Chinese martial arts can be split into various categories to be differentiated: external and internal. It can also be categorized by location, as in northern and southern as well, referring to the part of China the styles originated from, separated by the Yangtze River; Chinese martial arts may even be classified according to province or city.
The main perceived difference between northern and southern styles is that the northern styles tend to emphasize fast and powerful kicks, high jumps and generally flexible and rapid movements, while the southern styles focus more on musculature and hand techniques, stable, immovable stances and fast footwork.
Examples of the northern styles include Changquan (长拳) and Xingyiquan (形意拳). Examples of the southern styles include Bak Mei (朴美), Choy Li Fut (蔡李笏) and Wing Chun (咏春). Chinese martial arts can also be divided according to religion, imitative-styles (象形拳), and family styles such as Hung Gar (洪家).
There are distinctive differences in the training between different groups of the Chinese martial arts regardless of the type of classification. However, few martial artists have clarified the distinction between internal and external styles, or adhered to the idea of northern systems being predominantly kick-based and southern systems relying more heavily on upper-body techniques.
Most styles contain both hard and soft elements, regardless of their internal nomenclature. Analyzing the difference in accordance with yin and yang principles, philosophers would assert that the absence of either one would render the practitioner’s skills unbalanced or deficient, as yin and yang alone are each only half of a whole. If such differences did once exist, they have since been blurred.
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