Top Five Most Important Shaolin Temple Forms?

[ninja]

If you had to choose, what would be the 5 most important shaolin temple fist forms? And if you had to specialize in one empty hand form and one weapon what would they be?

[Mortal1]

Just learn the wushu compulsary's. Win a whole bunch of tourney's and open a school in Cali.

[David Jamieson]

on the empty hand form, I'd just pick one so long as the techniques mete out as effective in a realistic pressurized scenario.

for a weapon, I'll take an m1911 .45 or possibly a glock, but the .45 is way cheaper. :D

[PangQuan]

yes but the glock is much lighter, for that quick draw reflex. plus get an extended clip and your packing alot of rounds.

on the other hand the .45 has the stopping power you will need when you come against a bunch of evil ninja's.

any shaolin fist form is fine by me, as long as it has enough groin strikes, throat tears, and eye gouges.

[ngokfei]

Out of the 7 or so "classical" sets

I'd say the XingyiChangQuan

for a weapon: the damo cane


Now the WuBuQuan set is also good but the one being taught at shaolin today is very shallow. (learned it at Shi guolin's school). Prefer the version I picked up in HK has the wrist lock and hip throw more emphasized.

[sean_stonehart]

*sigh* ....

If you gotta have a plastic gun, get a Glock Model 20... .45ACP 13+1 capacity...

[PangQuan]

nah, just speculationg. Ill stick with my .44 magnum.

[David Jamieson]

in all seriousness:

I would like two of the forms. Those being the big red fist and the little red fist.

for a weapon, well, staff of course. Shaolin is in my opinion the roxors on staff knowledge.

[Royal Dragon]

I'd like to add Shaolin Cannon Fist, and Tai Tzu Chang Chuan to that list

[Royal Dragon]

Oh, and the Small and Big Louhan

[ninja]

I think:

7 star
Taizu
Cannon Fist
Da Lohan
Maihua

Double Handed Staightsword

[Mortal1]

Doublehanded straight sword? What is this Dungeons and dragons? +3 against gay elves.

You just like that weapon! lol

[Royal Dragon]

Why are we limited to 5? Most Shaolin systems are centered around 10 empty hand sets.

My dream Shaolin system would be

1. Wu Bu Chuan
2. Xiao Hong Chuan
3. Da Hong Chuan
4. Xiao Louhan Chuan 18 move form
5. Da Louhan Chuan 54 move form
6. Tai Tzu Chang Chuan
7. Small Cannon Fist
8. Big Cannon fist
9. Great Louhan 108 move form
10. Five Animals Fist

[taichi4eva]

I have never seen a northern version of the five animal fist. Has anyone?

[r.(shaolin)]

Hi taichi4eva

You might want to check out this thread:

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24009&page=1&pp=15

r.

and this thread:

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35560

[GeneChing]

you might also want to check out this e-zine article. (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=156). It's part 3 of a series I did a while back; here's part 1 (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=158).

[yan23]

wu xing ba fa?

[ninja]

The reason I ask this question is because I'm a student of Chenying's. He teaches Shaolin Liuhe and Ziranmen in NYC. There are 5 Liuhe solo fist forms. I learned a handful of shaolin temple forms from a few of the monks in new york city over a period of 5 years. The Liuhe forms are very sophisticated! They combine many techniques from bagua, xingyi, taichi and shaolin temple styles. These are beautiful forms. But I have a large soft spot for shaolin temple forms. I want to hold on to a small handful of forms that encompass the style. Which forms contain the bulk of shaolin basics? Shaohong teaches several of the 18 lohan basics. Maihua encompasses shaolin's jumping and low sweeping basics. Da Lohan has basics from Pao Chuan, Da Hong, etc. My thought is that maybe it's possible to choose a small handful of forms that hold the shaolin style.

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

any shaolin fist form is fine by me, as long as it has enough groin strikes, throat tears, and eye gouges.

have you seen sun bin style of southern crane?

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

five animals and five elements
big red fist, 2nd form
10 syllable mahayana
open hand v. double daggers
great spirit

[Royal Dragon]

Ah, I get it.

1 Xiao Hong Chuan
2. Da Louhan
3. Cannon Fist
4. Tai Tzu Chang Chuan

[DRleungjan]

Maaan, Siu Lam has such a vast collection of forms and routines! Reminds me of the Playstation game library. Everytime I browse around this forum I seem to be exposed to a new name of a form. LOL Just out of curiosity's sakes; I understand that Siu Lam has lost many forms, how many are extant today?

[GeneChing]

My thought is that maybe it's possible to choose a small handful of forms that hold the shaolin style. Shaolin style is incredibly vast, especially if you don't limit it strictly to Songshan Shaolin. It's also a vital art, constantly moving forward, sometimes sideways even, but never staying still. Trying to distill it to a few key forms limits your take on the art. Trying to ask others which ones to limit it to limits your own personal growth. Now, not knowing you beyond the forums, we can all spout off various forms we think are 'classics' but that speaks nothing to your own progression, your state of body and mind, and most important, your journey.

