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)