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Shaolin Kung Fu Able to be Learned Within Months!

A Faster Way to an Old Martial Art!

Shaolin Kung Fu, the popular myth states, takes lifetimes to learn. You have to go spend three days sitting in front of the temple to be accepted for teaching. You have to undergo bizarre training rituals that will enable you to do handstands on one finger, rip the bark off of trees, break tones of concrete with your head, and…and that’s not the truth.

Those are myths spread by people who want to impress people; by TV programming like the Kung Fu series starring David Carradine.

shaolin kung fu

You don’t have to go to the Shaolin Temple to learn Kung Fu…you can learn this ancient martial art online!

The truth is actually quite a it more simple, yet even more powerful.

The first Shaolin Kung Fu book to hit the shores was ‘Secrets of Shaolin Temple Boxing’ by Robert W. Smith.

In that book Mr. Smith stated that Bodhidharma brought Kung Fu to the Shaolin Temple. Actually, he brought a system of calisthenics to help the dilapidated monks get strong enough to listen to his lectures without falling asleep.

The monks used this method to get stronger, and ended up defending themselves against bandits, and changed the simple calisthenic into a self defense system.

The monks realized five principles of combat (animal fighting modes), eventually expanding the five principles into 72 techniques.

So Shaolin Kung Fu shouldn’t take a lifetime to learn. It should be able to be learned within a few months.

The original Shaolin monks learned it within months; why can’t you?

The reason is that for over 2,000 years well meaning people have been adding things to the once simple system. These things have confused Shaolin Kung Fu, mushed concepts all together, put techniques out of order, and even slanted it for tournaments or other personal interest.

In Shaolin Kung Fu the five animal fighting modes have been redefined. The original five animals were the tiger, snake, crane, leopard, and dragon.

But the tiger and the leopard are similar; why should you learn two animals that ae pretty much the same?

In the system called the Shaolin Butterfly the five animals are the tiger, snake, crane, dragon, and Monkey.

Actually, the monkey has been held to be one of the original five animals by many schools of thought.

So, we have a revised and better definition of the five animal fighting modes.

Now, each of the five animals has a specific attribute; one gives strength, one gives balance, and so on.

The problem is that these attributes are mere descriptions, tactics, at best, and not real martial arts techniques.

However, if you assign a stance to each animal, you suddenly come up with the five original concepts of the Shaolin Kung Fu monks.

The tiger is aggressive, and he uses the front stance for charging.

The crane is delicate and balanced, and he uses the one legged, crane stance to achieve this.

The Dragon twines and writhes, and he uses a cross kneeling type of stance.

The snake is flexible clinging, and he uses such stances as the one legged squatting stance.

The monkey is agile, and he uses the back stance to build this agility.

Now, these are still mere approximations of techniques. But one can see how the five stances could be used to begin the animal emulation process. But, how does one expand upon these stances/characteristics into a simple list of techniques?

Well, there is only so much that can be put into an article.

But, if you really want to learn this stuff, and I mean in months instead of lifetimes ~ if you want to figure this stuff out and be able to use it in real life ~ then you’ll find another great article on Shaolin Instruction at Monster Martial arts. Or, you can take a look at the Shaolin Kung Fu Butterfly course itself.

The Real Shaolin History The Masters Won’t Tell You!

The real Shaolin History is one of those animals that’s difficult to pin down. One reason for this is that the communist regime controls all history, and rewrites it to suit the state. Another reason is that the current history is of an oral tradition, and therefore quite open to mythicizing.

real shaolin historyThe real history starts with Bodhidharma traveling to China to see the emperor. This tends to enhance Bodhidharma at the expense of the emperor, and it should not be that way. The emperor, you see, was enrolling Buddhist monks in a program to translate texts from sanskrit to Chinese.

?The emperor believed that if he saw to the translation of these religious texts the general public would be enabled to study this religion. He believed this would allow him to enter nirvana. Bodhidharma told the emperor otherwise, which gained him nothing but a swift kick in the pants right out the emperor’s doors.

Bodhidharma then went to a local temple to meet up with other monks, and was refused entrance. The head abbot apparently thought him a meddler, or an upstart, or maybe he just didn’t want to be associated with somebody the emperor found lacking.

The temple he was refused entrance to was built on land which had been razed, or burned down, and the emperor’s gardeners had planted new trees. Thus, came about the name Shaolin (young forest). Nowhere to go, Bodhidharma went to a nearby cave to live.

Eventually Bodhidharma gained admittance to the temple, and legends have it that it took nine years, he bored a hole in the cave with his eyesight, he cut off his eyelids and planted them, and all sorts of other rather ludicrous legends. No one knows why he was admitted to the temple, but it was a good thing he was. The monks were in bad physical shape.

The Shaolin monks spent all their time studying books (scrolls, etc.) and were a sickly lot. So Bodhidharma gave them a series of body motions founded on hatha yoga and raja yoga. These movements were derived from the 18 animals of Chinese-Indian iconography, and this was doubtless the source of the five Shaolin animals.

This was the beginning of shaolin kung fu, though it is difficult to say when body conditioning was transformed into actual martial arts. The times and the region were filled with bandits and hard times, and it can be safely assumed that somebody in good physical condition is going to stand a better chance of survival than somebody who is not in good physical condition. At any rate this real Shaolin history is better verified, with more legitimate sources, than the various myths and legends which currently abound.

Real Shaolin History means nothing if you don’t study the martial art itself. Head on over on over over to Monster Martial Arts for the most efficient Shaolin Teaching in the world!