Hello Folks! I'm trying to learn the cliff notes of Shaolin Gung Fu and how it came into being. All I know (or have read) is that Bodhidharma traveled from India to China and arrived at the Shaolin Temple where he began teaching meditation to the monks. Because they kept falling asleep during meditation, he developed the first gung fu form ever (I think it was 12 or 13 movements?) for the purpose of those monks becoming strong enough to endure the long and demanding meditation sessions. My knowledge ends there. As I read about all the different forms of Traditional Chinese Gung Fu, I hear of styles based in: the five animals, the five elements, I've read that each posture actually corresponds to the health of a given organ in the body and how that corresponds to... I don't know what. Who would watch two animals fight and deduce from this that therein lies the best fighting system. I don't believe it is that linear and believe there is so much more to it than that. So, where does it all come from? What is the point (or points) or origin? What is the relation between the five animals and the five elements where gung fu is concerned? If any one of us would attempt to devise an effective fighting system based on the way human being seems to fight, one would think a style similar to western boxing might come out. So, the fact that traditional Chinese martial arts are so different from that cause me to deduce that some intricate knowledge (something very different from how we think in the west) serves as its base. I've tried researching this topic but the key details always elude me. Could someone please enlighten me on this subject?
OK a Shaolin practitioner, once upon a time college studier of Buddhism and erstwhile archaeologist weighing in here. Some of the below is conjecture, however, I'm pretty confident that what happened was something like the below. Myth usually has some kernel of truth in there, and when it comes to Shaolin, we aren't actually going back that far, there was writing and records and political systems all of which would have noted many of these things. Such documents may not exist now, but they would have for some time afterwards. The spread of Buddhism for example is pretty well documented and understood.
So, back to the beginning...Martial arts in some form have been around for tens of thousands of years. As soon as our ancestors moved from instinctual attack with hands and feet to being more reasoned we have the beginnings of martial arts. I find it inconceivable that an early hominid didn't look at a stone tool they made for cutting, hunting butchering etc. and think, I could use this on someone else. There is evidence of inter-personal violence very early in our records. If they were teaching technique to create and use tools (which they must have been, each generation wouldn't learn this stuff fresh) and they were fighting, even going to "war" with other groups, then they were certainly teaching the younger generation how to fight. So in this sense martial arts have been around as long as human beings have. Codified practices, manuals, styles etc obviously all come later, but even taking it back to the ancient Greeks is not far enough for its true origins.
Now returning to Shaolin specifically. The story of Bodhidharma is evidentially a myth, however it is a fact that Buddhist practices spread from south Asia into China, and someone or a group of someone's must have bought that with them. Buddhist practices vary between different sects, some emphasising self reflective seated meditation and study of scripture, others less so. The former style would be more akin to Theravada and the later to Chan (what is practiced at Shaolin). Originally however the style that was prevalent in China was Mahayana. The Bodhidharma story is linked to the Shaolin Temple's adoption of Chan which has less focus on study of scripture, less personal enlightenment through seated meditation and a stronger link between master and student. This developed into Zen (similar but different) when it was taken to Japan. There likely was a teacher travelling around teaching this new style (how else would it have emerged), and he may well have come from India, rejecting the conservative tradition of Theravada Buddhism. What does this have to do with martial arts? Well one aspect you see in Shaolin is the idea of moving meditation, i.e. focussing on one's movements and breathing as a way to focus, rather than using breath focus alone of prayer beads in sitting meditation. This combined with the idea that certain movements were good for the health of the body and would help promote a healthy mind too (likely from yoga style practices) is likely the origin of qi gong.
Jumping into the future the Shaolin Temple/Monastery became large, rich and powerful in the local area, as big religious institutions tend to. Within Buddhism one of the duties of the lay people is to look after the monks, although being practical types it's probably fair to say that they likely farmed etc. for themselves too, as is the case with monks in Medieval Christian institutions, and can possibly be seen in certain movement patterns with Shaolin kung fu.
