How Realistic is PRC's Shaolin?

[GeneChing]

Jamel runs a Shaolin school out of Brooklyn. He's an old friend and I actually saw that performance live when I was at the The First World Traditional Wushu Festival (no, his performance did *not* make make DVD, although there's a nice pic of him in my e-zine article about it.) We ran an article on Jamel titled Hip Hop and the Dharma: Shi Guolin's Disciple Jamel Brown Brings it All Together By Martha Burr, back in our 2002 Shaolin special. Frankly, if that was all Shaolin was about, I couldn't practice it. I just don't have those kinds of jumping, flipping skills. Note that 'gold medal' in reference to this event is slightly deceptive. Everyone who acheived a certain criteria score received a gold medal.

[Ravenshaw]

Haha love that penultimate picture in the e-zine article.

You've lost it, man.

... or did you ever have it?

[omarthefish]

Without trugging through the entire article and all the other assorted stuff you could dig up, the shortest explanation is just to say that the Shaolin Temple, at present, is simply an officially appointed "flagship" so to speak for Shaolin Gongfu. It exists primarily to market all the stuff people associate with Shaolin Gongfu in their imaginations but the place it's self, in regards to the training, the forms, the sparring and so on, is pretty much the same as what you find at any Wushu University throughout China. You could find nearly the exact same training and curriculum at the Xi'an Sports University or at the Beijing Sports University, at the Zhao Xiangjun Wushu School in Xi'an and so on.

It's a set of govt. approved standardized form for forms competition and basic Sanda for the uh...Sanda competition.

That's all it is. No better. No worse. Just more famous and with more government support but make no mistake, is IS a regular wushu school like all the rest. That DOES include Sanda but they don't teach or compete with the traditional forms. They use the govt. standardized versions.

[lunghushan]

Without trugging through the entire article and all the other assorted stuff you could dig up, the shortest explanation is just to say that the Shaolin Temple, at present, is simply an officially appointed "flagship" so to speak for Shaolin Gongfu.

It's a set of govt. approved standardized form for forms competition and basic Sanda for the uh...Sanda competition.

Thanks. That's what it seemed to be.

[GeneChing]

...there's three primary factors that determine a school's success - location, location, location. What the schools of Shaolin have that is above and beyond any other PRC school is location. It's on the central holy mountain of China, built on the foundations of our most venerated temple. It has attracted more schools than any other location in the world. The government support that everyone keeps harping on is only allocated to the temple itself, the Shaolin wushuguan, and the Dengfeng sports university. When I mention those 80 registered schools in Dengfeng, these three are not included amongst the 80. The 80 are all private. Now imagine for a moment trying to run a school in a town where there are 79 competing schools and 3 major government-funded institutions. How might you survive? Some get really good. Others resort to all kinds of chicanery. What makes Shaolin very special is that it is an amazing microcosm of the martial arts world. There's no place else on earth like it.