I spent a day with the Shaolin temple wushu guan performance team the other day. It was an interesting experience.
Most of these guys are in their mid to late teens, which, by definition, as I've heard it, are too young to be "monks", ie, take the vows of "Taking refuge". They do have monk names however, which, is a fairly common thing now in many of these gong fu schools and such. Their abilities were just incredible; their mastery of their forms was absolutely perfect.
In fact, too perfect.
For the one thing that I noticed that day, was the fact that each of these guys, actually knew little gong fu. True, they all have the basics down pat (the jibengong), and they all know some traditional forms (though, watching them go through something very basic and very traditional, such as Shao Hong Chuan, was interesting, as they all took their time going through it, step by step, trying to remember how the form progressed). All knew small traditional forms such as Tong Bei Chuan, and, one or two others, but, basically, two to four traditional forms was their entire traditional armamentarium. As for wushu, basically, each team member knew two or three forms; generally one animal form and one weapon form. Sometimes a team member knew a third contemporary form. And, they knew those perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. The other team members generally did not know all of what their colleagues did; in this way, the team maximized the number of wushu forms it knew, with the least amount of team members.
Team members gererally practice their three contemporary forms six days a week. They generally don't practice the little traditional forms that they've learned in school.
I've seen this phenomena, as I've said before, predominantly in the Xing, Yan, Heng, and other generations of monks. The De generations of monks, having had Su generation masters, and generally having really lived in the Shaolin temple with those masters, before the advent of popular wushu, tend to know far more traditional forms (and, interestingly enough, far less modern wushu). It's a troubling site, to see these younger monks teaching predominantly contemporary forms, to students around the world. One can only wonder where the future for the real traditional Shaolin gong fu lies.
Most of these guys are in their mid to late teens, which, by definition, as I've heard it, are too young to be "monks", ie, take the vows of "Taking refuge". They do have monk names however, which, is a fairly common thing now in many of these gong fu schools and such. Their abilities were just incredible; their mastery of their forms was absolutely perfect.
In fact, too perfect.
For the one thing that I noticed that day, was the fact that each of these guys, actually knew little gong fu. True, they all have the basics down pat (the jibengong), and they all know some traditional forms (though, watching them go through something very basic and very traditional, such as Shao Hong Chuan, was interesting, as they all took their time going through it, step by step, trying to remember how the form progressed). All knew small traditional forms such as Tong Bei Chuan, and, one or two others, but, basically, two to four traditional forms was their entire traditional armamentarium. As for wushu, basically, each team member knew two or three forms; generally one animal form and one weapon form. Sometimes a team member knew a third contemporary form. And, they knew those perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. The other team members generally did not know all of what their colleagues did; in this way, the team maximized the number of wushu forms it knew, with the least amount of team members.
Team members gererally practice their three contemporary forms six days a week. They generally don't practice the little traditional forms that they've learned in school.
I've seen this phenomena, as I've said before, predominantly in the Xing, Yan, Heng, and other generations of monks. The De generations of monks, having had Su generation masters, and generally having really lived in the Shaolin temple with those masters, before the advent of popular wushu, tend to know far more traditional forms (and, interestingly enough, far less modern wushu). It's a troubling site, to see these younger monks teaching predominantly contemporary forms, to students around the world. One can only wonder where the future for the real traditional Shaolin gong fu lies.
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