Shaolin Temple / Animal Styles

[falkor]

This topic is like a sequel to [this] topic, aimed towards fans/practioners familiar with animal styles on and off the camera. Your help in answering any of the following questions, including the sharing of personal views and video links, would be much appreciated!

Before Bruce Lee made martial arts films popular, both martial arts and martial arts films were already known thanks to Peiking Opera, Wong Fei Hung and grandmasters of various countries and styles, particularly Karate, Judo, Taekwondo and others.

1) However, before Heroes Two (1972), how well was Shaolin / animal styles known?

2) In terms of entertainment, I doubt the public would have got to see animal styles at Pekiing Opera shows, though Chinese audiences may well have caught them through Hung Gar (developed from Shaolin) performances in certain B&W episodes of the Wong Fei Hung series of the 1950s-60s; apart from this, how well was Shaolin Martial Arts / Animal styles known to China and the rest of the world before Kung Fu movies of the 1970s made them popular?

3) When did Shaolin Monks first perform in public?

4) Do B&W video clips exist of Shaolin Masters like they do for grandmasters of other martial arts?

5) For public performances, do you think Shaolin monks are instructed by their Abbot to only show selected styles and hold back on revealing certain other martial arts techniques?

6) Do any good books exist on the history of the Shaolin Temple or complete guides--like what exists for Karate--to all known Shaolin Martial Arts techniques (not specifically Hung Gar)?

This month some Shaolin Monks showcased animal styles at the Chinese State Circus, which I believe they've never done before as part of this national UK touring show. In fact, even though the 9th Festival of Martial Arts (broadcast on Euro Sport in the early 90s) showcased monks performing the most difficult of weapons (Steel Whip), animal styles were not included; the only live show I've managed to catch Shaolin performing animal styles was in Shaolin Wheel of Life.

7) What other live/recorded performances/events are you guys aware of where animal styles are performed by the Shaolin monks?

8) Please help identify the styles in these video clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2CKQCL52Ps (Chinese State Circus)

Monk 1 (1:54) - Shaking Eagle or Southern Mantis or some kind of southern bird style(?) + drunken.

Monk 2 (3:03) - Not an animal style, right?

Monk 3 (3:25) - Mantis!

Monk 4 (4:07) - Tiger or Dragon maybe (?) + Monkey maybe?

Monk 5 (5:12) - Frog!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi34tbfGV5o (alternative to the first clip)

Monk 1 (5:57) - Shaking Eagle or Southern Mantis or some kind of southern bird style(?) + drunken. (Note: theme tune from Shaolin Assassin!)

Monk 2 (7:06) - Mantis!

Monk 3 (7:45) - Tiger or Dragon maybe (?) + Monkey maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o8nnHey4aI (Shaolin Wheel Of Life)

Monk 1 (0:00) - Dragon!

Monk 2 (0:12) - Scorpion!

Monk 3 (1:08) - Snake!

Monk 4 (1:25) - Tiger!

Monk 5 (1:45) - Crane or Eagle?

Kid (2:04) - no animal style, but note same type of front-flip as in the above clips (Monk 4 and 3 respectively)

Kid (2:14) - Monkey!

Monk 6 (3:50) - Mantis!

Monk 7 (4:21) - Snake!

Monk 8 (4:52) - Tiger?

Monk 9 (5:12) - Crane or Eagle?

Monk 10 (5:31) - Frog!

9) Lastly, does anyone have any video links to live performances from the seldom seen Lamas of Tibet?

[peringaten]

You could try reading this (I haven't myself yet):

http://books.google.com/books?id=KiNEB0H6S0EC&dq=Meir+Shahar's+The+Shaolin+Monastery:+History,+Religion+and+the+Chinese+Martial+Arts&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=ah1Cn6vB26&sig=MH2IZ63gSs9YRwQDDeQTex-FHF8&hl=en&ei=WnY3S4KiKcn14Aan-LGqCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Meir%20Shahar's%20The%20Shaolin%20Monastery%3A%20History%2C%20Religion%20and%20the%20Chinese%20Martial%20Arts&f=false

[peringaten]

Mind-wandering... So far as the monk's stuff goes (meant to make it onto the Heath myself, but distractions, you know...)... I don't think there's 'southern' anything in there really; that's performance wushu based stuff - animal techniques & interpretations differ style to style pretty much, we're looking at athletic performance variations there - the mantis isn't southern like, etc.. Mainland stuff is curious - we're talking about a country that endured the cultural revolution - how did shaolin & the martial arts come out through this? I'm more inclined to see the stuff that beforehand seeped out of China into HK, etc. as true to traditional shaolin than the athletic sporty stuff of shaolin today; not to discredit what they can do for sure - would love to see some full on application demonstrations of those forms. Don't know what those monks are hiding, or how 'monk-like' they really are; they don't do stuff like the way other non-Mainland traditionalists of shaolin descendency do - who's hiding the good stuff?

