Shaolin Kung fu: living and breathing?
The genesis for this topic sort of sprung out of discussions had elsewhere in this forum about Shaolin Kung fu which got me thinking about Shaolin Kung fu as a "living art".
Historically speaking Shaolin's growth as a Kung fu centre has in many ways been to a large extend due to the ability of its fighting monks to assimilate the best of the rest, so to speak. There are numerous tales of outside experts impressing the monks of Shaolin and being persuaded to stay and help them develop their skills. Indeed, it was the genesis of Xinyiba and the role of Ji Longfeng that got me thinking around this topic.
Essentially Shaolin has up until now been a living art which grows as it encounters new ideas which, I suppose, is in part why its library of techniques is so vast.
However, with Martial Arts no longer as important in the modern world as they would have been in pre-modern societies that did not have 21st century law enforcement systems it seems this situation is bound to change. In the era of guns and CCTV there is no longer a strong driver for new martial arts systems that Shaolin can cream off to appear.
Do you think then that Shaolin will remain a living art or will it become increasingly ossified with the way things are done now likely to remain the way they will be done decades from now as a result in the societal changes we've seen in recent centuries?
Just wanted to put that out there and see what people thought?
Guns have been with us much longer than this century
And while there have been some changes in law enforcement, we're still not really at the tech level of CSI or any of those Police Procedural shows you see on TV. Heck, I just had lunch with the Cmdr. Milner of NPD (he helped out on our Bodhidharma Cane & Shaolin Tonfa DVD) as well as another lunch with a good friend who is a local Fire dispatch. All the government departments are struggling - they can't afford those fancy-schmancy crime labs you see on TV. But that's off point, really. My point is that the era of guns isn't a 21st century factor. The impact of guns hit the martial arts some 3-4 centuries ago, and has already been addressed. Beyond Meir's book, another great scholarly analysis of the impact of progress is Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery by G. Cameron Hurst. It's a really good read for anyone interested in this topic.
I think the biggest impact on martial arts now is the availability of video. We saw some impact from the initial VHS offerings in the 80s. In the 90s, it was all about VCDs in China. Now with YouTube, video access has exploded.