For example, I went through the whole Bak Sil Lum system. It's a beautiful system, especially when you get all the core ten forms, absolutely amazing in it's grand composition. But it's a lot to maintain, especially when you add the dozens of weapons, and my lifestyle doesn't permit enough practice time to really keep it up. For years, that was my core, but today, while I touch those sets now and again, they've fallen out of my regular practice for the most part. At the same time, I've always loved Xiaohong and Yinshaogun, from the moment I first learned them over ten years ago. Xiaohong, despite being one of the most fundamental of Songshan sets, and was once in high rotation in my practice, has an energy that still eludes me, so I've been working Tongbei more, since it's shorter and simpler. I was really into Tongbei last year, but I'm not working that one as much at present. My new love is Xingyi sword, which tosses all my Shaolin stuff out the window. But it's what I'm practicing now. Someday in the future, that may change. Now, you could argue that I should stick to one set, but given my position, that would limit my research. My journey is unique. It has taken me furthest when I didn't limit myself. Your journey is unique too.

It's funny, last night, another student, one of the kickboxers, was checking out my swordplay. He liked it, but his main comment was that it was 'street' practical because "you couldn't go a higlander on someone". My counter was that tennis isn't practical, nor bowling, nor golf. People do it because they like it. I like sword. I could care less if it is good for self defense or not. I like it to be effective - 'real' so to speak - but I don't envision ever splitting someone in two with a sword. I do it because I enjoy it. Follow your bliss. Find a few sets that you like and practice them. If you find others you like more someday, that practice won't have been in vain. There's always positive transfer.

[ngokfei]

gene you hit the head on the nail.

I must of learned over 100 hand sets in the past 20 years (eagle claw, chin woo, hung ga, lama, mantis, etc).

With time constraints I can't maintain them all at such a high level (also some I just don't like anymore)

So have to pick and chose (sure I go through them all at least once a month - just for memory sake :D

Thank god for Video ;)

[Royal Dragon]

I have learned alot of sets too, but it's my core Tai Tzu sets that I work the most. there is only so much time, so I do the first 3 sections of the long form, and that is about it. I generally work the 2nd section the most as it's my favorite, then the third, and finally I review the first. Last of all I do them in order once or twice. I haven't done sections 4, 5 and 6 in so long I don't remember them fully ( As said above, thank God for video!!), and the same goes for all my Tai Tzu Hong Chuan sets.

I still do Jap Xiao Ma Kune though. I like that basic set. It's one of the sets from the Southern Long Fist branch. I picked it up from Sifu Abel's line a few years ago. I still owe him video of my performance though! :(

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

one of the problems i have with condensing stuff is that inevitabbly you leave something out that seemed worthless at the time that might prove valueable under different circumstances. i just went through a stage of trying to condense my mental library of forms practice and technique. I almost gave up in frustration; then i almost wrote five new forms that were based on others; then i just concluded it was better to leave'em as separate forms and just string'em all together as one.

my father is famous for a wushu forms legacy. but he only practices like five forms and only learned eight or nine. of those five he focuses on two: iron thread, the wave form.

two of my brothers have forgotten more than i've learned: but they remember all the good stuff and teach it to me. :D

there are four families of shaolin. who are we to limit it? I don't even practice two of the five i mentioned: gs, dd. but i mentioned them because dd is unique in the ma world for collecting all the movements of fighting eh v. edges; gs because of it's indication of shaolin's move towards soft styles.

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

My thought is that maybe it's possible to choose a small handful of forms that hold the shaolin style.

five families, that's 70 forms. plus thier half-kin: soft styles/rong gau/great spirit; some chin na and wrestling; the post cr absorbed taoist sects...there's a lot to learn before you learn what you have to learn in order to learn what you would want to throw away so you can focus on learning the rest. by the time you do all that you have a streamlined shaolin-do. you could probably have 3 basic forms from each of the families and half-kin and end up with 18 forms (enough for a style formulation without weapons) of basics. then another 27 forms for intermediate flavour skills.

of martial arts in china: Hung gar is one of the most popular; then mantis; lots of people watch shaolin but few actually study it. we as americans have greater access to shaolin than do the average chinese.

first spend some dough. spend some dough on videos to give yourself an idea of what you'd like to learn. some things are whimsical, some are practical. in your study you will inevitably forget something or stop practicing one thing in lieu of something else. i hesitate to offer the best forms for fear that you'd get bored of them in 12 years and look for something else. :rolleyes:

[SimonM]

Oh, and the Small and Big Louhan

I'm all about the lohan. :D

[Royal Dragon]

Yup, Louhan is the original Shaolin!

[YuanZhideDiZhen]

i recently did a search of all the "shaolin" forms products available on video. i counted only the open handed forms and stopped at 113 forms, not counting repeats or weapons.