited his gym one time on my way to Asia- couple of his student's were in his gym ( a converted old church?) they were real friendly and we had a nice chat they had some good stuff!

His kwoon was set up very cool with wooden dummies in the back etc etc.. Just wish I could have met him...

[middleway]

huh ... one of my friends trained this style ... interesting stuff..

thanks for posting.

Chris

[bigphatwong]

Mok Ga is, to my knowledge, the parent art of contemporary Splashing Hands.

[jjy5016]

Nice to see clips of the older generations. Can't tell too much from them but still good to be able to see them. Was Mok Gar associated with dragon style or am I thinking of something else?

I'm told that Ark's iron palm system had ten levels to it. The first one being thrusting the hands into sand which had special herbs mixed in it to "cook" the hands from the outside in and draw the qi to the hands. Of the remaining nine levels only one supposedly involves bag hitting. The rest are specific zhan zhuangs and other methods with some extremely poisonous herbs / jows involved. Eventually the process was supposed to make the whole body like "iron" working from the hands up.

FWIW

[PPena]

Greetings first of all.

The first clip is from my Sigung Lam Chong Wai (Lin Zhong Wei in Mandarin) His Father was Lam Yum Tong who was one of the "Three Tigers of the East River" or Dong gong sam Fu. He is presently 91 yrs. strong.

As jjy5016 mentioned Mok Ga Kuen and Lung Ying come from around the same county or province in South China. Also Lam Yum Tong and Lam Yue Gwai were good friends and shared students.
But, the styles are executed and performed differently.

As my sifu (Steve Martin) mentioned to me Mok ga is a "Northern style hidden in Southern clothing" which interprets as Mok Ga Keun has the kicking techniques which are favored more then arm or hand techniques.
Do not get me wrong Mok ga have excellent hand techniques as well.

Mok Ga Kuen kicking skills are known in South China , HK. Practitioners are taught the static kicking drills as well as waist exercises prior to sets.

Here in the States I know of My Sifu and some of his training uncles teach the style in the West Coast (AZ and CA).

It is a great style and demanding.

Peter Pena

[Chris Fleming]

Nice to see clips of the older generations. Can't tell too much from them but still good to be able to see them. Was Mok Gar associated with dragon style or am I thinking of something else?

I'm told that Ark's iron palm system had ten levels to it. The first one being thrusting the hands into sand which had special herbs mixed in it to "cook" the hands from the outside in and draw the qi to the hands. Of the remaining nine levels only one supposedly involves bag hitting. The rest are specific zhan zhuangs and other methods with some extremely poisonous herbs / jows involved. Eventually the process was supposed to make the whole body like "iron" working from the hands up.

FWIW

Wow I want to learn that!