book on shaolin temple coming soon
- Thread starter xiongnu_lohon
- Start date
This sounds promising - especially the assertion that Shaolin continues to grow in China. There have been past assertions here that real Shaolin is extinct in China, the "monks" being Red Army agents trained instead in Wushu. It would be most illuminating if this new work addresses that allegation.
xiongnu_lohon
Yellow Belt
I'm not sure it's that relevant given that shaolin styles are all over the mainland, so the current shaolin temple( reconstructed by the prc govt in the early 80s I think) is not the source of shaolin styles. The current shaolin temple could disappear tomorrow and yet shaolin styles could still grow all over the mainland. I would even say that we don't need the current shaolin temple for propagating traditional wushu at all. Even if every person at the current shaolin temple is only trained in modern wushu it doesn't mean anything. The shaolin styles( songshan curriculum etc. ) already exist. The same would be true for emei shan and other important areas. The are many emei styles that would continue to exist even if there were no emei boxing schools in that immediate geographic area. For the record I have no idea whether there are people doing traditional wushu on emei shan or not.
I'm interested in the history of the shaolin temple not the current reconstruction of the temple. As far as I know the shaolin temple was destroyed in the early republican era. I think shaolin was more about collecting styles and producing "versions" of existing styles than originating styles. The songshan curriculum may be an exception to that but it seems that there are a lot of shaolin "versions" of other existing styles. One could argue that shaolin in general borrowed much from chang quan and I tend to believe that. I do not believe that cma began with shaolin as I believe shuai jiao for example existed long before the tang dynasty.
I think there are a lot of styles on the mainland that are unknown in the west. Traditional wushu has been suppressed at various times in chinese history( qing dynasty etc. ) yet the arts survived. I do not subscribe to the silly notion that the cultural revolution wiped out traditional wushu on the mainland. That's a sad ridiculous point of view and I feel sorry for anyone that thinks that way because they have no clue. China has not been communist since 1975 when Deng Xiaoping said "to get rich is glorious". Someday I hope to go to china to study traditional wushu but there will be many difficulties in finding a teacher and that is for another thread. As far as whether shaolin exists on the mainland I'm sure it does. But I wouldn't go looking for it at the reconstructed shaolin temple. I wouldn't go to the current temple as a tourist, look around, and say "I doubt whether any of these people know traditional therefore no one on the mainland knows traditional shaolin".
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
That's a hard call, I tend to agree with you but that can become a "which came first the chicken or the egg" kind of argument
It didn't, it sure tried to but it did not succeed. It did however force it into hiding for awhile and to this day many, especially the older guys are still not all that public. And of late those that started to come out into the open are going back, to many silly westerns showing up wanting to be Bruce Lee or Jet Li
Don't let it fool you; although technically nothing has actually ever been true communism the Chinese government is still communist and can change things at will, they change laws and punishments regularly. They are currently allowing more capitalism, but they could stop that if they really wanted too, it would not be pretty but they cold stop it.
newtothe dark
Purple Belt
Thanks for the heads up
xiongnu_lohon
Yellow Belt
This is one reason I think it will be difficult to train in china. I may get laughed at by a lot of people who think I'm another silly westerner.It didn't, it sure tried to but it did not succeed. It did however force it into hiding for awhile and to this day many, especially the older guys are still not all that public. And of late those that started to come out into the open are going back, to many silly westerns showing up wanting to be Bruce Lee or Jet Li
That's true. The communist party is still in charge and has complete authority. What I should have said is that restrictions on religion etc. were relaxed after 1975 under Deng Xiaopeng.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
First I should probably say I was not calling you a silly westerner if I gave that impression I apologize. If you are serious they will know and part of being serious is learning the language and culture first.
I am talking about the people that show up knowing nothing about China or much about martial arts either that are looking to go become "dangerous" or "Grand Masters" all in just 2 short weeks.
The real guys are leaving the parks in Beijing these days because of this, I believe, mainly due to the Olympics in Beijing. But some are still there just either really early in the morning or late in the evening. It is my understanding though that many are retreating to areas nearer their homes that tend to be non-tourist type areas where Westerners tend not to go.
Very true, they tend to operate much in the way of "if you don't flaunt it, we don't care". What REALLY happened with Fulan Gong was a prime example of that. But then god help you if they care.
As a note to Shaolinquan and Changquan you are very probably correct that Changquan did not come from Shaolin but what makes it so hard to separate is that they both appear at about the same time in the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) and the fact, as you already mentioned, just about everyone that is not in CMA (and some that are) thinks all CMA comes form Shaolin. Even though (as you mentioned) Jiao li (today known as Shuaijiao) comes from the Zhou Dynasty (1046 – 256 BC) and likely Jiao li is Jiao di which is considerably older (legendary date between 2700BC and 2600BC)
xiongnu_lohon
Yellow Belt
Thanks, no problem. I didn't think you were referring to me but I know it's tough to get people to take you seriously if you are an american looking for traditional wushu in china.
Yeah the park thing is cool but as more westerners show up it would likely be a problem because a lot of westerners don't have basic manners and they might think that some guy doing chen-style wants to be interrupted. Sadly I could picture a lot of westerners just going up to someone in the middle of their routine and that's not polite. I can't blame them for going to lesser-known spots.
I agree. But Falun Gong seems to be a special case in that they took a confrontational attitude from the beginning. That's just what I know from reading this book which is pretty balanced IMO. I've never seen a qigong group that is so blatantly political and the chinese government is well aware of the roles played by the yellow turbans & the white lotus groups in the past. Given that obvious cultural and historical context I'm suprised that Falun Gong was as aggressive as they were. I think they would have been fine if they had just not been so political and confrontational. I don't think it was a fight that the PRC govt wanted. I could be wrong.
Yes it's hard because we can't prove that shaolin was in part derived from changquan in terms of its foundation although many(including you & I) suspect it. I think there are a lot of cases where shaolin copied other systems although in terms of the basic forms in the songshan curriculum I can't say that. I think mantis could basically be called 'lao shan pai' because I don't think that originated with shaolin. I think it was just created somewhere in shandong province, possibly lao shan. it does irritate me that so many people just assume that shaolin was the originator of all chinese martial arts. Also few people even know of the other important areas: kunlun shan, emei shan, wudang shan, lao shan & shandong province, hua shan, hebei province, the extreme northeast including jilin province(where I believe tongbei either began or at least had a major lineage) etc. It's not just song shan/shaolin but there are a lot of clueless people out there. There are lots of mountains and lots of provinces in china. It's not just the shaolin temple LOL!
If you are looking for scholarly discussion on Chinese Martial arts history, you can check out the following website:
www.seinenkai.com
Look for Stanley Henning as a contributing author there. Writes extensively about TCMA history.
Best luck!
Rob
www.seinenkai.com
Look for Stanley Henning as a contributing author there. Writes extensively about TCMA history.
Best luck!
Rob
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Thank You and I went there and I found only one article on CMA and it was mainly about Wushu, CMA and the Olympics. Everything else I found was about Karate.
Is there a link I am missing?
http://seinenkai.com/articles/henning/index.html
This has some links to articles he has written as well as sources where you can obtain his material.
Best of luck, the material is worth it.
Rob
*edit
He can be found under articles, and a link under his name offers the above selection.
This has some links to articles he has written as well as sources where you can obtain his material.
Best of luck, the material is worth it.
Rob
*edit
He can be found under articles, and a link under his name offers the above selection.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Thank You :asian:
