Defending the Nation 65
I had heard that the Shaolin Monastery in Henan possesses a divinely
transmitted method of fencing (jijian) [staff fighting]. Later, when I was
on my way back from Yunzhong (in Shanxi), I followed the path to the
monastery. More than a thousand [Shaolin] monks considered them-
selves experts in this [staff] method, and they all came out to demon-
strate it. I realized that the monastery had already lost the ancient
secrets of the art, and I openly told them so. The monks immediately
expressed their desire to be instructed, to which I responded: “One
must dedicate years upon years to master this technique.” So they chose
from amongst them two young and courageous monks, one named
Zongqing, the other Pucong, who followed me to the South, and took
up residence inside my military barracks. I taught them the True
Formula of the Yin and Yang Transformations,^27 as well as the profound
and illuminating imperatives.
After more than three years had elapsed, the two said: “We have
been here long enough. We beg permission to return in order that we
may teach our fellow monks what we have learned. This way [your]
method will be transmitted for ever and ever.” And so I let them go.
Thirteen years swiftly passed, and suddenly one day my gatekeeper
announced that a monk was wishing to see me. He was allowed in, and
lo and behold he was Zongqing! He told me that Pucong had already
joined the ranks of divine beings, and that only he, Zongqing, had
returned to the Shaolin Monastery, where he taught the Sword Formu-
las (staff formulas) and Chan Regulations. Amongst the monks, almost
a hundred achieved a profound knowledge of the technique. Thus it can
be transmitted for ever and ever!^28General Yu was under the impression that his staff method would be trans-
mitted for generations at the Shaolin Monastery. Did he overestimate his im-
pact on the Shaolin tradition? An examination of Cheng Zongyou’s manual
reveals that the staff technique he learned at Shaolin, some fifty years after
Yu’s visit to the monastery, was entirely different from the one outlined in
Yu’s Sword Classic. The two staff styles—that taught by the general and that
studied by Cheng—vary in everything from the names of methods (fa) and
positions (shi) to the rhyming formulas and illustrations.^29 Furthermore, we
can trace at least some of the nomenclature in Cheng’s Shaolin Staff Method to
a military encyclopedia that antecedes Yu’s encounter with the Shaolin
monks.^30 Clearly, an indigenous tradition of Shaolin staff fighting, which
predated the general’s visit to the monastery, continued to thrive there long
afterwards.
General Yu misjudged his influence on Shaolin fighting, but it is not im-
possible that he left some mark on it. A hint is provided by the following pas-
sag e f r o m W u S hu’s Arm Exercises, which was compiled approximately a hundred
years after the general’s visit to the Shaolin monastery: