Subsidiary form study - Supple Dragon

 

My students along with their study of our Isshinryu kata have a series of subsidiary forms they studied. This was to give them a hands-on feel of what other systems studied.

Those forms were:

    Kyozai - a form from the Okinawan School system

    Annanku - a Shorin Ryu form shared by Carl Long

    Saifa - a Goju Ryu form shared by Ed Savage

    Supple Dragon - a Pai Lum form shared by Ernest Rothrock

    Nijushiho - a Shotokan form shared by Tristan Sutrisno

The form Supple Dragon (Lung Le Kuen - my phonetic spelling) shows how a form can move in time.

The form Supple Dragon came from the Pai Lum system of Daniel Pai.

Daniel Pai, born in Hawaii, initially taught Goju Ryu in Canada, later he began teaching his Pai Lum system there and slowly started teaching that system in the USA.

Here is a Canadian karat-ka performing the Canadian version of the form.  Lung Lek Kuen - Dragon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz300Vtt_Oc

There are various Karate Groups who joined the Pai Lum group. Each did the form differently as Daniel Pai taught his forms without teaching the same form dynamics to each group.

Ernest Rothrock who learned the form from Pai, additionally studied many other kung fu systems. Those studies assisted him understanding the flow of the form.

This is the late Dave Belsky one of Rothrock Sifu's senior students performing the same form in 1984.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UAvxub0b2E

 

Here is Rothrock Sifu demonstrating the form to my students in 1989.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKnIEV8TZfM

Young Lee 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ5goAtmkAc