subject: Kung Fu: Secret Fighting Exercises of the Shaolin Temple [print this page] Kung Fu: Secret Fighting Exercises of the Shaolin Temple
The Shaolin Temple's 72 Secret And Consummate Arts, also known as 'Kungs' or Fighting Exercises', involve extreme training but can produce astonishing results. Full details of training intensity and duration follow, plus details of thesimple yet most effective training-aids required to acquire these particular skills.
Introduction
There are actually a lot more than 72 Shaolin Temple Secret Arts. Various authorities have produced different equally authentic lists, although these have much in common. Yang/Yin, Gang/Rou and Internal/External are descriptors used to Classify these Fighting Exercises or 'Kungs'
'Kungs' involve mostly either Soft 'Yin Rou Energy' Training, (mainly Internal) or Hard 'Yang Gang Power' Training (mainly External) although a few involve both.
Picking Up Flowers Art
Technical Analysis
Developing the strength of the first two fingers and thumb, Picking Up Flowers Art requires patience and perseverance if students are to master it and is an external Shaolin exercise of Yin Rou Energy Training.
Fingers and thumbs are not as strong as Palms or Fists but training them enriches many other aspects of Kung Fu Performance including the various Shaolin claw hands and open-hand tecniques. As the Shaolin maxim makes clear: 'Fists are weaker than Palms, Palms are not so fierce as Fingers'!
Method
Make a Kung Fu 'Crane'a beak' with the first two fingers curved and thumb and middle and index-finger touching. Rub the thumb from the first finger slowly down to the second and back in a circular clockwise motion before repeating this in anticlockwise fashion the same number of times.
Learners' initial fatigue and aches will disappear with continued regular practice and after a year their fingers will be tough and strong.
Next, use three round soya beans (it may be a week or more before you can easily pick up three simultaneously) and attempt to crush these between circling thumb and fingers until you can do so at your first attempt. This stage usually takes up to two years.
Finally, two or three small pieces of Sandstone (or similar friable rock) replace the beans until you can deal with these likewise. Another two years are required for this, making five in all.
Stone Pointing Arts
Technical Analysis
This exercise uses the first and second fingers (the other two being firmly folded into the palm) which are then poked repeatedly at solid objects, such as walls, trees or even metal plates. This is an external Yang Gang 'Hard Power' Exercise. As The Shaolin maxim states : 'Fists strike a spot, Fingers kill points'!
Method
Make a square wooden frame, fill this with thick mud or clay and leave this to dry until solid. Then, with pencil or marker trace a number of small circles on its exposed face. Use the fingers to trace one circle repeatedly until a slight depression is made (this may take weeks) and then treat the next similarly (this should be quicker and easier) and so on until the mould breaks.
Finally, a Sandstone pillar embedded in the ground receives the same treatment until it, too, collapses. Tremendous finger strength can be developed and Shaolin students of old were advised
to train their left rather than right hands to avoid injuring others inadvertantly.
Overall
The two complementary techniques enrich the Kung Fu of those mastering them in a variety of ways. Others, such as ' Guan Yin Palm' further reinforce these and are better to practice than unrelated tecniques. Kungs, once attained, after years of practice remain for life.
