Shaolin vs Wushu

[Shaolinlueb]

i have yet to learn any real wushu. i know a short contemporary broad sword form my teacher learned from yao li. thats about it. he wants me to do some more before going to wushu competition forms. but as an instructor i should know them because its the way of the future. (not saying tradition is oging to be gone, jsut a lot more people wanting to learn wushu.)

[Banjos_dad]

We don't do much, otherwise I would take that advice & take a gymnastics class. We do about ten minutes on the mats with back rolls, fron rolls, cartwheels, rolling lying down (sort of like a rolling log), front handsprings & back handsprings. Everything on both sides or directions. We go from easiest to more challenging, so if your like me, willing to attempt a front handspring but not a back handspring, you just do a set of something else during that trip across the mat.
Today I failed again, but the students more junior than me don't even attempt it so at least I know that I'm trying & will capture that skill.

[Banjos_dad]

He said Shaolin is really big.
It's to big to fit in a pigeonhole. Readers of Kungfu Magazine noted the article about the teaching of "taiquando (-dao?)" at Shaolin. And the new shaolin style with a belt ranking system! People don't have to act like wushu and shaolin are polar opposites.
Have a good one. B_d

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by norther practitioner
Well yeah, thats how I train too... but thats not nec. what I'm talking about.

Oh, and tan tui, this is exactly what it does too. Hence spring leg.

I haven't read the whole thread here and don't necc. hve the time...but does anyone have a link for a tan tui teacher??? I'm looking for China, but I guesss I'll go anywhere

[blooming lotus]

I'm big on acrobatics...and have serious appreciation for the gymanastist...I was waiting til I got to Vancouver to study monkey style fulltime to get heavy with it..but what r saying...If I get in some wushu I should be covered???

[SPJ]

For your info:
Northern Shaolin is on Song Shan. For certain periods of time, they are allowed to study Wushu. There was a library called Zhang Jing Ger. There were all kinds of Wushu documented in books. There are Xin Fa (methods for the heart/mind) along with Quan Jing (boxing books).

However, during Yuan and Ching dynasties, the books were destroyed. The temples burned and monks disbanded.

In contrast, Wu Dang Shan, the Daoist temples were built as well as the Great Walls in Ming Dynasty.

I have studied with several worldly Shaolin monks in Taiwan. My specialty was Shaolin one finger Zen. I was no good. However, I have some basic skills and knowledge. Most of Shaolin stuff are for the gifted. They all require decades of practice. Iron Head, Iron Palm, Iron Clothes (Teh Bu San/Jin Zhong Zhao), Great Power Jing Gong fist, palm, leg, on and on.

My favorites are the staff, little hong Quan, and all the basic stuff. I am not gifted enough for a lot of them.

Wushu is used to include all fighting methods or schools in China.

Modern Day Wushu simply means routines to compete in world and olymic games just like dance and gym routines.

Shaolin hand gesture is a palm called Her Shi (ten fingers combined) and prayer beads.

Wu Dang hand gesture is two fingers (index and middle) pointing (Jien Zi, arrow fingers) and dusting brush (Fu Zheng).

There is no Shaolin vs Wushu.

Shaolin is Wushu.

(Modern) Wushu is dance/gym routines for games and metals.

[blooming lotus]

modern day wushu is what happened when the government sucked the life out of shaolin kungfu, disected it and stuck an arm a leg, three fingers and a nose together cause they thought it looked pretty..then told everybody that from now on ...this is how it will look...

[mortal]

I have studied with 3 different monks. Real Shaolin style is definitely not wushu. The shaolin you see today is geared towards performance.
If you are good at wushu the transition to traditional is easier. Some of the monks teach wushu first to get the students into shape. The problem is they don't see the reason to make a big distinction between the 2. Hard training is hard training.

[norther practitioner]

.

Geez, thanks for reading the thread and being relevent....

We weren't saying shaolin = modern wushu, we were discussing the differences... so thank you for stating the obvious.



BL, I'll ask a few people around, Where exactly are you in China...

[GeneChing]

You should take a look at the article series that I just published subtitled "the Secret History of Wushu from Behind the Red Curtain". Part one was in our March April 2004. Part two is hitting the newsstands next week or so (no link yet). It'll give you a better picture of the development of modern 'sport' wushu than the old "commie' blacklisting one. Actually, it grew out of communist support of martial arts, as strange as that may sound.

Shaolin clearly encompasses wushu now. It is a fixture in the Shaolin curriculum, as is san da and even tae kwon do. But the root of Shaolin is it's traditional core forms. It's sort of a chicken and egg problem. While you attempt to distinguich between the chicken and the egg, Shaolin zen answers with 'the chicken is the egg'.

[Shaolinlueb]

hmm call me stupid or whatever. but traditional shaolin is traditional wushu. wushu from the past 50 years is a sport. wushu from earlier is kung fu or traditional kung fu with application. everyone associates wushu with modern wushu when its all the same. jsut the older wushu still has application and less emphasise on pretty.

[GeneChing]

...you'll find that the first compulsories weren't established until 1964, so sport wushu is only really 40 years old.

[Sho]

Originally posted by Shaolinlueb
hmm call me stupid or whatever. but traditional shaolin is traditional wushu. wushu from the past 50 years is a sport. wushu from earlier is kung fu or traditional kung fu with application. everyone associates wushu with modern wushu when its all the same. jsut the older wushu still has application and less emphasise on pretty.

I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but that's just nitpicking. It's merely a matter of definition. Yes, wushu does mean martial arts as a whole, but when people use it they often associate it with the modern sport and it can also be well distinguished from the context when they do so.

[red5angel]

hmm call me stupid or whatever. but traditional shaolin is traditional wushu. wushu from the past 50 years is a sport. wushu from earlier is kung fu or traditional kung fu with application. everyone associates wushu with modern wushu when its all the same. jsut the older wushu still has application and less emphasise on pretty.

I'm going to go ahead and call you stupid then, just because Gene already went over that about 6 inches above your own post there luebie


for the sake of the rest of this discussion let's assume that when we say WUSHU, we mean the modern version, competitive sporty gymnastic type. I assumed this from the get go but apparently some people get confused by my verbal wushu gymnastics. This is also not a thread to slam one or the other. I am training currently at a school that teaches both, although I am only learning shaolin longfist, and I have respect for both "schools" of doing things.

[Shaolinlueb]

Originally posted by red5angel


I'm going to go ahead and call you stupid then, just because Gene already went over that about 6 inches above your own post there luebie

maybe i should read the full thread instead of jsut reeading random blurbs and posting an opinion?