The Shaolin Monastery. History, Religion and the Chinese Martial Arts

108 Systemizing Martial Practice these binding rings (gu) a relic of the ring staff’s original loose ones (huan). If so, the res ...

Staff Legends 109 religious sanction to monastic violence; on the other, fighting monks changed the image of their tutelary divi ...

...

Part III Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation (16 0 0 –19 0 0) ...

...

113 Chapter 5 Hand Combat M arti al techniques m ay require centuries to evolve. Shaolin monks had been practicing the staff for ...

114 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation travelogues and poems of late Ming visitors to Shaolin such as Wang Shixing (who explored ...

Hand Combat 115 techniques—through an almost identical lineage of lay practitioners—to the Shaolin Monastery. In his 1784 prefac ...

116 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation same fighting principles and employ an identical martial vocabulary. There is also textua ...

Hand Combat 117 with empty-handed techniques, mentioning their staff method instead. Fur- thermore, Qi Jiguang did not relate th ...

118 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation traditional medicine, where it described sensitive spots along the body’s inter- nal circ ...

Hand Combat 119 “Dodging Body,” “Growing Body,” and “Leaping Body” are all dissimilar. Some excel in knee method (xi): The “Left ...

120 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation “According Step,” “Exchanging Step,” “Tracing Step,” “Full Step,” “Empty Step,” “Curved S ...

Hand Combat 121 lascivious, drunks. Novels and plays usually associate each of the insouciant saints with a given emblem: a flut ...

122 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation (Jet Li) Fearless (2005) have familiarized Western audiences with Huo’s “Con- founding-Tr ...

Hand Combat 123 From another angle, the technique’s diverse appellations reflect the large body of lore that grew around it. Miz ...

124 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation treatise in 1742 after he had retired to his native Balizhuang village, in Nei- huang Cou ...

Hand Combat 125 school. Nevertheless, Cao repeatedly failed the licentiate exams, and hence he could not aspire to an educationa ...

126 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation where. However, on several occasions I suffered illness and was obliged to return. Therea ...

Hand Combat 127 pletely eclipsed the monastery’s ancient staff methods, and instead of an armed display, the distinguished guest ...