Through ten years' efforts, kungfu masters at Shaolin Temple in
Songshan County, Henan Province, plans to save all traditional
Shaolin Kongfu by printing the martial arts information on video
tapes, pictures, and VCDs, hoping that modern technologies can help
enrich its martial arts collection.
It is said that a whole set of Shaolin kungfu consists of 360
established series of movements (or routines). However, only 100 of
them are being kept in Shaolin Temple now.
All these martial arts information are written in letters and
graphics and compiled in Shaolin Temple, so that descendants can
learn and practise them whenever they want. Most of the books are
kept in Shaolin's depository together with other Buddhist
scriptures.
In recent years, as Shaolin Temple becomes widely known, more
and more people are interested in Shaolin kungfu and want to learn
it. In light of this, Shi Yongxin, the present abbot in Shaolin
Temple, has decided to devote some efforts to saving more Shaolin
martial arts.
In September 2006, Shi Yongxin and other kungfu masters
established a Shaolin kungfu working office, where 18 martial arts
experts in the temple will collect and edit information about
Shaolin kungfu.
The experts are divided into two groups. One group consists of
secular monks who will search for information about Shaolin kungfu
passed on among the people, while the other group consists of
martial arts experts, who will compile the information collected by
secular monks and classify them into different categories.
In the end, the working office will sort out all information
collected from among the people into 18 branches of patterns, based
on the classical categorizing methods used in the temple. Each
branch will make up of a set of different martial arts skills,
including unarmed combat, duel practise, armed combat, exercising
for good health, and 72 individual skills.
So far, experts in the temple have collected more than 1,500
sets of martial arts patterns. They expect to set up a
comprehensive system for Shaolin kungfu within the next ten years.
In order to do so, they plan to publish about 150 sets of martial
arts patterns every year and save and publicize all these martial
arts information through video tapes, hard disks, VCDs and
books.
(Chinanews February 9, 2007)
