Pangai-noon

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Pangai-noon (half-hard, half-soft) Kung Fu is a little-known, and most likely extinct, form of Southern Chinese Kung Fu. One teacher of the style was known by the name Shushiwa, or Chou Tsu Ho (1874-1926); he taught in the Fukien province of mainland China in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His most famous student was Kanbun Uechi, who took the style back to Okinawa where he taught it in essentially the way he had learned it, with some minor additions. After his death the style was further expanded and renamed Uechi Ryu Karate in his honor, and is now one of the four major styles of Okinawan Karate.

Pangai-noon contained at least the three forms Sanchin, Seisan, and Sanseirui (Sanseiryu). It may have contained a fourth form that Kanbun Uechi did not learn. Judging from Uechi Ryu, it was characterized by Tiger, Dragon, and Crane techniques, with an emphasis on an index-knuckle punch and the spearhand, and an unusual big toe front kick that focuses the power to a very small area.

Although styles calling themselves, for example, "Pangai-noon Karate" (and similar names) currently exist, these are splinter groups of Uechi Ryu that are attempting to reclaim the origins of the system. No school of original Pangai-noon Kung Fu is known to still exist. In a sense, however, Pangai-noon is not extinct, for all systems that have evolved from the Uechi Ryu system are in essence versions of Pangai-noon.

[edit] Related Sites

[1] Uechi-ryu academic journal.

[2] Canadian Uechi-ryu site.