History

The term “Shaolin” is named after the Shaolin Temple in Honan Province of China. It was a Buddhist temple built about A.D. 377 during the “Six Dynasties” (A.D. 221-589) period of Chinese history. In the year A.D. 527 a famous Buddhist monk, the Very Venerable Da Mo (known as Bodhidharma in the West, and Daruma in Japan), came to China from India to preach Buddhism. He spent many years at the Shaolin Temple. Here he noticed that the monks in the temple were weak, many of them often dozed off to sleep while listening to his sermons. Realizing that a physically healthy body was a pre-requisite for preparation for spiritual enlightenment, the Very Venerable Da Mo taught them the “Eighteen Lhan Patterns” to keep them fit. This Kung Fu set became a foundation set from which many other sets later developed. When the Very Venerable Da Mo left this world, he left behind two very important martial arts manuals: The Ee Chin Ching (Muscle – Metamorphosis) and the Se Schui Ching (The Art of Cleansing). The Ee Chin Ching, which set out a number of breathing exercises for “Chi” training, is today the classic document for internal force development. This Buddhist monk, the Very Venerable Da Mo, was thereafter proclaimed as the First Patriarch of Shaolin Kung Fu.

At first Shaolin Kung Fu was taught only to the monks in the temple, and these monks were well known throughout China for their excellence in martial arts. Later, secular disciples were accepted, and after graduating from the temple, the disciples who had come from all parts of China, returned home to spread what they had learned. For his last graduation test, the student has to pass through the “Lane of 108 Wooden Robots”. This was a specially designed lane with 108 Wooden robots, so ingeniously constructed with machines that they could attack the graduating student with the fundamental Kung Fu skills. Any student that failed to fight his way through the robots would have to remain in the temple to train again. A few outstanding graduates in character as well as in Kung Fu skill would be chosen for advanced, specialized “post graduation” training in the inner Da Mo Chamber. Often these advanced disciples of the Shaolin Temple discovered or invented new forms or techniques which would then be passed on to succeeding generations of Shaolin disciples.

During the Sung Dynasty an outstanding Shaolin disciple and Taoist hermit named Chang San Foong developed Wu Tang Kung Fu, which many people nowadays regard mistakenly as a rival branch of Shaolin.

Da Mo