Hi, I am quite new to this forum and I 'd like to answer these questions. I have so often seen people connect kungfu with violence of Shaolin. The key is working out EXACTLY what kungfu is/was for us and them.

1. What do you guys think of barefoot zen?

I have no idea what that is.

2. Buddhists, arn't they supposed to be non violent and yet they train with weapons etc...

The key to buddhism is that you can't be buddhist and call yourself buddhist. That is a contradiciton. The way of buddhism is to understand to "be" and that life just "is" - to call yourself a Buddhist is to label and therefore no longer just "be". The other part is then understanding what is a "fight"? To me a fight is anything that is a conflict: an argument, paying bills on time (the hardest fight of all!), the general hardships of life. Kungfu as practised by the Shaolin was a discpline. They lived by it day and night. It was their way. It was discipline in getting up at 5am (ouch!) and not being grmpuy about it, it was labouring all day long, using the forms and movements as best how to workout achieving success in "life". For example, in our world getting a parking ticket could be expressed as a punch. It is a punch we cannot defeat by physical strength, but by mental/emotional strength... in modern combat, if a good hit is coming and you know it, and you know you aren't strong enough to defeat it, what do you do? Move out of the way. So, upon getting the parking ticket, how not to get angry? Strength of mind and emotion to just be able to "let it go", to let the pain of getting the ticket go past you and forget about it. this is the way Shaolin used kungfu. By becoming adept in these arts, they could shed the biggest burdens we as humans have - fear, guilt, anger, sadness. When we reach emotional harmony, we don't cause harm to others anyway, so these four emotions are simply products. All emotions that cause us problems every day - yet how many schools have you seen that encourage anger and fear, practsing screaming, angry face, smash plank HOMER MAAAD! yet we all know deep inside not one of the master we ever see becomes agry or fearful. Instead he remains calm, almost emotionless. This then must be what a true master is, one who has mastered HIMSELF (or herself, excet my woman's a bit moody so good luck to her!) - has mastered his emotions.

Therefore, Shaolin now have two skills: emotional mastery and in your question "weapons" mastery. They could then make the decision to handle any situation as necessary.

Did they just jump in and cut off peoples heads? Not likely (unlike now when every Shaolin teacher i meet screams "I am Wong Fei Hung... DIIEEEEEEEE")

So they could then give time to decide the purest action to take for the given circumstance. In life, good and evil do not physically exist, everything lives in perpective.

3. I'm currently reading an article called the 7 worlds of chan. So far the author made it pretty clear there was a hell a lot of buddhist corruption within china. Did the shaolin temple escape this corruption?

Not all of them. They were human afterall, just as prone to weakness as the next man. However, as you probably know, those that escaped the final corruption (burning) went underground to become our modern day Triads.

4. It makes sense that many of our ideas about shaolin could stem from the nationlistic propaganda of the qing dynasty. Do you think this had any effect on modern day shaolin?

Of course. What doesn't effect Shaolin? I haven't met a single Shaolin teacher who doesn't think he's immune to bullets. Plus we all percieve Shaolin to be some supreme art intended only for beating the daylights out of someone. It wasn't and is not, when studied correctly (see above bit).

5. I can see how martial arts can give benefit as a form of physical exercise but the exercises described in barefoot zen seem even more suited to this goal of moving meditation. What do you think?

Haven't read barefoot zen, but again excercise in kungfu is buddhism: perspective. It depends on what you want. fopr example, a long distance runner needs to work aeorbically; a sprinter needs to work anaerobically (is that the right way round?). While the art has some reflection on level of fitness, you can practise any art for the purpose you so desire: e.g The forms in Chin Woo can be practised for performance, therefore you need to practise fitness in them for competition. you may, on the toher hand, want it for burst fighting, in which case you can practsie it hard and fast (not being technically correct, just giving example).

Hope this helps in some shape or form.