Xiao/Da Hong Quan...the only fist forms practiced after Revolution
I'm totally unsure about this but I remember reading a long time ago in one of the issues in kungfumagazine.com that following the Cultural Revolution, the only fist forms that were being practiced inside the Shaolin Temple were Xiao Hong Quan and Da Hong Quan. Many of the other styles practiced at Songshan were brought in from neighboring areas. Can I anyone support/decry this assertion? Also, my other question would be on weapon sets taught prior to when the movie, "Shaolin Temple" hit it big?
Thanks in advance.
Interesting argument r.(shaolin)
When I was first taught yinshougun by Shi Decheng, we used a longer 'rat-tail' staff, more akin to what is depicted in Cheng Zongyou's work. Some of the modern practitioners have converted it for an eyebrow-height staff, including my present Shaolin teacher Yan Fei (a disrobed monk). It's worthy of note here that there's a traditional Shaolin staff form called qimeigun (eyebrow-height) which is played more like European quarterstaff or Japanese bo staff where you strike with both ends a lot. Rat-tail staffs tend to work more like spears.
That being said, I tend to lean towards your belief that Cheng's form is different from the modern one simply because the figures in the text don't map well. Even given a wide latitude for variation, I don't see the pattern as being the root of what we do now. I confess, this is based on a rather cursory examination. But I know yinshougun fairly well and I don't see the connection. Perhaps I should look at it more carefully.
The same situation exists today
The area surrounding Shaolin is rich with martial tradition. Many of the local masters like Tagou's Liu Baoshan, Epo's Liang Yiquan and Chen Tongshan (see my post above, #3) have generations of experience with secular Shaolin forms. My current teacher, Yan Fei, learned a lot of his material outside the temple from a folk master, so he has a completely different array of forms. Being a former monk, he has the standard sets too. Another example is the Wu Gulun lineage, which we've discussed here before. Shaolin is quite diverse that way. While there are certainly some universal forms, I find the variations more interesting.
And I completely agree with Sal. In my research, I've only been able to document a small fraction of the Shaolin curriculum. There's plenty more that I haven't even begun to penetrate. Given that there's much more research happening now, that in our modern age of the internet, research is almost a disposable commodity, just imagine how it was back in the 16th century when the hot new thing was the printing press. Documentation was a luxury back then. Surely there's been countless undocumented variations over Shaolin's history. It just stands to reason. Nevertheless, the record that remains is very interesting, and the very fact that some classic names like yinshougun were recorded centuries ago is in its own way fascinating.