What was known about Shaolin Kung Fu prior to the 20th century?

This thread escalated into an obscene circle jerk more quickly than I anticipated.

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Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette

On the upside, thousands of people, who aren't total morons, are going to find this thread in their searches; read through Ren's posts and end up a lot more knowledgeable than they were before. They may even be marginally entertained.

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More likely they'll find one of the other 500 threads where he literally repeats the exact same shit.

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Originally Posted by falkor

This forum is about exchanging information.

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Too bad that's not what you're here for. When given information you throw it back and call the person a liar for absolutely no logical reason.

I had to laugh when RDH told you about the 4 class divisions in Shaolin, and you said "no, I don't think that's right" even though you have no reason to disbelieve it, especially when it is confirmed by others who have also been there.

That's basically what you're doing with the rest of reliable testimonial information– including video and map– you've been given here that logically suggests something about pre-20th century Shaolin to a degree of certainty, as it can't reasonably be denied.

You'd believe the same words if they were printed in a book though. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Scott R. Brown

Maybe falkor will do it. It will give him a chance to find some kind of answers to the questions that seem to be of foremost importance to him!

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I don't think he's old enough to travel alone.

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Originally Posted by LFJ

Too bad that's not what you're here for. When given information you throw it back and call the person a liar for absolutely no logical reason.

I had to laugh when RDH told you about the 4 class divisions in Shaolin, and you said "no, I don't think that's right" even though you have no reason to disbelieve it, especially when it is confirmed by others who have also been there.

That's basically what you're doing with the rest of reliable testimonial information– including video and map– you've been given here that logically suggests something about pre-20th century Shaolin to a degree of certainty, as it can't reasonably be denied.

You'd believe the same words if they were printed in a book though. :rolleyes:

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he started this magical quest to discover himself because songshan shaolin doesnt look like hong kong chop socky movies.

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Originally Posted by falkor

If I want to learn Kung Fu from any of you guys then I would pick Gene Ching! RenDaHai, I would have to treat him to some women, fine wine and red meat before we even discussed tuition fees.

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Thanks but I retired from teaching over a decade ago. Plus I'm married and vegetarian. If you truly want to learn anything from me, just subscribe.

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Originally Posted by Kellen Bassette

Gene's a good choice, but he'll always be trying to sell you a monk spade!

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That was just for apocalypse. I'll probably revisit it when World War Z premieres next summer. Got to stay topical, you know. It's tough slinging a medieval discipline in the modern world and most of you lot, despite your affection towards CMA, do more harm than good. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by GeneChing

That was just for apocalypse. I'll probably revisit it when World War Z premieres next summer. Got to stay topical, you know. It's tough slinging a medieval discipline in the modern world and most of you lot, despite your affection towards CMA, do more harm than good. :rolleyes:

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:( I was just trying to help.

...especially when it comes to selling monk spades. ;)

I should post our monk spade cover story from our 2012 Shaolin Special here again, just for good measure, as it's actually OT for this thread: The Spade, the Whip and the Mountain Gate. I am particularly proud that I could weave the Spade, Journey to the West, the Ramayana, Greek myth and the Bible together into one paragraph on said topic. :cool:

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Originally Posted by=GeneChing
I should post our monk spade cover story from our 2012 Shaolin Special here again, just for good measure, as it's actually OT for this thread: The Spade, the Whip and the Mountain Gate.

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That was a great issue! These threads sometimes become too long for me to read through them but shouldn't the subject of Bak Siu Lum come up in this discussion? After all, during the 1800's and the time Kuo Yu Cheung was making a name for himself, Bak Siu Lum (or Bei Shaolin) was the ONLY style referred to as "Northern Shaolin." Of course, there were other temple-related styles that could be considered "authentic" but it can't be denied that Kuo Yu Cheung's style has techniques that originated at the temple itself. After all, Shaolin Temple was destroyed multiple times in it's history. Even if there are manuals that can be carbon dated, who is to say that these were the original styles of the actual temple besides some villagers who may desire to be a part of it's illustrious history? During the 300 years of rebellion against the Qing almost all of the martial arts from the Shaolin Temple were orally transmitted so how can traditions that rely on this sort of transmission be totally discounted. Just something to think about.

