How to Start Training Chow Gar: A Beginner’s Guide
A practical beginner’s guide to starting Chow Gar Southern Praying Mantis: what to expect, what you need, training frequency, solo vs partner work, and online options.
Articles on Chow Gar Southern Praying Mantis training, lineage history, internal power development, and the MyChowGar curriculum.
A practical beginner’s guide to starting Chow Gar Southern Praying Mantis: what to expect, what you need, training frequency, solo vs partner work, and online options.
Introduces Yam Yuerng Kum La (陰陽冚手) and explains how this Chow Gar form embodies Yin and Yang through body mechanics, its demonstration in the MyChowGar Mini Academy video, and its role within the wider training progression.
Explains why cohort-based, guided progression adds structure, feedback, shared timing and accountability to Chow Gar training, and describes two MyChowGar cohorts beginning September 21, 2026.
A Brazilian student trained Chow Gar online for nearly four years, then travelled to Hungary for a two-week, in-person assessment—examining what structured online training can develop and what it cannot replace.
Explains the critical transition in Chow Gar training from static foundation to dynamic connection: locking, opening/closing, waist integration, bridge quality and partner work.
Concise overview of the MyChowGar beginner phase: what students practice in the first ten lessons (stance, footwork, Qigong, bridge methods and the first Chow Gar hand techniques) and why the curriculum delays Saam Bo Gin until structural foundations are established.
A practical examination of whether traditional Kung Fu—specifically Chow Gar (Southern Praying Mantis)—can be learned online, which elements transfer well, which require in-person contact, and how structured progression and feedback change outcomes.
A short tribute inviting the global Chow Gar community to honour Gatekeeper Grandmaster Ip Chee Keung on his 77th birthday and to contribute a collective gift or personal message.
An evidence‑based look at why direct transmission, hands‑on correction and a structured curriculum preserve Chow Gar Southern Praying Mantis — and an announcement of two MyChowGar cohorts starting September 21, 2026.
Bil Jee is one of the first distinctive hand techniques a new Chow Gar practitioner encounters. And because it ends at the fingertips, that is naturally where most people look. How should the fingers be held? What angle should the wrist tak
Chow Gar begins developing structural power from the first lesson. See how stance, stepping and simple movements start transforming the body.
Some of the best questions in martial arts come during training — when something does not quite make sense yet. During Niko's final session, we kept the camera running.
A heavy bridge in Chow Gar is not created by pressing harder with the arm. It develops when the whole body becomes connected to the point of contact.
Episode 3 of Chow Gar: The Origins is now available. In Not Enough, Chow Ah Naam enters the monastery, trains hard, and faces the painful truth that effort alone is not enough.
Few martial arts are compared to Chow Gar as often as Wing Chun. At first glance, the comparison makes sense — both are Southern Chinese systems working at close range. But when experienced practitioners touch hands, one thing becomes clear: they do not feel the same.
QiGong in Chow Gar is not meditation, not breathwork, and not wellness practice. It is a training method with a specific purpose. Here is what it actually does.
Both systems speak about internal power. Both reject muscular strength as the answer. Yet they are solving fundamentally different problems — and when the problem changes, the body changes.
He buried the only man who ever believed in him. Then he kept walking. Episode 2 of the Chow Gar Origins animated series is out now.
Saam Bo Gin is not a beginner form in Chow Gar — it is the structural spine of the entire system. Here is what it actually trains and why masters still practice it daily.
We made something different — an animated series about where this system actually came from. Chow Gar — The Origins tells the story of Chow Ah Naam. The founder. The man behind the system you train.