so those skills were more deeply researched and trained. In the south,
where it was much more crowded and urbanized, the weapons that would
find the most use were shorter. These included cleavers and similar chop-
ping weapons, knives, short rods, and short swords.
The credit for the origin of both types of boxing is attributed to the
Shaolin Temples and to necessity. Law enforcement during the formative
period of Chinese boxing was often the province of important people with
hired police forces and private standing armies. Commonly, villages were
responsible for their own defenses against marauding bands of thieves,
slavers, and other brigands who survived on what they could steal, whom
they could sell off, and the services gained from those whom they could en-
slave. Other social services, particularly educational, were absent as well.
In this regard, similarities exist between European and Chinese feudal
societies. In Europe during the Middle Ages, one of the only ways a person
of low birth could gain an education was through the Roman Catholic
Church. In medieval Europe, it was possible for a community to send the
brightest of their progeny to one of the monasteries that dotted the land-
scape to learn Latin (the lingua franca of the era), mathematics, and rudi-
mentary medical skills. After completing this education, the student re-
turned home and used the knowledge to benefit the town from which he
came. Also, a percentage of the monks who lived in the monasteries of that
time were not merely men who had a calling from their God, but who were
fugitives from the law, as well. In some cases, sanctuary from prosecution
was their primary motivation. For example, those who had gained the dis-
favor of the nobility or had been in the ranks of a losing army might find
a refuge by joining an order. Therefore, among the members of an order
were former fighting men who had renounced their family ties and taken
on different names. Records of thirteenth-century German monks practic-
ing sword and buckler (small, round shield) combat as a martial sport,
along with claims that knights were intimidated by the wrestling skills of
medieval monks, demonstrate the availability and efficacy of fighting skills
within monastery walls.
Similarly, in China Buddhist temples not only concerned themselves
with the promulgation and study of Buddhism, but also served as sources
of education in literacy, mathematics, and martial skills. The medical pro-
fession was also intertwined with the martial traditions. Soldiers had
wounds that needed tending, training practices resulted in various injuries
from blunt trauma and from weapons practice, and the monks had only
themselves to rely on. Tradition maintains that the birth of acupuncture
stemmed from soldiers who, upon receiving arrow wounds that were not
fatal, found themselves cured or relieved of certain non-combat-related ill-
nesses, pains, or other injuries.
Boxing, Chinese Shaolin Styles 35