DF: Shaolin Kung fu

[Clark Kent]

Shaolin Kung fu
By SamMan23 - 07-27-2010 10:14 AM
Originally Posted at: Deluxe Forums
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Does studying Shaolin produce practical ability for self defense?

My perception is that that Shaolin practitioners are very disciplined. I wonder how the average Shaolin student would do against a mugger or being jumped. I'm sure the actual monks who have dedicated their lives to doing just Shaolin and nothing else(college, normal jobs, etc) would do pretty well, but I suspect that their students wouldn't. A lot of the monks are pretty amazing with iron legs, or iron head or iron crotch, but it does not seem like a efficient road to self defense.

There seem like better options to being able to defend yourself well such as Wing Chun, Muay Thai or FMA.

What are yall's thoughts?


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[Blaze Dragon]

Greetings I'm speaking from a perspective of someone who has done some northern shaolin and who is currently shaolin-do student and who has a great love for martial arts and research. However the thing with Shaolin is you'll see it everywhere. So unfortunately because of the great use of the term who is to say what is Shaolin and what is not. Many arts to my understanding have been influenced by Shaolin, or even may have started from Shaolin or even later changed and influenced by Shaolin. Either way as far as how street effective, I think that depends on how you train and your teacher. I have no doubt some of the guys in my system would have no problem with a random mugger. At this same time I think this is true of any system. If you train properly you'll have a good chance. If your trained poorly or just have bad instructors, even if the system is good it can fail you.

This is just my take on it but I believe it's more the person and training then the system. I do believe though that many of the styles that have Shaolin in there name would be great on the street. Shaolin today is known mainly from the Shaolin performing monks. I dont' think it's fair to say which ones would be great in a fight, as each would be different and have different skill levels. However I can assure you from Shaolin-Do or even the Chicago Shaolin School (not associated) or the New York Shaolin School (not associated with either) I think being able to defend themselves and there art being practical for self defense is a definite

 

[Xue Sheng]

Shaolin today is known mainly from the Shaolin performing monks. I dont' think it's fair to say which ones would be great in a fight, as each would be different and have different skill levels.

Most of them cannot fight with anything called Shaolin, however that does not mean they cannot fight since the are also trained in Sanshou

 

[WC_lun]

You do realize Wing Chun is a Shaolin based martial art? Like any type of martial art, the effectiveness is directly related to the training regimen and phylosophies of the school. Since there are so many Shaolin based schools, you will have everthing from students who can't defend themselves from small children to students who could stand against multiple attackers. Most schools are somewhere in between the two.