Cirsus of Shaolin or not ?

[Kellen Bassette]

the complete SongShan Shaolin styles and their clear and hidden contents have always been taught via the forms and their combat applications and sparring.

I didn't say, or mean to imply that Songshan originally had no forms, only that the importance and prominence of form training has grown drastically over the many years, to the point of absurdity.

How many forms are there in Songshan now? I've been told 200, 300? I've read as many as 1,000! There comes a point where, for all intents and purposes, all your doing is form training. That wasn't what it was originally about and true "traditionalists" should be making a move back to fundamental training, developing individual gongs, doing one skill thousands of times until the technique is mastered, not collecting hundreds of very similar forms in different arrangements.

This is "da realz" Kung Fu.

[YouKnowWho]

collecting hundreds of very similar forms in different arrangements.

That's called growing fat, or going through the elementary school 6 times.

[RenDaHai]

How many forms are there in Songshan now? I've been told 200, 300? I've read as many as 1,000!

In SongShan about 1500.....

But don't take that the wrong way. The Reason there are so many is because there are so many different families. A lot of what is practiced in the big schools now is the basic forms from many different families. That is why it looks like a lot of stuff is repeated.

Actually if you learn the forms from just ONE family, you find they are not reiterations of the same techniques. Usually the forms are 36 moves long (this is actually very short compared to a lot of northern styles) and every form contains mainly unique techniques, otherwise it would not be kept.

If you mastered one family style there may be 10 fists. But there is a reason for these forms as they encompass a huge range of technique. One form may be mainly claws, another just elbows, another just sweeps, another just qinna, another tieshenkao, another longfists, another duanda, another soft palms, another hammers, another finger strikes etc.

Compared with a lot of styles the forms from one sect have a huge variation in technique. As a normal student there is no need to study every style. If you have strong hands you would focus on claw for example. But as a teacher you learn them all because you will have different students who have different characteristics.

Even within one sect there will still be a lot of forms. This is because of weapons. Every weapon (and there are many) has a single form (or several) AND a dui lian. Nowadays there is little need for these and it is more to keep the tradition going. Every weapon has a characteristic and is used differently, so Double Hook vs. Spear is different from double sabre vs spear. If ever you wanted to recreate the weapons combat these duilian are very useful. Of course it is not necessary for most people.


This is why in the Shaolin forum we have a lot of discussions about which sect practices which forms and who taught who. It is important because with so many styles you don't want to repeat the same things. If you can isolate one lineage you will have a larger variation of technique with fewer forms than if you try to learn a mix of all of them.

Every sects 'rumen' (beginner) form is similar and you do not want to learn 20 different rumen forms because it is not useful.

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

I should probably clarify. My focus is on Zhao Kuang Yin. In his early days, he had no forms. It was just fighting, and various collections of techniques he gathered during his travels.

Once he became Emperor, he sent his Generals to Shaolin to document the arts. It was then that forms practice, at Shaolin came more to the fore front.

I don't think they were the focus though. It looks like initially, they were taught last. They were kind of like a diploma or certificate of mastership.

So they started out as not having forms at all (except for rare occasions), to having them only to document and certify mastership. Somewhere they became used for body mechanics training for advanced practitioners, and for teachers to help organize thier curriculums. As time passed they got taught earlier, and earlier until we reach modern times where the form choreography has become the focus in most schools.

somehow right, somehow wrong. yes, unlike what we see nowadays, in Shaolin and other styles, fighting has always been the heart of technical trainings, in parallel with basics trainings and qigong&conditioning trainings.
but about the forms:
yes, there has been no form in the ancient times. but the Shaolin way was different. Shaolin monks made one early form, Luohan 18 Shou, before Tang dynasty (618 AD), and there are even speculations on some styles to have been created by monk Seng Chou, who lived even before Bodhidharma! then, after the Shaolin Quan Pu manual were first compiled in the Song dynasty, in 960s AD, the sets were considered as the heart of the styles, other styles that were not compiled into forms sets before those times were compiled in the Jin-Yuan times by Jue Yuan and others, before Ming dynasty. no-form approach is good for styles with limited fields of technicality, like Shuai Jiao, and also for students who don't want to learn so deep levels of kung fu wisdom. but the complete SongShan Shaolin styles and their clear and hidden contents have always been taught via the forms and their combat applications and sparring.

[bawang]

I should probably clarify. My focus is on Zhao Kuang Yin. In his early days, he had no forms. It was just fighting, and various collections of techniques he gathered during his travels.

Once he became Emperor, he sent his Generals to Shaolin to document the arts. It was then that forms practice, at Shaolin came more to the fore front.

nope. shaolin didn't start training boxing until 1600s

[RenDaHai]

nope. shaolin didn't start training boxing until 1600s

Well, they kinda did though.

[bawang]

Well, they kinda did though.

nuh uh.

khkjhkj

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

nuh uh.

khkjhkj

Is your helicopter fixed yet? because I am still in the park waiting for you.

[GeneChing]

nope. shaolin didn't start training boxing until 1600s

This is the documented beginning, but there may well have been some form of defense established from it's inception. Such may be true of all medieval monasteries. They all kept treasures that needed to be defended. While it's true that Kung Fu as we know it doesn't appear in the lit until around the 16th, defensive methods have surely been with us for significantly longer.

[bawang]

This is the documented beginning, but there may well have been some form of defense established from it's inception. Such may be true of all medieval monasteries. They all kept treasures that needed to be defended. While it's true that Kung Fu as we know it doesn't appear in the lit until around the 16th, defensive methods have surely been with us for significantly longer.

its the spirit behind which he made his statement. he wants to belong to ancient roots and lineage. he wants to confirm that the dvds and books he bought were worth it.

he doesn't use logic or reason. only pure willpower that since he desires it, it is true and it is his. in this he has failed to grasp even a pubic hair of understanding of shaolin.

