Splashing hands
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Splashing Hands is an external/internal system of Kung Fu first openly taught by the late Huame F. Lefiti in the 1950s/60s. Lefiti studied from a general while stationed in Taiwan as member of the U.S. Marine Corps. A letter of introduction got him accepted as a student of Grandmaster Ark Yuey Wong in the Los Angeles Chinatown when he returned to the United States after getting out of the Marine Corps. Lefiti passed black sash to a number of students, the only remaining teacher domestically claiming the art being James W. McNeil. It was taught to be used as an extremely quick and devastating form of eliminating an adversary, and as such, it is said the few who know of the art are reluctant to teach it. Its name derives from the way that the hands move - as if one is shaking water from them. Originally, the legendary origin of Splashing Hands is that it was taught to those monks who were in charge of guarding the temple gates of the Northern Shaolin Temple during the 1700s, and some feel it is derived from Chinese Mok-Gar. Leiti was Ed Parker's senior at Ark Wong's and had a substantial influence on Ed Parker's development (and therefore Parker's styles including American Kenpo). Lefiti was one of the founders and head of the development of Limalama as well, and so some of the systems overkill tendencies can be found within those systems.
Splashing Hands features quick shuffling footwork, and low-focused leg kicks combined with jabs, punches, elbows, hammer-fists, chops and finger pokes thrown with blinding, machine gun-like rapidity. Because of the speed with which the techniques are delivered as well as the sheer number of strikes and kicks, Splashing Hands is extremely contemporary in that it is geared strictly for street combat. Harsh training with high repetition of basic movements, and sensitivity "alive" drills mean it works well as a pure street-fighting system. Training consists of many fundermental foundation movements and thirty core sequences (10 sections, 10 browns, 10 advances). Once the student is already proficient at fighting they begin to learn the 9 forms to complete there training.
Because there is such secrecy surrounding it, it is unknown whether or not Splashing Hands is still practiced today on the Chinese mainland.
Splashing Hands is often incorrectly associated with San shou ('free fighting') Kung Fu, because Zan Shou in Chinese means "splashing hands,". Phoenetically they sound similar however the Chinese Characters are different as are the techniques.