[Omni Dragon]

Me & FightingFist went to see the Chinese State Circus.

[BaronK]

Well, that's wushu. Any shaolin stuff you see these days and coming from the mainland is going to be wushu. Northern and southern styles look different but "kung fu" and "wushu" look different based on the same styles.

Remember wushu came out of not allowing folks to practice "real" kung fu. That's why the movements look the way they do. They had to conceive a whole new thing.

Youtube various kung fu styles. If wushu is not attached you'll see it looks nothing like anything posted above. Not the strikes. Not the weapon work. Not the footwork.

Kar Leung's kung fu in the Shaolin cycle with CC was stuff he knew and trained in as southern style kung fu. Not wushu. You can see the difference in the mainland kung fu movies that came out in the 80s. That is what is presented in the clips above.

The shaolin stuff you've seen for the past how many years is just a different version of wushu. Where Jet and Donnie and Wen Zhou and others competed with their wushu, the monks do the same thing but don't compete and do things like breaking and certain feats. It's still performance kung fu(wushu).

Mantis

wushu

northern

southern http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0wRqR9J8WA

eagle

wushu

northern http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqrtiVGnUyk&feature=related

Hung Tiger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VQW55fdJxA

Southern Crane

You can clearly see China's influence on kung fu in the mainland.

[shapes]

this is an early shapes film

The White crane Heroes,(1958) I had a still of it when I was a kid , Kwan Tak Hing was pulling the wickeest Crane Stance

http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=2370&display_set=eng

He is a real desendant of a Shaolin monk, I have been to his gym in Malaysia, he has awsome skills.

http://www.shaolinkuntou.nl/Penang%20Sao%20Lim%20Athletic%20Association.htm

most of the real Shaolin men had to flee China when South Shaolin was burnt down (they have re built ti now) or face death so much of the real Shaolin kung fu is found in Taiwan, malaysia, Thailand burma , HK ,

The Wheel of life stuff is 80 pecent acrobatacis/Peking Opera based, they mav know some proper arts but this is not good for show,or they don't want it shown, I think the Tibetan Lamas also have some secret high arts they want kept under wraps

[falkor]

Excellent response, guys! Thanks for the links as well...

The Wheel Of Life cast were especially selected from the real Shaolin Temple after numerous screen tests (check out disc 2 containing extras), so how comes they are performing 80% Wu Shu? When did Shaolin Temple stop teaching their students original styles, and were they influenced by sports, ending up as Wu Shu? I don't really get it!?

Wikipedia doesn't differentiate between Wu Shu, Kung Fu, Shaolin or Chinese Martial Arts, so is there any online articles I can read about to know the difference based on what you guys are describing with the example clips?

How do we know that the Northern Mantis or the Northern Eagle in the above clips is more authentic than the Wu Shu Eagle/Mantis or original Shaolin Eagle/Mantis? The temple was burnt down in 1928, so again, is there any B&W vintage footage of Shaolin masters performing authentic Shaolin techniques? Are you guys saying that the original animal styles disappeared from China with the burning of the temple, and that post-1930s styles practised at the temple--and indeed in the mainland--are just pseudo Wu-Shu sports orientated?

[falkor]

You can clearly see China's influence on kung fu in the mainland.

Animal styles are meant to have originated in the mainland, at Shaolin Temple, the supposed cradle of martial arts. Are you saying that mainland Wu Shu is now based on Kung Fu, but more for show and sports? I'm sure you guys have it correct with what you are saying (I'm no expert on real life martial arts), but this does sound like some of kind of rivalry between Hung Har/HK Vs. Wu Shu/mainland!

How can it be proven that animal styles outside of mainland best match pre-1928 styles of the Shaolin Temple? Is it a case of tracing back Wushu to the 1950s/60s? I would love to know more about this... I can see that northern and southern clips look far more complicated to the Wu Shu clips, but still, I would like to know on what basis it can be said to be more authentic.

[falkor]

One last thing... I heard Hung Gar was based on original Shaolin, but developed away from the temple, so for all I know it might not be anything like the original Shaolin animal styles that were taught in the early days.* It seems all Chinese Martial Arts could be descended from Shaolin, but neither is anything like the original?