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

This is the documented beginning, but there may well have been some form of defense established from it's inception. Such may be true of all medieval monasteries. They all kept treasures that needed to be defended. While it's true that Kung Fu as we know it doesn't appear in the lit until around the 16th, defensive methods have surely been with us for significantly longer.

What about all the arts taught to Shaolin during the early Sung dynasty? Is not the entire construct from the Abbot Fu Ju well documented?

[RenDaHai]

QiJiGuang mentions Shaolin Gun in 1560. He mentions it along side all the other boxing styles in the boxing section. Then in the SAME section he says that no weapons are practiced without first learning Quan as it is the basics for all weapons.

Evidence of Shaolin Gun is also much earlier than this.

And for those of you who know Gun methods, you will realise there is a lot of kicking and striking with the hands and feet hile holding the staff. There is no way they did not consider these separately. There is also no way that they practiced staff without considering what happened when disarmed... Staffs break. In Fact all real weapons break during the course of battle.

Second to this the weapons techniques follow the same principles as the fist, and many weapon techniques have an equivilant fist technique. So if the Shaolin did indeed practice staff, then they had already considered boxing. If any of you have trained KungFu you will realise this for certain. Many longfist techniques are specifically 'Kong shou po qiang' empty hand vs spear. This is some of the oldest of technique and would have been considered since the first man sharpened a stick. You can practice some staff techniques directly while empty handed. And People do, some techniques are just this, the same move without the staff.


What you mean to say is the popular culture of Kung Fu Quan Taolu exploded in the 16th-17th century. As such a huge amount of the extended Shaolin boxing material is from interactions at this time.

It is not about hanging on to some ancient lineage. It is about stupidity. There is no evidence to say Shaolin DIDN'T pracitice boxing. There is simply a lack of evidence that they did. Or rather there IS evidence of Staff practice (and so martial art which would always have included unarmed techniques). There is a lack of evidence of Quan practice, Taolu. But that is looking at just a small number of sources. More will certainly come to light. This is not considering hand written sources. And before the 16th century, for niche stuff like one temples kung fu, that would be hand written.

[LFJ]

nuh uh.

What happened to your other reply that said you had evidence and he had fairy tales? Decided to take that one back, eh?

[RenDaHai]

If you look through records, you will find the records of how much land Shaolin temple owned. And it is a LOT. The area of farmland for miles around the Shaolin temple was owned by Shaolin.

It was farmed with permission from the temple. I.e someone lives on it and farms it and gives a share of his produce/profits to the temple.

Does anyone think Shaolin owned ALL this farmland without protection?? Bandits were common in old China.

Why is it foolish to consider Shaolin Kung Fu without considering the village Kungfu? Because the villages were pretty much owned by the temple (their land literally was) and the locals were taught Shaolin kung fu by the Shaolin to protect their investment.


With the amount of land Shaolin temple owned it would need its own army. This much is certain.

This is the same for any large institution in ancient China, or ancient anywhere for that matter.

The Question is not whether they practiced Wushu in Shaolin area or not, of course they did, as a matter of necessity. It is whether they employed a mercenary army or created their own. Maybe both at times. But clearly they did create some famous Staff work as even QiJiGuang mentions Shaolin Gun.

SO you cannot consider Shaolin Temple as separate from the villages, because the temple literally owned this land. As such, the village kung fu histories are very important when considering the history of Shaolin Gong Fu.

[SHemmati]

invalid ideas, like bawang's, about Shaolin and other Chinese martial arts history and traditions mostly originate from researching from afar, based on insufficient and sometimes improper resources. Shaolin and other ancestral schools have always had big libraries recording the important facts and happenings which could be operative in their tradition. most such texts have always been kept like treasures. one major text has been "Shaolin Quan Pu (少林拳谱)," which were officially compiled under the supervision of abbot FuJu, during the gatherings of the masters of the 18 families in about 960 AD. they documented the details of their compiled kung fu styles in that manual, which consisted of tens of volumes, and kept it in the temple to be updated generation by generation by the senior monks. though, of course, the narration style of the manual is expected to be the Buddhist style, which tends to narrate the facts from a unifying, generalized viewpoint, the text is the main source of the history and tradition of the temple, its kung fu, and people. besides this Quan Pu as a major resource, there are other such major and hundreds of minor resources of such importance in the temple and its related places.

now, most the people, whether inside or outside China, don't have access to such texts but to far less reliable texts found here and there, mostly even in the other provinces, which are hundreds of kilometers far from the temple region, which have gained familiarization with the temple hundreds of years later, and may even haven't had any direct or strong linkage with the temple, its people, or kung fu.

the "Encyclopedia of Shaolin Wushu" by monk Shi Deqian, which is referenced in this forum very often, used parts of the survived copied parts of that 'Shaolin Quan Pu' manual, which were copied by Shi Deqian's master, Shi Yongxiang, before the 1928 destruction. When talking about the traditional styles of Shaolin kung fu, or the eminent monks' biographies, the monks, the Encyclopedia, instructional resources, etc, often reference 'Shaolin Quan Pu.' those survived copied parts of the manual were given to Shi Deqian by Shi Yongxiang in the 1980s, and the book has recently been publicized. i'm aware of 8 volumes so far:

The Shaolin Quan Pu, 8 vols: http://item.jd.com/10753524.html

i see no way in which those resources with outspread bits of major or minor information are, by any reliable means, more reliable than Shaolin temple's own official account of its kung fu, history, and traditions.