Taming the Tiger – Hung Gar Kung Fu

Introducing the Form

Taming the Tiger (Gung Gee Fook Fu Kuen), is an ancient Hung Gar kung fu form that came into my life just after high school. It was taught to me by Sihing Daniel Howard in the gymnasium of Clatsop Community College located in Astoria, Oregon. While Daniel was my instructor, he was not a master. Hung Gar traditionally does not have a belt system, so titles like sihing is a traditional formality that means older brother. Sihing taught me one of the oldest forms in Hung Gar that originated from the Southern Shaolin temple, which was destroyed by the Ching dynasty in the 17th century. Legend says, that the Five Elders of Shaolin survived and fled the famed monastery before it was burnt down.

Jee Sin was the Chan Buddhist master of the temple who had five pupils that became the Five Family Elders. One of the five is Hung Hei-gun, who later founded Hung Ga or Hung Gar. The other four also became founders of their own systems. Taming the Tiger is the first of the four pillars of Hung Gar and is thought to have originated from Jee Sin who passed it down to Hung Hei-gun. It took me two years to get to the first pillar of Hung Gar, which would be the last form that I learned from Sihing before I transferred to the U of O. Not too long after I left Astoria, Sihing Dan also parted ways by moving to San Francisco.

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The Five Elders of Shaolin:

• Jee Sin Sim See
• Ng Mui, founder of Wing Chun
• Bak Mei, founder of White Eyebrow
• Fung Do-Duk
• Miu Hin

The Five Family Elders:

• Hung Hei-gun, the founder of Hung Gar
• Lau Saam Ngan, the founder of Lau Gar
• Choi Gau Yi, the founder of Choi Gar
• Lei Yau Saan, the founder of Lei Gar
• Mok Ching Giu, founder of Mok Gar

The Four Pillars of Hung Gar:

• Taming the Tiger
• Tiger Crane
• Five Animal / Five Elements
• Iron Wire

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Redefining the Form

Two years later, I reconnected with Sihing Daniel by joining him under Sifu YC Wong for a summer in Chinatown. It was a great opportunity to learn from a well known master. His students really impressed me with their skill level. The first day at the school, Sifu asked to see my last form. After I struggled to remember Taming the Tiger, Sifu offered to re-teach me the form. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t progress into a new form. It wasn’t until a decade later that I began to appreciate what relearning Taming the Tiger did for me. It gave me a strong foundation that helps me with other styles. Taming the Tiger is a long rigorous routine meant to strengthen the practitioner. Because the form is so long, I had to learned it one piece at a time from start to finish for many months. Taming this form was a name very well earned. While I did not know it for many years later, the “tiger” was not just in the form, but through the discipline of practice it became other things like subduing my pride and being patient with myself.

Understanding Form

Given the age of MMA and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, there is a lot of hype on ground game (wrestling). I know that Hung Gar favors low solid stances to avoid going down to the ground on the battlefield. I know that Chinese wresting, or Shuai jiao, is over 6,000 years old (4,000 BCE), which I believe would predate the Southern Shaolin temple. While most tend to focus on the striking tools from Hung Gar’s Taming the Tiger, I know that this form contains techniques to subdue wrestlers. In my research I am able to find a few examples. The following videos clips are sections in Taming the Tiger where I am able to interpret moves that can defend take downs. Are you able to see them? I plan to training these techniques and would like to share once I am able to pressure test them.