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Many martial arts styles are powerful and fast, and very effective for fighting. Kung Fu San Soo is among those styles, and may be considered the best. Throughout the years, different martial arts styles have been made popular by superstars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, ... the list goes on. The untold story behind these famous people is the reality of fighting.

Fighting is ugly and does not always involve a flying crescent moon kick, or a spinning dragon claw strike. Fancy moves are more for show than for the street. For that reason, there was a general movement in the late 60's among the martial arts world to get back to the essence of martial arts: the ability to win a fight as quickly and easily as possible.

One style that emerged as a manifestation of this movement is the style we now call Kung Fu San Soo. The techniques are designed to end a fight quickly, using efficiency rather than brute force or acrobatic movements.  In fact, because of the strict combative nature of this style, there are no tournaments.  Many people say Kung Fu San Soo is similar in nature to the popular style Krav Maga.

The style is derived from martial arts practiced in Canton, China. The roots of all Kung Fu styles go back thousands of years to the Shaolin monks, the creators of Kung Fu. Kung Fu San Soo is similar in many ways to the Shaolin styles taught in China today, however, we spend more time practicing defense maneuvers than  forms; students need self-defense that works now, not 10 years from now.  At the same time, students will learn higher level moves that do take years to perfect. In short, Kung Fu San Soo gives you street smart defense moves NOW and helps you build on that skill to become a true master later.

A word to the wise:

Many prospective martial arts students go to a martial arts school hoping to jump in and BANG!  They want to throw gloves on and spar or just be very physical and aggressive.  This kind of training has an important place in martial arts, but it is not step one.  In fact, in the early stages of training, more time should be spent training slowly and carefully.  WHY???  That doesn't make sense?  Fights are hard and fast!?!?!? 

BECAUSE!!!  If you take your time and learn the subtle details and actually learn moves and how they work, you will gradually be able to apply them full speed.  It takes time and patience.  If you comprehend what you're doing and actually THINK about what you're doing, you will be better than the guy that spends 5 hours a day "training hard" with his buddies in their back yard after watching a youtube video!

As you progress, you will train hard and spar, etc., but do it the right way!  Start off slow and learn correct movement.  Don't just jump in the deep end.  You can develop bad habits that will get you hurt!  Learn from a qualified instructor; videos are good supplements, but they are meant to help you train, not be the source of training knowledge!

Kung Fu San Soo is an ancient combat system that effectively integrates 5 families.  Each "family" corresponds to a particular aspect of fighting:

Toiga - Refers to all strikes.  We do elbows and knees, punches, kicks, headbutts, fingerjabs (pokes), clawing, biting, whatever it takes to protect yourself in a true no rules situation.

Liga - This is the most circular aspect of Kung Fu San Soo.  It includes leverages (joint locks and submissions), sweeps, and throws.  We generally include chokes in this category as well.  As far as throws, we teach the most effective throws and a few fancy throws.  We like to emphasize the ones that are realistically practical for self-defense.  Sweeps are so varied; we cover sweeps from every angle.  Leverages are the most popular thing these days because of MMA and Brazilian JiuJitsu exploding into the media.  Triangles, armbars, wristlocks, fingerlocks, neck and back cranks, knee and ankle locks, hip locks, shoulder locks, etc.  We do every kind of leverage you can imagine.

Hoga - Pressure points.  We don't teach the 5-step-exploding-heart technique.  We can't show you how to knock someone out by merely touching them.  We CAN show you where the nerves are in the body and how to attack them so as to cause a reaction in an opponent which will give you an advantage in the fight.  Pressure points are VERY useful weapons but they almost never end a fight by themselves.

Hungga - This family focuses on the physical dynamics of fighting.  We incorporate strength training, balance drills, efficiency, etc. into our Hungga training to make you physically ready to defend yourself.

Futga - By far this is the most important part of San Soo; it is the psychology of fighting.  This includes everything from how to walk to offensive tactics.  We focus on reality scenarios, proper mindset, good attitude, strategy for single or multiple attackers, weapons, and much more.

Finally, these are 5 aspects of our training but NOT 5 different styles that we teach.  They have worked together as a system for 1000's of years!  For this reason, Kung Fu San Soo could be considered a "mixed martial art," BUT we don't fight standing and "change our game plan" when we go to the ground.   There is NO awkward transition because we are ALWAYS using Kung Fu San Soo which is a smooth, free-flowing adaptive style which incorporates all aspects of fighting into a single, efficient, and highly effective no rules / street-fighting style.

If you want to know real fighting and self-defense, Kung Fu San Soo and Fighting Dragons are right for you!