The committee is at it again.
Chinanews, Zhenzhou, Feb. 27, 2006
"In order to standardize and promote orthodox Shaolin martial arts, the Dengfeng Municipal Administration of Sports in Henan will invite some martial arts experts to offer a 10-day training program to some 300 martial arts coaches. The program will start on March 6."
"In recent years, many domestic and overseas Chinese pick up the old tradition of practicing martial arts. However, there are currently various kinds of martial arts practiced in society under the name Shaolin. Some of these martial arts are far different from conventional Shaolin style and hamper the sound development of conventional Shaolin Kongfu."
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re: "conventional Shaolin style"
The "conventional Shaolin style" referred to above was adopted at the Shaolin Monastery in the early 1980's. This was a hodgepodge of forms coming from a numbers of different communes plus a number of experts from different parts of China, plus modern wushu basics.
I find it interesting that in another article whch appeared recently in Chinanews and dated Mar.24, Shi Yongxin said the purpose of this and trademarking was not over money but over reputation. He said, "The Chinese folk cultural resources have already lost a lot and cannot afford to lose any more."
I couldn't agree with him more, unfortunately this standardize and trademarking (read marketing) of Shaolin martial arts will do just the opposite.
r.
You mean an Intangible Heritage
Songshan already is a UNESCO Geopark. Shaolin Temple was bidding for a World Heritage Site, but they don't really qualify as it stands. Talin has potential to become a World Heritage Site, but Shaolin Temple itself was deemed unworthy because it had so much reconstruction. Of course, the Intangible Heritage bid is equally challenging. To be an Intangible Heritage, Shaolin Kung Fu has to be more precisely defined.
The Dengfeng Sports Bureau already created standardized Shaolin Forms and implemented them for local competition. These are not traditional forms. These are new forms that combined movements from traditional forms. The compulsory is really hard. But you have to distinguich between these two governing bodies and their goals. There's Shaolin Temple's Abbot, who is trying to define traditional Shaolin as part of this UNESCO Intangible Heritage bid. Then there's the Dengfeng Sports Bureau which is trying to regulate the 80 private schools in Dengfeng, as well as the Dengfeng sports college. They are trying to implement this compulsory program on an academic level. Given this report, it's hard to tell what's going on; It maybe that the reporter might not be senstive to all the issues here and is crossing political bodies to make his story flow.