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Shao-Lin Kung Fu: Profile

Twenty Shaolin Monks and five young trainees have travelled all the way from China’s fabled Shaolin Temple to demonstrate their martial arts expertise.

In a crescendo of Kung-Fu sequences they amaze us with their hypnotic and pain defying moves. The Shaolin Monks are lifted aloft on sharpened spears, break marble slabs with their heads, perform handstands on two finger tips, splinter wooden staves with their bodies, break bricks on their heads and fly through the air in a series of incredible backflips using heads not hands. The mind over matter skills have to be seen to be believed.

Think ‘KILL BILL’, think ‘CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON’, think ‘HERO’. Think again. This show is the Shaolin legend made real and is definitely NOT to be tried at home!

History

Regarding the founder of Shaolin Quan , there has been much debate through the centuries.Tradition ascribes its beginnings to the Indian Monk Bodhidharma who came to China and lived in the ShaoLin Monastery early in the 6th century. Bodhidharma, it is said, developed a set of exercises for the monks to pratise after their long periods of meditation, and these formed the basis of Shaolin Quan . However, through historians generally recognize that Bodhidharma was the founder of the Chan Sect of Chinese Buddhism, there is no evidence that he ever stayed in ShaoLin Monastery for any length of time or that he knew anything about martial arts.

From this time on, the monastery became a great centre for the development and practice of WuShu. Practice became more varied: armed and unarmed skills, calvary and infantry combat were developed. Skilled Wushu masters were frequently invited from all parts of China to teach the monks.

Hence many times in its history, the Shaolin Monastery became a focal point for WuShu , assimilating what was best in the different schools of martial arts.

According to records, the wushu practised at the monastery in different periods was varied in style and content. Among the unarmed combat styles were those resembling the fast and agile Chang Quan. Others were powerful, like Nan Quan, or emphasized the use of will and the mind as well as breathing like XingYi Quan(will-mind boxing) and Rou Quan(soft boxing); still others imitated animal movements like LuoHan Quan(Arhat boxing) and Hou Quan(Monkey boxing).

Shaolin staff skills were especially famous, although all the 18 military weapons were practised. In addition, many others forms of exercise evolved, such as Standing Pole Exercise, Hard Skills, Light Skills and Qi Gong(breathing exercise). Years of treading and stamping have worn depressions in the brick floor of the Shaolin Monastery's Hall of Thousand Buddhas where the monks used to pratise WuShu.

As the fame of Shaolin WuShuspread, Shaolin monks received imperial summons to fight several times. They fought against Japanese pirates, who plundered the Chinese coast, wreaking havoc among the local people from the 14th century on, during the Ming Dynasty. After an imperial call, Shaolin monks led by Yue Kong and Da ZaoHua engaged the Japanese pirates in the area around present-day Shanghai. Records say that these monks soldiers fought bravely, wielding iron staffs. In one encounter, they relieved the seige on Shanghai. Later, however, they were all killed by Japanese pirates who lured them into an ambush.

Today, Shaolin Monastery and its WuShu are as famous as ever, its varied, artistic styles providing popular at home and abroad.

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