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Like all the American Kenpo forms, Form Five has areas of concentration that the other forms do not explore as in-depth. These concepts and physical characteristics are referred as the form's themes. Unlike all the other forms before Form Five, this form has added another twist to the progression of the themes. Form Five has switched from just concentrating on "standard" motions and concepts, to anomalous or more specialized ones. This is expressly demonstrated in the form's themes.

 

Some of the major themes of this form are:

•hanging hands, hands down, or not ready positioning

•difficult, bad, or out of position beginnings to the individual self-defense techniques

•take-downs (destabilization)

•lower body maneuvers (stomps, sweeps, buckles, etc.)

•leaving the ground (hops, jumps, leaps)

•3-on-line

•complimentary (first half of form) and opposing forces (second half of form)

•figure 8 pattern (continued from Form 4)

 

It also has multiple stances as its major theme stance:

•the inverted neutral bow

•the concave stance

•the diamond stance

 

Taken in total, this helps explain why Form Five is typically considered an add-on form. One that doesn't quite fit or is considered specialized in nature. The only other form that comes close to this form's "feel" is Long Form Three. This is because both forms deal with difficult and/or physically challenging themes. And because of this, both forms do not have the same fluidity and/or as many flowery motions as some of the other forms of the system.