What Are The 5 Animals Used As Traditional Kung Fu Styles?

Animal forms and styles are heavily represented in both kung fu and Chinese culture in general. Whilst kung fu is certainly not the most popular martial art in present day, it was the main style of fighting in ancient China. Many movements, strikes, and blocks were all derived from observing animals. This makes sense, as animals that are predators are born fighters and know exactly how to attack. Animals that are prey know how to move well and try their best to avoid any attacks.

There is still a lot of mysticism surrounding Shaolin kung fu due to the fact that it began so long ago. Secondly, there are over 1000 forms and many different animals than the original 5. Therefore it is quite difficult to learn even the basics of kung fu – simply because there is such a broad spectrum. When compared to western boxing or muay thai, these are sports where you can learn the fundamentals within 6 months and master almost everything within 10 years. This is somewhat true for a single animal style of Shaolin kung fu, but to master even 5 animal styles within your own lifetime would be a great achievement. Whilst the original 5 styles are often used in conjunction with one another, if you were to add 4-5 other styles, things would start to become complicated very quickly.

Shaolin 5 Animal Styles Of Kung Fu

The 5 traditional and original styles of Shaolin kung fu are the following animals:

• Dragon
• Tiger
• Crane
• Leopard
• Snake

It should be noted that these are not the only styles of animal used in kung fu and there are many, many more such as the eagle, toad, praying mantis and various others. These 5 animal styles should also not be confused with the original 12 animals of Xinyiquan which were noted some 600 years before the original 5 from Shaolin.

Like any other complete martial art, each style of animal kung fu has its own strengths as well as weaknesses. If mixed martial arts has taught us anything, it is that a single style is not superior to any other, only different.

Dragon Style

Although the dragon is a fictional creature, it is still held in very high regard within martial arts. The movement and attacks of a dragon are elegant yet powerful. Dragon form requires big sweeping movements and combines defense with attack – much like wing chun.

The dragon style is one of the most unnatural and difficult to learn because of the way you move. In other words, humans are not really designed to move like dragons, so it takes a lot of getting used to the style in order to become accustomed with it.

Tiger Style

The tiger form of Shaolin kung fu is a very aggressive striking based style that also uses a similar open fist technique to the leopard form. For the closest thing to a real life example of this, Bas Rutten’s MMA career highlights show a variety of knockouts via palm strikes. Whilst Rutten was a kickboxer and has never trained the tiger form of kung fu – there are obvious natural similarities between the two styles.

In terms of defensive abilities, the tiger style has a lot in common with wing chun. Trapping hands with your open claw hand and diverting the attacks away from your body whilst off balancing your opponent are key details within the tiger form. Of course, wing chun was developed hundreds of years later than tiger kung fu, but there is a lot in common between the two arts.

In the old days of kung fu, it would likely be that the tiger claw hand strikes would also be used to rip eyes and/or twist fingers of enemies, but in modern day this is once again a step too far as we no longer need to fight like this.

Crane Style

Perhaps the most well known style of Shaolin Kung Fu is the crane. Popularised by the fictional Daniel LaRusso to defeat his rival Cobra Kai student, the crane kick is a little misleading when shown in the karate kid movie.

Crane style does have a lot of kicks, as long legs are a key feature of the crane. However, it is more based on elegant movements which include the use of the arms to block and strike. Overall, crane style is something that can be mastered due to movement, practice and form rather than natural athleticism and explosive power. Therefore, crane style is best suited towards those who are going to spend hours perfecting the technique, rather than super athletes.

Leopard Style

As you would expect, the leopard style is swift and brutal. This is not a slow and flowing style of kung fu, but more of an explosive and destructive striking art based on speed and counterattacks. As leopards have claws, this is a style you can use an open hand for to scratch and/or blind your opponent. However, this is not 100% necessary and also not something trained very easily since you do not want to harm training partners. You can however make an “open” paw like fist which can be used to strike opponents instead of a closed hand. Unlike other animal forms, the leopard style does not really have many blocking moves and is almost exlusively based on non-stop attack.

Due to the physical nature of leopard style kung fu, conditioning is extremely important and you must be extremely athletic to pull off this form well.

Snake Style

The snake style of kung fu requires both very fluid and explosive movements. You must be in very good physical condition with an athletic body to master the snake form. Of course, this is true for all styles of kung fu, but fluidness and explosiveness are very different from one another, yet are both required to learn the snake style.

As a combative fighting style, the snake requires you to be able to move in and out of your opponent’s range with very rapid strikes to the head, neck and body. This way of fighting can be combined with a spear when taught in the Shaolin school of martial arts. It should be noted that snake style also has standing submission holds such as basic armlocks. This is synonymous with the way an anaconda would strangle its prey.

Due to the way the snake style is taught, the best body type is long and rangy similar to UFC fighter Jon Jones. If you were to compare the body type of Jones to someone like Brock Lesnar, Jones would naturally be superior at the snake style of kung fu.

Want to learn more about the 5 animals of kung fu? Check out this book, Shaolin Five Animals by Doc-Fai Wong.