I want to hear people's opinion as to what constitutes the core idea/essence of Shaolin Gong Fu. I'm just talking about the martial art here, not the whole experience, Chan, philosophy, ect.

It seems that many Shaolin practitioners today focus on form collecting and there's always a lot of talk in this forum of learning complete subsystems. I find it hard to believe, myself, that Shaolin lay practitioners of a few centuries ago were studying 200 different forms or 9 subsystems or creating weapons that were never actually used in any battles.

If Xiao Hong Quan is the "mother of boxing," why do we need so many other sets? To my way of thinking, more than 90% of material in the myriad of forms is redundant and just reworked patterns of the same material in other Songshan forms. If we have Xiao Hong and Da Hong, how much of the other stuff is even pertinent, as far as empty hand.

My opinion is, Shaolin has always been based on conditioning and hard training. I feel this is what distinguishes Shaolin from other styles of Gong Fu and has helped it, in part, retain its' fame over the years. I don't feel Shaolin has superior techniques to the other northern systems, but I think traditionally, there was a stronger work ethic associated with Shaolin and because of that, the art tended to produce many high caliber martial artists, just because they put in longer and harder hours. Nothing to do with a superior style or methods...

So...are the 72 arts, the foundation, is it just hard work as the season change? What do you guys think? What is the underlying core of Shaolin Quan as a martial art, after you strip away the superficial stuff we see everyday?