THE SHORT FISTS OF KUNG-FU

 by Phillip Starr

In traditional kung-fu we hear of the northern styles being “long fist” and the southern styles being called “short fist.” These are generalizations, of course. The northern forms of kung-fu generally utilize wider, sweeping movements and many employ high kicks. The southern forms vary considerably; styles such as Hung-Gar (in Mandarin, Hong-Jia), and Choy-Lay fut (Cai Li Fo), although they don't make use of high kicks, sometimes use fairly long arm movements and stances.

There is another type of southern kung-fu, however...Wing Chun is a typical example. Stances are short and rather high, kicks are all quite low and the arm movements are close and compact. Some of these would include southern crane styles (such as southern white crane, feeding crane, crying crane, and so on), Pak Mei (White Eyebrow), southern praying mantis, southern dragon fist, Lau-Gar, etc.

These short, close-quarter styles were developed for use in the tiny alleys of southern China. I thought I understood what a small “back alley” was like until I actually lived in southern China; there, I saw alleyways that were so small that I couldn't fully extend both arms without touching the walls of opposing buildings! There's absolutely NO room for long arm movements, stances, footwork, or high, long kicks! Fighting in such a place would require a high level of skill at (extremely) close-quarters combat.

These kinds of fighting styles which include various quick takedowns, joint twists, and spotting (hitting certain vital points) generally specialize in what is sometimes referred to as “cun jing” (pronounced “tsoon jin”, which means “inch power”) because blows are often delivered at very close range, as opposed to being delivered from the hip.

These styles have never achieved the same level of popularity as their sister styles of Hung-Gar or Choy-Lay Fut, and especially their northern cousins because, well....they're HOMELY. No flash, nothing fancy at all (or anything even close to it); just very short, choppy movements that are extremely practical for self-defense in close, very tight spaces. And their influence on early Okinawan karate is obvious. While Shorin-ryu (“shorin” is the Japanese pronunciation of “shao-lin”) traces its ancestry back to the northern form(s) of shaolinquan, styles such as Goju-ryu developed from southern crane styles (Goju-ryu comes from the Crying Crane style). The third major form of Okinawan karate, Uechi-ryu, looks like it may well come from a form of southern mantis boxing.