The styles of shaolin

[Tigerwarrior]

So been researching cma alot lately. Some martial arts encyclopedias and other sites say things like "wing chun comes from shaolin temple, it was devised by monks" "choy lay fut comes from shaolin temple" "southern shaolin temple" etc. I've heard people say that a southern shaolin temple may not of even existed. But anyways back to the topic. Alot of arts come from shaolin, how is it possible that wing chun and clf both come from shaolin? They are completely different arts with completely different methods. One is linear and one is circular. I also watched a shaolin demonstration on YouTube the other day and saw the same exact technique being used in a self defense demo as I had learned in san soo, it's from ah soo 1. The same exact technique used in the same exact way for the same situation. I've also heard there were like 72 different arts that came from that one temple. Is this even possible? Why train some monks in wing chun and some in choy lay fut and some in other styles. Wouldn't it be easier to train them all in the same thing? And then we have modern shaolin style which looks almost nothing like those 2 arts. What happened? Were they using different arts in different time periods? Were these arts not made in shaolin but based on shaolin and made by monks who left and created their own system? I'm just curious about this. The only logical explanation I can think of is none of these were created in shaolin but they were created by people who trained in shaolin and then created their own systems. Please don't flame me I'm a cma newbie who only had a small amount of kung fu training. But this topic does interest me, and I've seen techniques I've personally learned being used by shaolin.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

The Shaolin MA came from outside.

- You kill someone.
- You shaved your head, became a monk, and hid yourself in Shaolin temple.
- You taught MA in Shaolin temple.
- The Shaolin temple MA system was created.

 

[Same Trick]

When the one Shaolin got famous, you bet other temples wanted be Shaolin too.

“Shaolin” means ‘small forest’, so if a temple situated in/near a small forest it’s in a way a Shaolin temple .

Trademark law is a fairly new thing in China.

 

[Fungus]

Seeking the understanding, logic and unification of various MA styles is very interesting indeed. While I do kyokushing I like enjoy CMA principle and how they exist in other styles.

So been researching cma alot lately. Some martial arts encyclopedias and other sites say things like "wing chun comes from shaolin temple, it was devised by monks" "choy lay fut comes from shaolin temple" "southern shaolin temple" etc. I've heard people say that a southern shaolin temple may not of even existed. But anyways back to the topic. Alot of arts come from shaolin, how is it possible that wing chun and clf both come from shaolin? They are completely different arts with completely different methods. One is linear and one is circular. I also watched a shaolin demonstration on YouTube the other day and saw the same exact technique being used in a self defense demo as I had learned in san soo, it's from ah soo 1. The same exact technique used in the same exact way for the same situation. I've also heard there were like 72 different arts that came from that one temple. Is this even possible? Why train some monks in wing chun and some in choy lay fut and some in other styles. Wouldn't it be easier to train them all in the same thing? And then we have modern shaolin style which looks almost nothing like those 2 arts. What happened? Were they using different arts in different time periods? Were these arts not made in shaolin but based on shaolin and made by monks who left and created their own system? I'm just curious about this. The only logical explanation I can think of is none of these were created in shaolin but they were created by people who trained in shaolin and then created their own systems. Please don't flame me I'm a cma newbie who only had a small amount of kung fu training. But this topic does interest me, and I've seen techniques I've personally learned being used by shaolin.

I have not thought alot about this and don't have alot of historical knowledge, but my impression is that wing chun kung fu distinguishes itself from many other kung fu styles in that seems to be explicitly for close range combat. And I wonder if this makes the preference for more linear techniques, over circular.

So if you "scale" the fighting distance of ANY MA system, from preferred long range to closer range - what happens? If you are really close, and allow eye poking, then keeping your default guard at eye level seems critial. This is not important at longer range for example. And at very close distance, fastest path (ie linear) may get priority over circular (energy conservation) methods? Also any technicques are probalby constructed from the defauly guard, so wing chun vertical striking kind of makes sense to me in the context.