I'm looking to join a MA school sometime in early 2011. I live in the Phoenix, Az area and there are a number of schools of all styles here but one that I've always been interested in is Hung Gar. There are two HG schools in the area that I'm aware of. One is run by a 4th gen. instructor under Lam Sai Wing. The other is run by a former student of Frank Yee (who is under the Tang Fung/WFH lineage) who gives semi-private lessons. Both are about the same distance from me. I know the typical answer is "go and have a look and see which one you like most", but assuming I have no training in Hung Gar and thus don't really know what to look for, both schools might look very similar to me.
So, I'm curious if there are any big differences in the overall style of Hung Gar under Lam Sai Wing's lineage vs. others (in this case, Tang Fung)? Are there differences in techniques between the two, or differences in philosophy, or pretty much teaching the exact same thing?
I used to train in karate, and there are quite a few differences among Parker lineage instructors vs. say Tracy instructors, even though the Tracy's originally trained with Parker himself. I've also read of big differences among the Wing Chun instructors. So, just curious if this is as big of a thing in Hung Gar as in those arts.
So, I'm curious if there are any big differences in the overall style of Hung Gar under Lam Sai Wing's lineage vs. others (in this case, Tang Fung)? Are there differences in techniques between the two, or differences in philosophy, or pretty much teaching the exact same thing?
I used to train in karate, and there are quite a few differences among Parker lineage instructors vs. say Tracy instructors, even though the Tracy's originally trained with Parker himself. I've also read of big differences among the Wing Chun instructors. So, just curious if this is as big of a thing in Hung Gar as in those arts.