History:

Houquan is a kind of symbolic boxing. As early as in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) a kind of dance based on the actions of the macaque, a short-tailed monkey, was already in existence.

A silk painting of the earlier Han period unearthed from the No. 3 Han Tomb at Mawangdui, east of Changsha, Hunan Province, contains an inscription of "A Bathing Monkey Calls" and a picture. It has been established that the picture represents an ancient Monkey Style practiced 2,100 years ago. The monkey's clever movements and playful nature were vividly portrayed in the painting.

Hua Tuo, an eminent surgeon of the Later Han (25-220 A.D.) and the Three Kingdoms (222-265 A.D.) periods, invented what he called the "Five-Animal Play",.... The "play" consisted of a series of health-building exercises, imitating the sportive and frolic movements of five animals - the tiger, deer, bear, ape and horse. Hua Tuo not only practiced it himself, but taught it to the sick and weak as a means of promoting health, resisting diseases and prolonging life.

By the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Monkey Style had become one of the principal forms of Chinese boxing. Qi Jiguang, a general of that period...wrote: "Emporor Taizu of the Song Dynasty practiced not only the 32-posture changquan, but also the six-step boxing, houquan and equan (bird-decoy boxing)."

Towards the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) a kind of pugilism called the "Kite Mountain Art of Training and Fighting" was practiced in the mountains of Yuexin County, Shaanxi Province. This was precisely the Monkey Style itself.