[BLACK PANTA]

I understand this is dog style kung fu. It is kung fu ground work/grappling. I was searching the net for further info on this style but to no avail. If anyone has info on this style please please inform me. I would like to see some techniques. Or at the very least find out what type of ground fighting. If it's more striking from the ground, or vale tudo type of stuff.

thanks.

[Hengest]

I tried to find some stuff on the Net for you mate, but, unsurprisingly, drew a blank as well. So I'll tell you what I know from the books I have at home (which isn't much!).

Dog boxing is called Kuo Ch'uan (Wade-Giles) or Guoquan (Pinyin) in Mandarin and Gao Kuen in Cantonese. It's a northern style, coming from Shandong (Shan Tung) Province. I couldn't find out too much on the history but in legend Ng Mui is sometimes named as the founder.

Unfortunately, I could only find out snippets on technique as well, but a common focus seems to be groundwork, staying low, even feigning injury to get the opponent to come in closer before taking him down and finishing him on the floor.

The one piece of relatively useful information I found was in Robert W. Smith's Chinese Boxing: Masters and Methods. In his section on Chang I-te, a teacher of Fukien White Crane, he says this:

"Chang's grandfather was expert in Dog Boxing (kuo ch'uan), in which the opponent is pulled to the ground, scissored, and kicked. Chang told me that the only way to fight a Dog Boxer is to stay clear of him and throw things at him; above all, never close with him. Despite his ability, Chang's grandfather was beaten by a White Crane boxer."

And, unfortunately mate, that's all I have. Hope it's a starting point at least.

[BLACK PANTA]

Yeah man thanks very much for the info. I did some more searching and used these key words on both Altavista and google
dog style
master da si yue
kuo-chu'an
fujian
Gouquan

You can imagine what the first one came up with.

here is what my search resulted in

http://cclib.nsu.ru/projects/satbi/s...u/gouquan.html

from what I see I have learned a little bit of dog fighting in my Shaolin training. However I suspect no where near the complete style. I have actually used some of the techniques I learned in my BJJ school. The scissor leg sweep, and using the scissor sweep from guard is very effective. Also the combative guard (the Kung Fu guard) throws of my BJJ partners. Although when we grapple in open mat time, we do not include strikes, just pure grappling. The kung Fu guard I learned makes it very easy to throw a kick (kinda like a side kick) right into the knees, body, throat and head. It's a guard I had received many compliments on and when they (my BJJ partners) find out it's from Kung Fu, they are maad surprised.

[Hengest]

Good find there Panta. I've bookmarked the site so I can have a proper look at it later. Cheers for that.

[BLACK PANTA]

I've learned a couple more techniques of Kuo Chuan. My Sifu, is currently training under a Chen style Tai Chi Master. The Tai Chi Master actually knows a master of Kuo Chuan here in Canada. One of his friends. My Sifu picked up a couple of techniques from Kuo Chuan from his Tai Chi Master and showed it to me. There's this kick from the ground.....almost like a Cap kick. The kick is great againt a takedown attempt by an opponent.

[dscott]

Those drawings on the website look a lot like Harimau. Is it a similar art?

[BLACK PANTA]

From what I've seen on the net Harimau is a style of Pencat Silat. Seeing that Silat, is "Indonesian Kung Fu" and it incorporates alot of joint locks and grappling, I would think that Harimau is a "branch" of Kuo Chuan. If I find more info I'll post it bro.

[BLACK PANTA]

some info found on Harimau
apparently it's a sub system of Penkat Silat

http://www.combat-silat.net/harimau.asp

being that as it may, Kuochuan on the other hand is a complete system.

[Wilhelm von Wankenstein]

Just a little belated tidbit information on this style. I may have posted this before on the old forum, but I'll just pop it in here again - apparently, one of the last lineage-holders of the Hokkien dog style lives in Singapore (or lived - he was well over 80 years old the last time I spoke to my teacher about him, and that was two or more years ago). Being old-school (translated: insular, bigoted and resistant to change ), he refuses to teach non-Hokkiens, never mind non-Chinese. I don't know if he had any students to whom he'd transmitted the entire style, but as things stood, the style was in very real danger of dying out with him.

Far as I know, all known Chinese systems of groundfighting were designed with defence against a standing opponent in mind rather than the prolonged wrestling against a similarly-trained opponent on the ground of modern submission fighting. Despite all the 'discoveries' of traditional Chinese groundfighting, I personally feel the reality remains that these were designed for a rather different paradigm of grounded combat and, in the entirety of their original form, aren't especially suited to the demands of modern submission, though, from a self-defence point of view, they're probably still quite viable. Fact is, the Chinese martial culture as a whole seems to have a preeminent paranoia of being on the ground, and in the immediate pre-modern era, this solidified to a code of behaviour that determines victory by the first knockdown and prohibits followups against a downed opponent.