Gene, Wrote an indepth article on the history of the north temple, does anyone know about the souths 5animal course?.
DocFaiWong’s 5animal book gives an indepth account how it stems from damo’s 18lohan exercises?, and in the early ming, two masters synthesized the current shaolin knowledge, into 72 then to a 1oo and something?
Can anyone answer some questions?.
5 animals pandora’s box
There a lot of accounts of thr origin of the 5 animals, too many in fact. Most are short and unsatisfying. I’ve always been surprised on how few draw parallels to Hua Tuo and 5 elements theory - that always seemed so basic to it all. I started to work on something about this, but it became a big mess so I shelved the research. Too many conflicting tales for me to sort out. Perhaps I’ll come back to it someday, but not for a while…
Anyone else care to tackle this one?
Ruff Estimate in Your Notes
How Many Tales?.
How many?
The main competing ones are the Shaolinsi version and what I’ll nickname the southern version, mostly out of the hung lineages. Within each of these versions the are variations - for example I’ve heard a few Shaolinsi claim Tamo as the originator of the 5 animals. There is the whole 5 elements thing that comes out of TCM, which of course alludes to Hua Tuo and qigong, but is seldom addressed. To me, this is the obvious lynchpin, but I’ve yet to find anyone validate that in print. Perhaps it’s becuase Hua Tuo’s animals are so different and the intention is so different. Additionally, you can take it out to shotokan, which draws it’s lines back to shaolin but presents a slightly different version. Same animals though.
and these animals would be linked to modern styles like kempo right?.
Does the shaolin 5elders legend about ng mui, bak mei, chee sim etc, does that correllate/mingle with the 5animal legends in anyway?, ifso, at wingchunkuen.com they had a article up basically saying how its probable the 5elder legends was just that, written by revolutionary secret society members, to build moral support in thier fight agianst the empire" insert vader breathing:) - sidenote that is cool how george lucas used the whole shoalin legends as his base for starwars, specially how the emporers main gaurds are the red gaurds:eek: 
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Now if they do mingle?, then possibly the southern styles of late ching, wich are very similar in thier respective appearances in structure, maybe thier is more underground characters associated with these lineages, also maybe some of these legendary charachters titles were nicknames?.
there’s that 5 again
The 5 elders of Kungfu differ from the 5 elders of secret society although the myth of them surviving the southern temple is consistent. It’s all in the 5. Perhaps that’s why 555 is a popular Chinese cigarette brand.
5 elders of secret society 
Whos This?