i a newbie so please don’t tell me off but i would like to know if anyone outhere practices southern shaolin kungfu…not branches such as choy lee fut but southern SHAOLIN kungfu. i know that southern shaolin history is not clear as northern but i was just wondering :o
*raises hand, looks around at the rest of the guys here… 
i am of the understanding that southern shaolin kung fu was taught in the form of wushu? I trained in southern shaolin kung fu about 13 years ago, i asked my instructor who i hadnt seen for ten of those years and i asked him if he still taught it but his reply was that it is all encompassed in the wushu training nowadays.
i am sorry if this is incorrect but i am going from the info to which i was given and i hope this is of some help to you
I is study dem sudden shaolin. I lernted it from my pappy in West Virginyee and we don’t need no stinkin branches.
why do you think southern shaolin history is unclear?
There are the reputed 5 main branches:
Mok, Choy, Li, Hung and Lau.
Choy and Li have fused and Hung in some lineages has adopted the Mok and Lau systems into themselves. INclusive to these is the distilled form of shaolin kungfu known as wing chun. The Q&D style created and intended to instill fighting skill in a shorter period of time than those of the more robusts systems from teh 5 premier branches.
Now, each branch has a family version or two (or 3 or 10, or 100 ) and as well there are what are known as village styles. These are fundamentally the flavours of each of the branches as passed down within communities, usually within families of the same surname and spreading out over time. Some have been lost, others are more repleat than ever and going strong.
In the 300 years that was the qing dynasty, Shaolin Kungfu spread far and wide across China and also eventually out of it entirely.
More recently in history, like, in the last 50 years or so we have seen the flourishing of Kungfu practice in the Western countries and this continues to grow as well with Both the traditional old styles and wu shu growing alongside each other and all sorts of unique styles that have been put together like a patchwork by practitioners who have drank from a few cups of the TCMA tea over their lifetimes.
Anyway, for me personally there are only two types of martial arts:
1.effective
2.ineffective
both martially and as health practices these divisions apply in my mind.
a rose is still a rose by any other name ultimately. Each style will have it’s own history and lineage, some long, some short, some broken and so on.
anyway…just sayin.
I practice Hung and Dog Boxing.
Both are said to have direct roots to the Southern Shaolin Temple
Its probably almost impossible to find styles today that were actually taught exactly they way they were back before the temple’s destruction.
Evolution and improvement had its influence
As well as money, marketing and western expectations.
you said it I didn’t 
Southern Shaolin…
There isn’t really a Southern Shaolin style in existance per se IMHO unless of course you are talking about the modern Wushu rendition (Nanquan) of what it considers to be Southern Shaolin.
Personally, I believe that Southern Shaolin is in fact a generic or blanket term for the 5 major folk arts (Dazun, Taizu, Xingzhe, Luohan, and Baihe) that were indigenous in Fujian province. From there they evolved and spread to further south such as Guangdong province. The 5 family that Kung Lek mentioned were mainly developed in the Guangdong region. The so called Southern Shaolin actually has ties with Ming military because Shaolin monks in the 1500s received stick figthing training from General Yu Dayou who was the mentor of General Qi Jiguang. They also fought alongside the Ming army against supposed Japanese pirates around Fujian province and neighboring regions. When the Ming dynasty fell, what’s left of the Ming military became known as Zhu Jia. Those Shaolin monks troops and the Zhu Jia (military loyalists) forms the 2 main arms of the so called Southern Shaolin but there is the third arm which is the grassroot underground rebellion forces including secret societies such as Tiandihui and the much subdued cult White Lotus which had quite an influence on Yong Chun He Fa that later became Baihe, Hung Gar, Wing Chun, Lung Ying, etc… even Okinawan’s Te that gradually became Karate.
So IMHO Southern Southern system in essential is a collective body of work that includes military, monastery (mainly stick fighting) and grass root folk arts of Fujian province. It has 3 major functions that can serve the needs of the general public - martial (as education), healing, and spiritual. It is a folk art rather than a system that originated in a temple (the supposed rediscovered Putian Shaolin).
Mantis108
just a thought, but check this- perhaps a comprehensive study could be taken of the major southern styles claiming descent from Shaolin- Hung Gar, Wing Chun, White Crane, CLF, Southern Mantis, and others and find the common elements within forms, fighting strategies, as well as those aspects that, while not common, fuse well together, and perhaps you’ll find something close to true “Nam Sil Lum.” They could even call it “The Southern Fist Symposium.” 
Already, there are the alleged similarities between Wing Chun and SPM (though I don’t know much about either style- the style I’m learning is Northern anyway) as well as Hung Gar’s Tiger and Crane forms, etc.
Now, just curious, but are the five families previously mentioned the same as those practiced in Ngo Cho Kuen?
i know the master benny ming (i think its his name. he does a lot of articles)of wing tsun/ ving tsun/wing chun (i dont know which one he is part of off the top of my head.) he has been reasearching the southern shaolin temple with articles. you can check those out.
the nan chuan form from wushu is hyperspeed rip-off of Hung Gar in my opinion. lol
It uses the kiu sao often and looks like a conglomorate form from the Lam sai wing hung kuen all speed up. In all honesty, it is one of the worst of the wushu forms available, they really should’ve left it alone.
The connections to Buddhism and Taosim are where the connections to Shaolin lie in any kungfu. If you have buddhist qigongs, meditations etc etc in your style, then it likely decended from Shaolin. If you have Ch’an or Zen in your style then it definitely decended from Shaolin in that part and likely in others.
THere are things that are same same from north to south and in keeping with traditional shaolin training.
As for the existence of a real and bonafide temple in fujian that was “Shaolin” well…there is now, and there are legends (not myths) of one that existed there up into the 1800’s. legend usually has some truth at it’s base whereas Myths are complete abstractions.
Not to mention all the scattered monks at various times who spread what they knew of martial arts all over in China and Asia.
Anyway, the connection to Shaolin is not such a big deal. Even modern wushu can make that claim.
i would like to know if anyone outhere practices southern shaolin kungfu…
There were many times in history when the shaolin was destroyed. The monks scattered and later regrouped.
Well, in terms of the legends, the Henan temple was destroyed 3 times. The last time in 1927-28.
The legend of the Southern Temple has it being burned down in the late 1800’s, with some saying that the monks themselves burnt it down.
That’s the trouble with the whole Shaolin legend vs the Shaolin reality, at least history wise, it is slightly fragmented with a dash of legend, a pinch of childrens stories, a helping of truth and some complete nonsense. It is still debated, in some cases wildly.
Now, I’m no great historian of Shaolin, but I can tell plastic from glass most of the time.
I don’t think Choy Lay Fut is simply a blending of “Choy Gar” and “Li Gar.”
I’ve read the history of Choy Gar, it’s nothing like the history of Choy Lay Fut.
Or I may be wrong.
You are both partially correct. As I understand it the Lay of Choy Lay Fut is the same Lay of Lay Gar (aka Li, Lee, Lei). The founder of Lay Gar was Lay Yau Shan who also was a teacher of Chan Heung.
However, the Choy of Choy Lay Fut is not the Choy of Choy Gar. Choy Fook was a notherner who just happend to share the same surname as the founder of Choy Ga…can’t remember his name right now???
Choy Gau Yi
The founder of Choy Gar was Choy Gau Yi in the Ming, who allegedly learned from a monk named Yi Guan.
Right…and the teacher of Chan Heung was Choy Fook (aka Ching Cho Wo Sheung ie Green Grass Monk) so not any direct connection that I know of.
Do you really believe that Choy Fook was the Green Grass Monk?