Shaolin Round Table

I mean that the Chow Gar created by Chow Lung with the assistance of his 4 brothers Chow Biu, Chow Hip, Chow Tin and Chow Hoy, and carried on by his 4 brothers after his death (principally Chow Biu) … is not the same style of kung fu as Chow Gar Tong Long (Southern mantis). They are two totally separate styles.

Master Tom Lo is a Chow Gar (Chow Lung and his brothers style) teacher. Master Henry Sue is a Chow Gar Tong Long (Southern Mantis) teacher. They do not teach the same style of Kung Fu and there is no relationship between the two styles other than they both happened to have been founded by men with the same surname (though unrelated).

oh.

EXACTLY!

Actually, there is a jow ga mantis form, taught at the jow ga school where jow lung bo lived. now, maybe its because a kid was demonstrated it, or he did not do the full form, but it did not seem much different from any other jow ga form, except for a few hook-like techniques thrown in.

Raymond Wong taught the form to a few guys (me, Ron Wheeler, Howard Davis), but if nobody is doing it now, i can def understand why.

Hi DCJG
Do you mean Jow Gum Bo (Zhou Jin Bo)?
The praying mantis form taught in Dean Chin's school wasn't created by our founders (Jow Lung, hip, biu, hoy, tin). Deric Mims, one of Sifu Chin's senior students has already stated this. Sifu Chin listed on a piece of paper all the forms he knew. on this paper Sifu Chin writes "praying mantis not jow ga."

Some of the jow ga schools in china play a few sets from other styles like "Fu Hok" including Jow Gum Bo's school. This question or issue has been directly & repeatedly clarified through seniors overseas.

no i am not talking about the two praying mantis forms taught at the old school. they are 8 step fist, and 18 hands. those are not the forms i am talking about. i dont know the name of the form, but i remember it being refered to as "jow ga mantis", and yeah, it was jow GUM bo, excuse the mistake.

i dont know about the list deric is talking about, but maybe the list of forms (the 28 forms) he is talking about was the one that sifu wanted for his curriculum. he actually had a list of more than 50 that included forms from lau man fat, like big hero fist, another tiger and leopard (not our fu pow kune but another one), and some others, including weapons forms. there was another tai chi form (not the beijing method) and a couple bak mei forms, etc. if you notice, only two of lau man fat's forms is on the 28 list--gune lic and jeet kune--which people are calling chin wu, but are actually ying jow forms. sifu taught many of these forms that are not on the list (three section staff vs staff, kwan vs spear) that look like jow ga forms and they probably are. but hey, who am i to questions his history. that's why i call it "dean chins jow ga", and not just jow ga. sifu knew more than jow ga, and thats good enough for me.

the praying mantis form i was talking about was a jow ga form. i just didnt like it.

also, i dont know who created the form. but that doesnt matter to me. i believe that in the beginning there was only one jow ga form, then five, then the others came later. shoot, whose to say that one of us cant add a jow ga form now? once it goes a generation, its traditional!

Dc jowga the praying mantis form acquired by jow gum bo school was not created by jow lung or his brothers so there is no "jow ga 5 tigers praying mantis" . This comes directly from people who should know. the only people discussing or questioning this topic these days are people outside China or Asia it is a wellknown misunderstanding that has been clarified within the last decade.
I don't think the point of this had to do with what is "traditional" I think it had more to do with distinguishing which forms were authentic forms created by Jow Lung or his brothers & which forms were adopted. Fu Hok from hung ga was adopted by some jow ga schools, so is it right to now claim the Hung ga as Jow Ga?

Take care DCJG

if a qualified jow ga teacher adopted a form, then that will make it an authentic "jow ga form". maybe not accepted or used by everyone else, but it is for his jow ga. this is why there are variations and differing lineages of almost every style older than 100 years.

the original question was, is there a praying mantis form in the jow ga system? my answer yes there is. it might not be true that there was no original jow ga mantis form at the beginning of the system, but there is a few of them now.

since we are a part of jow gum bo line, and dean chin is the source of almost everyone here, we should acknowledge the existence of those forms, whether we know the forms or not.

i am curious that Sifu Chin and Sam Chan both have Bong Bo form. I think its coincidence that they both chose the same form to teach to students, and they have different backgrounds. Does anyone here know the history of Sam Chan's jow ga? like when he came here? did he know sifu chin?

I don't think anyone is saying denying that other jow ga schools use a praying mantis form in their curriculum, which is DIFFERENT than that form actually BEING a jow ga form.

Based on what I have been told by my Sifu and read personally, I'm going to say there is NO Jow Ga praying mantis form that exists as a PURE jow ga form.

We may all have to just chalk this one up to, "agree to disagree".

- ft

Not quite...

But the point is that a valid distinction is being made between forms that were created and passed down by the Chow brothers as being "original Chow Gar" and forms adopted later from other sources that are part of some lineages' curriculum.

If I own a Porche and I attach Mazda mirrors to it, they are still mirrors on my Porche, but they are not Porche parts.

If a skillful jow ga instructor creates his own form and includes it in his curriculum under the jow ga name, this seems acceptable as long as this distinction is clear and not intentionally deceitful. Keeping in mind that this would pertain only to that particular jow ga line.

But, if you take a form that was already created under another family style and claim the exact same form as yours because you like it or teach it, then common sense shows this to be incorrect. If you want to honor another system by practicing their form, then that's okay but you can't just claim their form as yours.

Sifu Chin taught other forms such as Jeet Kune, Gung Lik, and Tit Jin Kuen, which are NOT jow ga forms, so why didn't he claim these forms as Jow Ga? I know that some people in the U.S. believed that Tit Jin Kuen was Jow Ga, but actually it isn't and according to Sifu Deric Mims (Sifu Chin Senior Student), Sifu Chin never claimed that Tit Jin Kuen was "Jow Ga".

For those who falsely believe that Tit Jin Kuen is a form created by the Jow Brothers, i have only two questions:
Which jow brother line?
Who created It?

Regards

okay, i get you guys point.

i never thought about whether a form was an original jow ga form or not, just that i was studying jow ga, and that it was one that i learned. but i still teach bong bo and sup bot sao as "dean chins jow ga". i have taught bong bo to students, but not 18 hands yet, and i did tell them they were adopted forms. but you know, two generations from now, there will barely be a distinction between "original" jow ga forms and forms that came later. like how some hung ga schools teach lau ga as a hung ga form.

now, i am curious about which forms are original and which ones came later. there is a teacher near me who teaches choy lay fut, and his sifu's si gung learned from jow bil (or jow lung, i forgot). the forms he learned are called "fu pow 1, fu pow 2...to fu pow 5". i have been wanting to visit him to see which forms they are.

i'm curious, at what point do you teach these other forms? (beginner, intermediate, advanced, etc...) both jow ga man and myself (and a few others here) take what you would call "dean chin's jow ga". My sifu was taught by him and after he passed he then continued under his most senior student, deric mims. do you have video of these forms? i would be interested in seeing what they look like!

- ft

http://jowtigers.com/new/school/curriculum.htm

All of these forms are original jow ga forms. Most jow ga forms have different variations. So as far as the fu pow 1,2,5 thing i dont know much about.