---
title: The Five Family Fists of Canton (五大名拳)
---

Cantonese tradition groups the great family arts of Guangdong into the **"Five Family Fists" (五大名拳)** — **Choy (蔡), Hung (洪), Lau (劉), Lei/Li (李), and Mok (莫)**. It is the South's counterpart to the way the North speaks of its great styles. But the grouping is best understood honestly: the five are bound together less by a documented common origin than by a **shared founding myth** — all claim descent from the [Southern Shaolin Temple](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/southern-shaolin) and the Five Elders — and by being the major Cantonese family lineages a martial world wanted to enumerate.

<Callout type="warning">
  **A folk taxonomy, not a family tree.** "The Five Family Fists" is a **convention**, and the rosters vary. Only one of the five — **Hung Ga** — is richly documented; the other four have **legendary founders and little or no surviving primary text**, and survive mainly through living lineage. This page gives each its honest due rather than inflating thin records into history.
</Callout>

## Hung 洪 — Hung Ga

The flagship and by far the best-documented of the five — the tiger-crane art of Wong Fei-hung and Lam Sai-wing. It has its own full treatment:

<PageRef space="notes" slug="hung-ga" text="Hung Ga (洪拳) — the flagship Southern family art" />

## Choy 蔡 — Choy Gar

**Choy Gar (蔡家)** is remembered as a **snake-style** art — long-range, light and agile on the feet, emphasizing speed and evasive footwork over rooted power. Its founder is traditionally given as **Choy Gau-yee (蔡九儀)**, a figure of the early Qing said to have learned at Shaolin — a **legendary** attribution. *(Not to be confused with Choy Li Fut, a separate, later system.)*

## Lau 劉 — Lau Gar

**Lau Gar (劉家)** is a mid-range art with strong **tiger influence** and solid bridge-hand work, traditionally traced to **Lau Sam-ngan, "Three-Eyed Lau" (劉三眼)** — again a **legendary** founder. *(Distinct from the modern British "Lau Gar" kickboxing offshoot that borrowed the name.)*

## Lei / Li 李 — Lei Gar

**Lei Gar (李家)** is described as a **long-arm, direct and evasive** art. Its traditional founder, **Li Yau-san (李友山)**, is also named among the teachers of [**Choy Li Fut**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/choy-li-fut) — a good example of how these lineage names circulate and overlap across the Cantonese arts. **Legendary** at root.

## Mok 莫 — Mok Gar

**Mok Gar (莫家)** is the outlier: **unusually kicking-heavy for a Southern art** — "Mok Gar kicks" are its signature, a partial exception to the "Southern fists, Northern legs" rule. Founders are given as **Mok Ching-kiu (莫清矯)** or Mok Da-si — **legendary**.

## Adjacent arts

Two more Cantonese systems are often mentioned alongside the five, though they are technically separate and later, and **adopted the same Southern-Shaolin myth**: [**Choy Li Fut (蔡李佛)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/choy-li-fut) — Chan Heung's documented 1836 synthesis — and **Fut Gar (佛家)**, a palm-focused, Buddhist-temple-framed art that was partly absorbed into Choy Li Fut.

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="southern-styles" text="Southern Kung Fu Styles — the full field guide" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="hung-ga" text="Hung Ga (洪拳) — the documented flagship" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="choy-li-fut" text="Choy Li Fut (蔡李佛) — the adjacent, documented system" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="southern-shaolin" text="Southern Shaolin &amp; the Five Elders — the shared origin myth" />

## Sources

**[1]** English Wikipedia entries on *Hung Ga*, *Choy Gar*, *Lau Gar*, *Li-style (Lei Gar)*, *Mok Gar*, and *Choy Li Fut* — the family signatures, the traditional (legendary) founders, and the Five-Family grouping.

**[2]** Brian Kennedy & Elizabeth Guo, *Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals: A Historical Survey* — on the thin documentary record of most Southern family arts and the skeptical default toward lineage origin-stories.