White Crane Kung Fu (白鶴拳; pinyin: bái hé quán; Hokkien: pek hok kun) is one of the original five animals of Shaolin Quan and one of the styles that constitute Five Ancestors Fist. White Crane style is very well known in Chinese martial arts circles, being said to emphasise high steps and sweeping diversions of attacks with the arms for defense, and high kicks and strikes with the elbows, fingers (in the form of 'the crane's beak') and wrists for offense. The southern school of White Crane is especially associated with the province of Fujian.
T'ai Chi Ch'uan is said by some of its schools to originally be based on a combination of White Crane and Snake Kung Fu. Also, early OkinawanKarate masters are said to have been strongly influenced by White Crane stylists from China.
There is another style of White Crane, associated with Tibet, that uses hand and arm attacks of the Crane and footwork of the Ape, as well as some hand and arm techniques of the Ape.
WhiteCrane Silat traces its origins to the monasteries and convents of China around 600 A.D. At this time the first patriarch of the legendary Shaolin temple, Bodhidharma (a.k.a.
It is said that the current WhiteCrane Silat style taught by PGB represents Suhu's synthesis of four martial arts styles with that of his original clan style of kun tao.
Suhu chose the WhiteCrane as the symbol of the school because the crane is a social animal which represents balance and grace, and only fights in self defense.