xiao/dahongquan are the first you will learn. i decided to stop after those two, personally. i learned two different versions of dahongquan, which ive since combined for my own dahongquan, ive also made minor adjustments to xiaohongquan based on the way shi deyang demonstrates his. my xiaohongquan is pretty well set where it is, but im constantly adjusting and working on my dahongquan.
ive also adapted 'street versions' of each set. this is just something i personally do. the form and techniques are all still there, but there are some adjustments ive made due to the way people generally fight here in the US. my personal versions carry more over into what ive experience and witnessed in my life, as well as influence from other areas of martial arts, and the interactions and learnings ive had from various other styles. for instance, many of the stances are raised, and the guards closed tighter. a good comparison is when you see someone peform a set, and then watch that person fight with the same material, it is somewhat similar but the actuality of combat forces change from the classical material. its more of a 'street fighting' version that I like to practice. completely seperately from the traditional versions. there was a point where i just decided to make the hong sets my 'style' you could say.
then there is the whole internal aspect of the sets....
at this point im satisfied with just those two sets for my empty hand sets. i had also learned several northern longfist sets, a couple nanquan sets, and various weapon sets.
i still practice many of the techniques removed but have dropped all empty hand sets except the hong forms. ive retained the weapons because they are really fun.
if you are currently trying to learn on your own until you find a teacher, a good set you can practice is your basic stances.
for instance:
start in a standing position, and then step into horse, pull back into empty/cat, then down into ding bu (sry i dont remember the english name, but its in shaolin sets: EDIT: I think its refered to as a T stance sometimes), shoot forward into bow, fall back to a drop stance, step through for a resting stance, twist for a sitting/twisting stance, twist to back standing position. then repeat on opposite side. do till your fall over exhausted 
i often combine offensive and defensive hand techniques in the stance sequences.
you can make your own combination based on what stances you do currently know. you can also make differing variations to keep it more vercitile.
this will help you on your transitioning between stances which will benefit you when you are doing your sets, or when you are using stances combined with footwork in freefighting.
Last edited by Lucas; 07-16-2009 at 10:45 PM.
For whoso comes amongst many shall one day find that no one man is by so far the mightiest of all.
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Basic Shaolin hand-to-hand combat forms
Originally Posted by Shaolinstudent
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