During this time martial arts were practiced in and around the temple (as they were all over the world), but not necessarily in it. The ideas of training for health as well as defence likely permeated here to. There are a number of different concepts in Chinese philosophy that link health, organs, internal energy, movement practice etc.
The Shaolin myths suggest, and we can probably accept that there is some level of historical fact to this, that the temple became the target of bandits. The temple is located in an area that was something of a crossroads in medieval China, with a lot of people travelling through it, so there would be plenty of opportunity for people to be aware of, and to prey upon the temple. Bearing in mind the many religious traditions within China, and indeed the unscrupulousness of some people in general, there is little doubt that some would covet and seek to take some of that wealth. Learning martial arts was a way for the monks to defend themselves and their property. Non attachment to material things is a principle of Buddhism yes, but on an institutional level, preserving the institution for the future benefit of others would be seen as important. They could also help protect their community from in times of need. Just as the community looks after the monks, so they should look after the community.
The monks could therefore have learnt from practitioners in the many villages in the area. With some many people travelling through the area, they likely learnt from travellers that visited the temple too; there would be military expeditions militias etc. moving through the area.
Buddhist monks practicing martial arts is unusual, so word of this likely spread. This in turn probably lead to martial artists deliberately visiting. There are also records of people seeking sanctuary at the temple, such as political exiles from the military, who would also have known various fighting systems (armed and unarmed). This gave the monks the opportunity to learn more styles, creating a location which was something of a melting pot for martial arts. This is why you see so many different styles in Shaolin, and have so many styles claiming to descend from it.
As well as the health element to the variation in style, you have concepts of mass training. As some of the influencers on Shaolin martial arts were from the military, they would have been used to training large groups at once, using predefined sequences of moves. Much of this would have been based around armed combat. In order to facilitate ease of training, some of the same concepts and movements would have been applied to armed and unarmed training. This is why certain movements don't look optimised for hand to hand combat. Combine that with exaggeration for demonstration to large groups (you see this in the changes to Karate stances as it becomes widespread in Japan vs Okinawa), and the northern kung fu style promoting a lot of flexibility and you start to see where the divergence from something like wrestling and boxing come. A classic example is punching from ma bu (horse stance) to yao bu (walking stance, often mislabelled these days as gong bu). The same mechanics are being used as in a boxer's cross, but on a much larger scale. Practicing something large scale is easier to generate power and emphasises range. Perfect for if you are trying to use a spear to punch through armour. As you become more proficient you can learn to generate power on a smaller scale (bringing the rear foot in closer), and it becomes more applicable to hand to hand.
Finally turning to the idea of animals. On this one, I'm less certain, however I expect a lot of it is just made up. I expect there may have been certain amounts of inspiration from the "personality" of different animals, and certain things seen in nature may have sparked the imagination of someone with regards to the use of body mechanics. Beyond that, I think it is marketing. Tiger style sounds cool, doing moves that look like a snake makes your style look interesting, using the power of a dragon sounds mystical. Doing performances in these styles likely promoted the kung fu of certain teachers and made people want to learn it. This may or may not be directly associated with Shaolin, but it certainly appeared there eventually. These days a lot of those animal styles in Shaolin are just for show. Traditional Mantis kung fu for example doesn't have that classic mantis pose and shake most associate with it, its a modern invention to make it look cooler.
Chinese martial arts can be quite poetic in their language to describe movements and concepts, and this likely played into it as well. "Pluck the moon from the sea" is a great example, the moon being the head and the sea your sensitive private parts. You grab one to drop the other.
More recent styles likely took these ideas and ran with them. In some cases no doubt creating genuine applications from imitation movements, but the idea that kung fu originated out of copying animals is just a story in my opinion.
That ended up being a far longer post than I intended, but
@Clinton Shaffer, hopefully that answers your questions!
