alright lone coyote, i'll tell you. coung nhu is a form of veitnamese karate founded 40 years aog in saigon by o'senei Ngo Dong (laugh and i'll kill you). when the south fell osensei fled to gainsvil florida, after they tried to starv the college profeser by depriving him of protein for a few months. in his youth osenei studied wing chun (from one of his older brothers), taichichuan (from anouther brother), and vovinam (from his third brother, who was one of the founders top 10 students, or something i forgot). latter on he learned boxing and aikido, i'm not quite shure who though.osensei and his brothers decided to put their martial arts skills to the test in a positive way. how? by beating the crap out of the street hustlers and thugs in hanoi, the city they were born in. after the division in veitnamtheir father was given a goverment job in the north. they later fled to the south were they once again began to become the police in a very corupt city, this time in siagon. when one of his brothers was stabbed he decided to teach his personel methed as a new style. he called it coung nhu karate (coung means hard nhu means soft since it combines both) at a point he also learned judo, and then shotokan. his shotokan sensei was a retied u.s. soilder, who to the best of my knowledge still lives in saigon. when the u.s. army built the college of siagon (now a strip mall) osensei began teaching their. he became so influencial to the young south veitnamese that when the south was beaten by the north the communist goverment knew that if they sent him to a re-education camp to be torchered or die they put him under house arrest, knowing that if they didn't every young south veitnamese, and maybe even some northers, would rise up in revolt. he eventuly fled with his wife, 3 sons and daugther. after he started teaching in the u.s.he made some changes, latter added manuels (to help keep coung nhu all reletivly similure). at training camp we all get together, train, beat each other up, make fun of each other, make new freinds and then have a party. when o'sensei was digunosed with altimerez most of the people in coung nhu couldn't belive it. anouther matter that came up was who would succede him? for a little while their was divsion in coung nhu asto who would. in the end it was the young Quihn, instead of his older brother, Bao.
o.k. so actule techniques. in Coung Nhu their is no focus on punching, kicking, grappling, or the usage of weapons.you start learning mostly shotokan until about black belt. then the focus becomes vovinam and taichichuan. you start learning to use weapons at green belt (the third rank), first the tambo, you have a tambo form at two brown stipes (two ranks latter), then you learn to use the bo staff, at the same rank you have a bo form. also at two brown you start judo. you start to learn Aikido at one black (i beleive). at green belt you start to learn some basic wing chun, and boxing. coung nhu has philosofies, so yes coung nhu is budo style.
latter the name was chaned to coung nhu oreintal martial arts. and that is coung nhu in a nut shell, well a cocounut shell, but still. if you want to learn more about the art of love, as it was called by osensei before he died) you can go to the official web site at
http://coungnhu.com/
and thank you macaver that is more long the lines of what i wanted.
sweet Brighit bless your blade
john