What a great discussion this is!

*Obviously, I'm not trying to put down Hung Gar or anything, but just trying to throw a spanner in the works and be as sceptical as possible.

[BaronK]

http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/wushu-and-the-second-cultural-revolution/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_martial_arts

http://www.cloudmountainmartialarts.com/martial_arts/traditional_vs_modern/traditional_vs_modern.html

You'll read it's all about Mao. Then read this thread again and watch all of the clips again. You should clearly see then. Everything includes shaolin and the monks and all things mainland. It's why everyone escaped to HK and Taiwan.

[peringaten]

With my limited knowledge of hung gar, I've been given a gist that the form 'gung gee fook fu kuen' is the closest to any particular form that might have been devised in the temple to resonate through the style.

[KyFi]

Yes, as has been detailed by others here, the mainland Communists persecuted many traditional kung fu masters and teachers, and instead promoted their neutered, sport wushu.

I won't quite say that the modern Shaolin monks are frauds, as I believe that the mainland attitude towards traditional martial arts has changed somewhat in the past 20 years, and some of those monks may indeed be good, serious martial artists---I can't really comment on that one way or the other. But one thing that IS fraudulent is the idea that the current monks are part of an unbroken tradition and lineage of Shaolin Temple martial monks dating back centuries. They aren't---the kung fu styles they practice and teach were brought to the temple from other parts of China in the late 20th century. And let's be realistic---the original Shaolin monks had a military neccesity to learn how to fight to protect their land and temples in accord with the times they were living in. Today, you don't need to learn kung fu to practice Buddhism, and you don't need to be a Buddhist monk to learn kung fu. So again, I won't go quite so far as to say they are frauds, but I think there's a bit of dishonesty involved when they're presented as some unique inheritors of the Shaolin martial arts tradition that we see in the movies.

[peringaten]

There's some very interesting thoughts on Mao & martials in this interview:

http://www.shaolinwushu.be/zhang-lipeng-over-traditioneel-kung-fu-en-het-moderne-wushu/

This guy's pretty blunt: http://www.articlesbase.com/martial-arts-articles/kung-fu-was-destroyed-by-the-prc-1615285.html

Any thoughts about tie-ins between the Jet Li movie Shaolin Temple's success and the reformation/image of the actual temple as it has stood since? This is something I have seen implicated in the past.

Also, I was under the impression Bagua had fared ok on the Mainland though - anyone got any thoughts on this? Did those in power not take all that circular motion seriously or something?

[falkor]

Yes, as has been detailed by others here, the mainland Communists persecuted many traditional kung fu masters and teachers, and instead promoted their neutered, sport wushu.

I won't quite say that the modern Shaolin monks are frauds, as I believe that the mainland attitude towards traditional martial arts has changed somewhat in the past 20 years, and some of those monks may indeed be good, serious martial artists---I can't really comment on that one way or the other. But one thing that IS fraudulent is the idea that the current monks are part of an unbroken tradition and lineage of Shaolin Temple martial monks dating back centuries. They aren't---the kung fu styles they practice and teach were brought to the temple from other parts of China in the late 20th century. And let's be realistic---the original Shaolin monks had a military neccesity to learn how to fight to protect their land and temples in accord with the times they were living in. Today, you don't need to learn kung fu to practice Buddhism, and you don't need to be a Buddhist monk to learn kung fu. So again, I won't go quite so far as to say they are frauds, but I think there's a bit of dishonesty involved when they're presented as some unique inheritors of the Shaolin martial arts tradition that we see in the movies.

WELL SAID!!!!!!! You guys are contributing some excellent posts to this thread! I like this article posted by BaronK:

http://www.cloudmountainmartialarts.com/martial_arts/traditional_vs_modern/traditional_vs_modern.html

I may well have to purchase that book linked by peringaten on page 1.

This whole subject/debate is very interesting and intrigueing. Isn't there any movies with quotes like "Only I am the true descendant of Shaolin! The teacher you have hired to train your son is a fraud!"

[falkor]

VERY GOOD! My history book on martial arts talks about how new and old masters formed their own styles based on taking what is useful from a combination of existing styles and disregarding tradition and rituals. Apparently, there were many forms of Crane style, so one of those must have been adapted and incorporated into Fai Gur. BTW, Bruce Lee wasn't the first to do this, and not all Chinese martial arts were secret when Bruce was teaching. Kung Fu is all about what techniques are most efficient in sparring etc.

Who is the 14 year old?