Shaolin Quan

Shaolin Quan ( 少林拳 ), or "Shaolin boxing", is a traditional Chinese martial art referring to the ancient school of the Shaolin monastery, the place where it is said to have been created.

Hundreds of Chinese martial arts lay claim to the "Shaolin heritage", or to one of the monasteries associated with the name "Shaolin".

According to legend, the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma (5th century) taught Shaolin kung-fu to the monks of the Shaolin temple, to help them defend themselves against the animals and the brigands prowling around the monastery.

Academic research has criticised this thesis since the 18th century, and some historians trace this legend back to the 17th century, with the mention of physical practices at Shaolin (Qi gong) in passages of the Yì Jīn Jīng, whose authenticity (it is claimed to date from the 17th century) is questioned by historians (who consider it later than the 17th century).

More recent research shows that the patron saint of the monastery was the Bodhisattva Vajrapani, a deity revered from at least the 8th century, through whom the monks believed they would obtain strength and fighting skills.

Likewise, a stele erected in 1517 shows that Vajrapani was regarded at that time as the creator of the monks’ famous staff techniques. The fighting style practised at the Shaolin temple itself is very old and very complex. It gave rise to numerous other systems, which spread everywhere.

Originally the temple held 18 different styles, the 18 Gates of Shaolin. Two were definitively lost in 1928, when the monastery was burned down by a warlord, among them the Shaolin Taiji. Each of these 16 styles comprised five or six forms. These forms were practised with or without weapons.

The unarmed forms are founded on the observation of animal movements, of which the five main ones are the monkey, the tiger, the heron, the snake and the leopard. To these are added, among others, the mongoose, the bear, the praying mantis, the dragon and the unicorn.

As for weapons, there are 18 main ones, including the sabre, the sword, the staff, the halberd, the spear, the axe, the knife, the club, the chain and the whip.