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Originally Posted by Siu Lum Fighter

After all, during the 1800's and the time Kuo Yu Cheung was making a name for himself, Bak Siu Lum (or Bei Shaolin) was the ONLY style referred to as "Northern Shaolin.".

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NOt sure how you think you can make this statement with any degree of sincerity, Song Shan Shaolin didn't really refer to itself as Northern Shaolin. Just Shaolin. There is no need for a distinction because it is the only one in its mind.

During the 1800's is when the Mural in the Shaolin Temple was painted. So was there no famous SOng Shan Shaolin then? This we have as much proof as history ever gives us. A painting which is a well documented event. The techniques within the painting are the same as practiced in Song Shan today.

http://concordkungfu.com/assets/ShaolinTempleMural.jpg


BSL, The techniques are very similar to Shaolin, yes. Looking at the individual Techniques, the ten forms of BSL are pretty much the same as HongQuan. But the sequences and performance style of Taolu is not the same.

It probably left Song Shan a while ago and evolved its own forms. You think it is more authentic? I would wager all the techniques inside BSL are accounted for by todays Shaolin. So that is not the issue. The Issue would be the actual sequences of the forms.

We know what the teachers back in the 30's practiced because some people are still alive from this era and 20 years ago many were and we have videos of them practicing these same forms.

We have their testimony that this is what they learned.

We have the fact that the local mountain villages, largely inaccessible to each other until recently also practice these same forms (different enough to show they have evolved seperately for generations but similar enough to see that they come from the same thing)

What is more likely, that the BSL forms are the original but between 1850 and 1930 everyone forgot all the forms or was murdered. Then made up a style which is almost identical in technique, then created 1500 forms (confirmed in song shan) then went to all these villages to teach them, then got all the old masters to co-operate with the same lie. Or is it more likely that Song Shan Shaolin now has largely the same forms as it did in the 1850's, with some additions and some losses?

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Originally Posted by falkor

We have maps in England that show all the villages going back 500 years ago. China is the longest unbroken civilisation with some of the oldest paintings. They definitely will have maps going back 200 years of Henan, but you guys don't seem to know anything about the history. You expect me to look at Google Maps and believe your hypothesis about pre-20th century Shaolin Temple Town.

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As someone that actually know's something about mapping I would like to point out that even in the 1820's only a third of England and Wales was mapped at a scale of an inch to a mile with a theodolite, ie big enough to include a lot of detail like small villages hamlets etc. A lot of things are massively simplified at lower resolutions than this and even decent (ie. accurate, well produced) maps from the 1800s aren't brilliant for including all information, putting things in the right place, or just plain being legible(Britain being one of the countries at the forefront of mapping developments).

Even to this day if you head out in to the middle of nowhere in Britain with an OS map, the tolerance for accuracy is about a mile. So anything shown on your map can be up to a mile away from where it actually is and that is seen as ok by the OS, because it's not super important to be accurate for general use. In cities where it is easier to triangulate your position with bench marks obviously things are much better.

Given this, and given the huge size of China and the remoteness of some of these places, lack of site lines and inability to get to places in mountainous regions, the fact that surveys would probably have been using survey chains (not exactly brilliant for surveying a mountain), and finally that at this time China was very resistant to outside technology even when it was given to them freely and clearly superior to their own, expecting this area to be mapped showing all the villages in the area is ludicrous. Most maps of the area would probably mark major features eg the temple, any major towns and cities and the rest would have been rendering of mountains.

On a rather different note...

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Originally Posted by RenDaHai

Answer; A lot

Also a vast number of QuanPu (Kung Fu manuals) still exist in the villages. They contain much info on Kung Fu and attribute themselves to Shaolin AND should be possible to date using radiocarbon dating. These are far more valuable than the diaries of people who supposedly visited Shaolin temple for 2 days once. H.

