[QUOTE=rett;1117267]Here are some things that springs to mind. Maybe they tangent the main question.
It’s been a while since I read Meir Shahar’s book, but iirc he argued that Shaolin was already facing this sort of situation around 400 years ago, at least as far as open-hand forms are concerned.
As you’ve probably read too, he thinks the open-hand forms and fighting training developed to become more oriented towards a kind of interactive-movement mind-body meditation with a large influx of traditional gymnastics (daoyin, neigong). This was because for actual military purposes you needed to don armor and use weapons. An unarmed and unarmored guy on the battlefield was toast, and this was even before guns came on the scene.
I’m not sure if I entirely agree since even soldiers can’t have all their gear on and fight in organized units 24/7. There was a lot of fighting, thieving and whatnot in market towns or you could get waylaid by thieves in countryside (as I understand from kungfu action/comedy movies). Also, the open-hand work is prep work for weapons.
But in any case, morphing like this could be one way for the tradition to stay alive and breathing.
When it comes to high level fighting skills, maybe in the end the techniques are secondary to determination, attitude and hard training.
There is even modern pressure on very traditional schools I believe. For example, a very traditional school might get in a teenage resident student who has won a large Sanda competition or even done MMA. A wise teacher might unleash this student on his peers so they quickly see the difference between their form training and the kind of fighting that’s going on out there. (I saw this situation).[/QUOTE]
I agree with much of what you’ve written there particularly at looking back to see how we might go forward. However, I would be worried that future development of Shaolin Kungfu would see it moving away from its roots as a fighting art.
Like you I feel that the conclusion that Shaolin was being morphed into moving meditation 400 years ago is slightly simplistic. There is some evidence e.g. the emergence of Chen Taijiquan that its more intricate elements were gaining greater emphasis but one can argue that this shift in emphasis was made to promote greater figthing efficiency not less. Indeed, why would the Shaolin water down their martial arts when they already had an extensive body of Qigong to call upon if they wanted to shift their focus to physical and spiritual cultivation? They could’ve simply dropped martial arts and concentrated on Qigong, nai?
Also, as you point out, there’s a historical context. 400 years ago China was becoming more dangerous not less. Without policemen and with soldiers fighting among themselves to the extent that it was felt necessary to let the Manchu in simply to restore order, for all the reasons you outlined, if you couldn’t defend yourself you were in trouble.
In fact the Qing period could arguably be referred to as the golden age of Chinese martial arts as they were adapted from battlefield training to serve the purposes of assassination and guerilla warfare. It is accepted by many that Ji Longfeng, who I’ve already referenced, was an anti Qing rebel and the martial arts that he brought to Shaolin and were developed subsequently show nothing but an emphasis on getting the job done.
The issue I see which my first post touched upon and your post drew out more was that in today’s world the challenge to Shaolin is not overthrow the Qing, restore the Ming. People aren’t sat there working out what techniques work best for taking out a Qing bannerman under cover of darkness. The main challenge comes from MMA. However, is there any technique in MMA that doesn’t exist in Shaolin already? Groundfighting yes…but what else?
As you underline what MMA brings is an attitude to figthing, a dedication to fighting and a professionalism towards fighting which, broadly speaking, is centred around the mastery of the fewest and most cage proven techniques many of which can be found in Shaolin’s curriculum. So can Shaolin really go anywhere else?
