Cirsus of Shaolin or not ?

[SHemmati]

my old teacher... lived in one of the many surrounding schools of shaolin 7 years, so why would he not learn the next level of fighting in seven years time?

this turns back to the 1st question of the thread. as a rough categorization, schools train fighting skills in 3 levels of approach:

1. performance (circus, or whatever you call it) approach: they just learn the forms, and almost do nothing with the applications. of the basic skills, they may practice flexibility, which can make the performance more elegant;

2. self-defense approach: they learn the forms, and applications. but don't emphasize on sparring and body mechanics. they may practice basic and qigong skills, but the level and type of skill is superficial;

2. warrior approach: warriors must learn the styles via the forms, learn the various variants of applications, and master the combat tactics and stuff via sparring. they should have good basic (endurance, flexibility, balance) and qigong (internal and external, hard and soft) skills.
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your master, like most the modern Shaolin monks, has been from a school of the 2nd approach.