Cantonese Hung Gar

The history of Hung Gar (Hung family) style begins with the burning of the northern (Henan province) Shaolin temple. Due to Henan Shaolin temple's involvement with revolutionaries of the Ching dynasty who wanted to overthrow Manchurian rule and bring back the Ming dynasty, Ching government officials had the temple burned. Few monks survived the burning of the temple, many of them fled to the southern Shaolin monastery in Fukien province, among those that fled there was Abbot Gee Sim Sum See.

Abbot Gee See believed that Shaolin should give aid to the revolutionary resistance to the Ching dynasty. To help the resistance movement, Abbot Gee See allowed monks in the Fukien Shaolin temple to teach kung fu to members of the resistance. However, Abbot Gee See decided to personally train one very famous revolutionary, a tea merchant named Hung Hey Kwoon. Hung Hey Kwoon was an expert in martial arts and was feared by members of the Ching government. Abbot Gee See taught Hung Hey Kwoon the Southern Five Animals style, which by that time had allready been modified to fit the characteristics of southern China. Hung Hey Kwoon incorporated a hand sign into his system, which identified one as a Hung Gar practictioner and a member of the resistance at that time, that hand sign still exists within Hung Gar forms today.

Hung Hey Kwoon named the style of kung fu taught to him by Gee See as Hung Gar or "Hung family" in order to avoid persecution by the Ching government (the Ching government had banned the practice of Shaolin kung fu,) he then taught Luk Ah Choy and so forth... Some of these masters added their preexisting knowledge to the system culminating in the Hung Gar of today. One of these masters was the famous folk hero Wong Fei Hung, who created the very popular Tiger/Crane set.

Lee's Academy of Chinese Martial Arts
2200 Broadway Suite N
Vancouver, WA
(360) 699-6195