Traditional shaolin gun forms

[Semillas]

As I see, the five fundamental forms of the Shaolin gun are: Yin shou gun, xiao ye cha, da ye cha, pai & chan suo. Then, what about other forms as shao huo gun or feng mo gun? It's also traditional forms.

[mickey]

Greetings Semillas,

You mat want to consider that the present Shaolin has been in the process of rebuilding itself in the past few decades and that these are the staff forms in their new curriculum. It is not that they are excluding, per se; it is that their focus is different. they appear to be trying to carry forth those forms that do not exist everywhere else.


To Add: How can you generate $$$ with a curriculum that every one else has?

mickey

[RenDaHai]

Hi Semillas,

According to 'Shaolin Gunshou Chanzong' (a book written in 1615 thereabouts) the forms you mention are indeed the major styles. In the book the author specifically states that Xiao YeCha, DaYeCha and YinShou Gun have 6 forms EACH. So we are talking about 18 full length forms here, several of which are represented in the book. The others you mention are dui lian (2 man practices). In the book he also says there are many other sets but that they are just those 18 sets chopped about and in a different order.

Often these forms will have a unique name of their own as well as being called, say, San lou yin shou gun (level 3 Yin hand staff). This may be the origin of some of the other names.

What is 'Shaolin' is not and has never been exclusively the Kung Fu at the temple, but that of the whole Shaoshi mountain area encompassing many villages that had a symbiotic relationship with the temple. That is still true today. Shaolin Temple proper traditionally put huge emphasis on the Staff at the neglect of other weapons. The most useful way to use a staff is actually as a spear, mainly thrusting with the tip. So YeCha Gun is effectively mainly a spear form. However in the villages the spear is trained as the main weapon. So the forms like YeCha gun, using the staff as a spear, become less important as your spear forms cover those same techniques so that for the staff people would focus on the forms of YinShou Gun. (Yinshou is a strategy whereby you grip the staff in such a way as to make it shorter, so you can close the gap on someone whose weapon is longer than yours, it is the secondary method of using the staff, when the spear method has failed). This can perhaps explain why Yinshou Gun is still popular but YeCha is not.

Second to this the name YeCha is a buddhist demon and a name that only buddhists very familiar with the literature would know and so has less meaning outside the temple itself. As such YeCha gun would take on a different name in the villages, i.e YinYang Gun, a popular form which is mainly YeCha Gun technique.


Shaolin Staff has been famous for over 1000 years so of course many alternative routines have appeared but looking at the book Shaolin Gunshou the content of techniques has changed very little, save for the fact that most of those techniques would now be trained as spear not as staff, with staff focussing on mainly Yinshou and Qimei gun methods.

[Semillas]

Thanks to both of you. Now I think understand a Little more the matter.

[bawang]

since buddhist monks are forbidden to use weapons except staff for self defence, shaolin monk soldier justifies using spears in warfare by seeing them as technically spiked staffs and they are called long staffs "da bang". they are from 7 to 9 feet long. for melee combat shaolin monks can also use shorter iron staffs to bypass the forbidden use of edged weapons and the killing power is produced by ridging and small mace heads. so yecha gun is a mixture of spear sword and polearm techniques.

shaolin staff was also criticized by its contemporaries for being very rigid and stiff, due to the lack of understanding that shaolin monk soldiers were heavily armored shock troops so it emphasizes the first strike.

battle tactics of typical 30 man monk soldier group using yecha gun

against melee troops, spear charge and disengage using sword techniques
against spear troops, sword charge and disengage using spear techniques
against cavalry, spear techniques
wing and rear deployment: accompany main formation group, skirmish and flank enemy in loose grouping
vanguard deployment: charge enemy formation with tight grouping in diagonal angle, then prolonged melee