HKV: That't an interesting take on "fairy". I'll have to play with that a little and see if it works for me.
Your distance catagorization is essentially the same as the ti, da, sui, na catagorization. My fencing training echoes your distance method, but in trad. kungfu, I have always heard TDSN, plus it rhymes a little, so I use that.
Each monk is different, so some do know some bagua/xingyi, but what is more popular is Chen taiji, probably becuase Chen village is so close to Shaolin. But I think you picked up on what I was trying to express earlier - SSSL has this heavy internal element that you don't see as prominently in BSL or the cont. wushu that the monks demo. It's really hard to explain, but when you get real close to the monks when the practice, you can definately feel it.

AB: Don't feel you have to pursue an article - if you're intuition tells you not to go there, that's good enough for me. I'm very content just to hear your retelling of it here.

SD: Lam Sifu never trained with the monks. He has observed a few lessons at Shaolin when we co-led tours, but I think he wasn't into doing all the conditioning (running, footwork, jumping, rolling, etc.) The only time I have seen him take a lesson was with Sun Jianyun. However, he has always accepted whatever material I have brought in from SSSL and allowed me to teach it at the school, particularly the conditioning and jibengong (and not to mention the imports for his company!) Through me, all of his BSL instructors now know it and implement it to some degree. Personally, I think the SSSL has increased our BSL attendence over the years significantly. BSL class dwarfs the Hung Gar and Taiji classes. It is also worthy of note that one of our kids class instructors was ejected for (among other things) teaching cont. wushu. I brought both Shi Yanming and Shi Goulin to give seminars at Lam Kwoon, but Sifu Lam did not engage them beyond polite courtesy (and he never comments on anyone elses stuff with the possible exception of David Carradine and Brian Grey.) So it would be pretty hypocritical of him not to accept SSSL now. When I asked him in the past, he always approved.

Gene Ching
Asst. Publisher
Kungfu Qigong Magazine & www.KUNGFUmagazine.com