Evolution Of Fighting Techniques The Shaolin Temple in Henan province, China, was founded by a humble Indian Buddhist monk called Batuo around 495 BC. In 517 BC the Bodhidharma travelled from India to the Shaolin Temple, where he founded Ch’an Buddhism or what is more commonly known as Zen.
These later developed into what we now call Shaolin Kung Fu and Shaolin Qi Gong.
Throughout the history of the temple, there has been a steady stream of monks bringing the best skills from the Asian world, combining them with ancient Shaolin skills, and then refining these modified skills for optimal effectiveness.
The Shaolin Temple Fighting techniques are not pages from a history book but are something that are as alive and relevant today as they were thousands of years ago.
Bringing Shaolin martial arts to the West is another chapter in the Shaolin book, and as a 34th generation fighting disciple from the Shaolin Temple, I continue with this tradition today.
The Art Of War In the Shaolin Temple, as well as studying the art of meditation and Qi Gong, we also study the art of war.
So when you train in the fighting arts, you must practice your heart at the same time as you practice your body.
In war we are fighting with an enemy, in martial arts we are fighting with our own ego and our own inner enemy.
In the Shaolin Temple, we get up every morning at five-thirty, and go for a run up the mountain.
Only when our body is getting stronger do we then start to learn some internal and external forms, and only when our master feels we are ready do we progress to studying fighting punches and kicks and then start to fight in the ring.
The reason I specialise in Shaolin Steel Jacket is because I am small – not much taller than 5ft 6 – so when I fight, I have to go into my opponent, and they are nearly always taller and heavier than me, which – without my body conditioning skill – would give them an advantage over me.
We don’t wait for it to break down before we give it gasoline, water, oil, or take it to the garage for a check up, so why do so many of us do that with our bodies? Body Conditioning If we only want to keep healthy, then we will continue to practice healthy forms of Qi Gong all our lives, but if we want to be fighters then we learn to master the Qi and direct it into different parts of our body.
Planting The Fighting Seed All of this training is the planting of the seed.
We plant a fighter’s seed, this means we set our motivation; we want to become an excellent fighter.
We train hard – this is the cultivation – and then, after years of training, we start to become the fighter we always wanted to be.
The First Fight But usually when we first go to fight, we are disappointed in ourselves.
We may be good at training but that doesn’t make us good fighters.
As Bruce Lee said, if you can’t hit your target, then what does it mean? And in the beginning, you may find it hard to hit this target who is no longer a pad, a bag or a fellow sparring partner but a determined fighter who wants to win as much as you.
The Shaolin fighting skills are not a dream, and they are not a film, they are a life.
Do you love the Shaolin Martial Arts? If you do then you must continue to train.
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