| Part of the series on Chinese martial arts |
| List of Chinese martial arts |
|---|
| Terms |
| Historical places |
|
| Historical people |
|
| Famous modern actors |
|
| Legendary figures |
|
| Related |
In the Chinese martial arts, imagery of the Five Animals (Chinese: 五形; pinyin: wǔ xíng; literally "Five Forms")—Tiger, Crane, Leopard, Snake, and Dragon—appears predominantly in Southern styles, especially those associated with Guangdong and Fujian Provinces. An alternate selection which is also widely used is the crane, the tiger, the monkey, the snake, and the mantis.[1]
The Five Animal martial arts supposedly originated from the Henan Shaolin Temple, which is north of the Yangtze River, even though imagery of these particular five animals as a distinct set (i.e. in the absence of other animals such as the horse or the monkey as in T'ai chi ch'uan or Xíngyìquán) is either rare in Northern Shaolin martial arts—and Northern Chinese martial arts in general—or recent (cf. wǔxíngbāfǎquán; 五形八法拳; "Five Form Eight Method Fist").[2]
In Mandarin, "wǔxíng" is the pronunciation not only of "Five Animals," but also of "Five Elements," the core techniques of Xíngyìquán, which also features animal mimicry (but of 10 or 12 animals rather than 5) and, with its high narrow Sāntǐshì (三體勢) stance, looks nothing so much like a Fujianese Southern style stranded in the North.
Although the technique is mainly associated with the tiger, dragon, snake, crane and leopard, many other animal styles have been developed, including panther, praying mantis (northern and southern styles), horse, cobra, bull, wolf, deer, bear, boar, eagle, python, scorpion, elephant, lion, frog, duck, dog, crow, tiger cub, chicken, hawk, turtle, swallow, lizard and a host of others.
According to legend, Jueyuan, a 13th-century Shaolin martial artist, used the original 18 Luohan Hands as a foundation, expanding its 18 techniques into 72. In Gansu Province in the west of China, in the city of Lanzhou, he met Li Sou, a master of "Red Fist" Hóngquán (紅拳). Li Sou accompanied Jueyuan back to Henan, to Luoyang to introduce Jueyuan to Bai Yufeng, master of an internal method.
They returned to Shaolin with Bai Yufeng and expanded Jueyuan's 72 techniques to approximately 170. Using their combined knowledge, they restored internal aspects to Shaolin boxing. They organized these techniques into Five Animals: the Tiger, the Crane, the Leopard, the Snake and the Dragon.[3]
Jueyuan is also credited with the Northern style "Flood Fist" Hóngquán (洪拳), which does not feature the Five Animals but is written with the same characters as the Southern style Hung Kuen, perhaps the quintessential Five Animals style. Moreover, as in the Southern Hung Kuen, the "Hóng" character (洪) in Hóngquán actually refers to a family name rather than its literal meaning of "flood." However, the two styles have nothing in common beyond their shared name.
The "frolics of five animals" (五禽戲, Wu Qin Xi) are a set of qigong exercises developed by the Chinese physician Hua Tuo in the 2nd century. There are two exercises per animal, corresponding to the five yin and five yang internal organs in Chinese medicine.[4] However, simplified forms with only one exercise per animal also exist.
The five animals in the exercises as currently taught are the bear, tiger, monkey, deer, and crane.[5] They are said to improve functioning of the lung (tiger), kidney (bear), liver (deer), heart (crane), and stomach (monkey), respectively.[6]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||