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Whether they could be RC dated and what this could tell you kinda depends upon a lot of things. I agree it would be very interesting though. Are they wooden/bone slats or actual paper/vellum books? The latter might be difficult to date as it takes a fair sized sample and the paper might be too thin, although the bindings could be datable. The former could potentially suffer from old wood syndrome, ie. old wood reused for something else, making the manuals seem older than they are.

It is always possible of course whichever they are that the manuals were orinially for something else (maybe even older kung fu manuals) but were erased and written over. This happened a lot as books were rare and expensive until the printing press came along. Of course were this the case close study could reveal even more! Someone needs to get on this now! :p

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Originally Posted by DCB

Given this, and given the huge size of China and the remoteness of some of these places, lack of site lines and inability to get to places in mountainous regions, the fact that surveys would probably have been using survey chains (not exactly brilliant for surveying a mountain), and finally that at this time China was very resistant to outside technology even when it was given to them freely and clearly superior to their own, expecting this area to be mapped showing all the villages in the area is ludicrous. Most maps of the area would probably mark major features eg the temple, any major towns and cities and the rest would have been rendering of mountains.

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I was going to mention something to this effect, much less eloquently, then I realized it would be to no avail, since I've yet to right a book on the subject.

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Originally Posted by DCB

Whether they could be RC dated and what this could tell you kinda depends upon a lot of things. I agree it would be very interesting though. Are they wooden/bone slats or actual paper/vellum books? The latter might be difficult to date as it takes a fair sized sample and the paper might be too thin, although the bindings could be datable. The former could potentially suffer from old wood syndrome, ie. old wood reused for something else, making the manuals seem older than they are.

It is always possible of course whichever they are that the manuals were orinially for something else (maybe even older kung fu manuals) but were erased and written over. This happened a lot as books were rare and expensive until the printing press came along. Of course were this the case close study could reveal even more! Someone needs to get on this now! :p

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Usually paper (of some kind). It would be difficult to get permission to destroy a piece for dating. Difficult but not impossible. Often the owners are just as curious.

It is even more complicated. Some manuals have written dates, however the date that is written is the date of the original not the current copy. They would be handwritten, but hand written copies would not survive long and so they were copied and recopied. The date shown will be the date the of the original as opposed to the copy. But the copy will be from a later time. And there is no way to know what is added in the interim. After radio carbon dating it will almost certainly be younger than the date written.

Additionally there are Quan pu copies that exist with no originals. Some copied in the modern era. Even until very recently in China it would be more practical to hand write most of these. I have seen a lot of these. HOw do I know they are not just written recently? Well they can be somewhat dated by the language structure. They use unfamiliar characters which the transcriber likely copied without understanding. Also the combinations and sentences, metaphors and analogies and references are ones which are not understandable to todays Chinese. They would require a real expert on the language of the period and locality to translate into modern Chinese. There is no way they could have been written recently. The people who have them can in most cases not really understand a word. This means I am certain if someone was willing to pay to have them translated by an expert into modern Chinese the owner would be willing to allow access.

Finding such an expert is not easy as you would also need an old Kung fu master to work along side him since a lot of the sayings will reference particular Kung Fu strategies and methods.

It is difficult but not impossible. It will only get harder the more time passes however.

Just an aside: there’s a whole science of manuscript studies that has its own comparative techniques for dating and establishing genealogies of manuscripts. This might be an alternative to RC dating. Of course it would require Chinese philological expertise.

And who's going to do all this quanpu manual dating research? Sure, there are methods, but to the best of my knowledge, this is not a pressing academic question at this time. It would be great if it were, but have some perspective. Don't get too martially myopic over it.

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Originally Posted by GeneChing

Don't get too martially myopic over it.

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Martially myopic bad, maritally myopic good?:confused: