72 Secret Arts of Monks from the Shaolin Monastery

Shaolin Kung Fu

The 72 Shaolin Secret Arts are methods of preparing the body and the mind for action under extreme conditions (first of all, in conditions of real-life hand-to-hand combat). If you train only hand-to-hand techniques and do not pay attention to special training, you will never achieve the highest mastery and your movements will lack the real force. "The fists are like flowers, and the legs like embroidery needles", laugh the old masters at such "techniques". The 72 Arts of Shaolin are the foundation of the utmost mastery in all styles of Kung Fu.

"Seventy-two precious arts are kept in a brocade bag, they are kept like a great treasure. Eighteen of them are the essence of the famous treatises on pugilistic arts. Eighteen other arts describe in detail training methods with the use of special tools and training equipment. Wonderful methods of attaining the flexibility of the breath-chi, exercises in obtaining hardness and lightness, clenching methods are written with the blood of monks in books that are kept like a treasure in the brocade bag. One can seldom meet those who really want to do exercises with zeal: to become a real hero, one must often feel bitter taste of hard labour."

Seventy-two types of the Shaolin Arts represent an example of personal experience of monks from the Shaolin Monastery in the Songshan Mountains. This experience was obtained by hard exercises in combat arts during many epochs. The best samples of those seventy-two arts are such effective methods as qigong (chi kung), breathing exercises chi, exercises to obtain hardness yinggong and lightness qinggong, acupoint massage dienxue, clenching arts qinna (chin na), the art of setting dislocations and bones and others.

In all practices of the Seventy-two Arts at first the basic theory is studied and only then exercises are done. At first those who practice the arts train the softness of their sinews and bones and try to make agile all their joints and articulations. Then they set into motion the main breath zongli, strengthen the internal organs fu, improve blood state, consolidate body strength, control the cinnabar field and concentrate energy in it, overcome their desires and requirements. The strength spreads on the four extremities and the hundred joints and articulations, now a fighter is in command of unlimited power and he can move off one thousand jins. Your arm weighing only ten jins can move a thing weighing ten thousand jins with a stroke. Your arms are a head, your legs are a tail. Everything is permeated with a single movement, the body moves like a dragon. Teachers said: "Shaolin exercises develop forces of the whole human organism, all joints and bones; you are capable of striking with all parts of your body." There is one more saying: "The fist is the source of all arts and the leg is the base, the root of the fist." Ordinary practice of pugilism consists of seventy percent of leg training and thirty percent of fist training. If you acquire pugilism, you can use eighteen types of weapon. If you resort to all ruses of pugilism, you can fight against ten thousand fighters.

Shaolin Kung Fu  OnLine Library

72 types of Shaolin Arts

Shaolin Kung Fu  OnLine Library

Shaolin Kung Fu  OnLine Library

General Requirements to the Way of Carrying-Out Exercises

The breath Chi must unite with the force - Li, the brain must be in unity with the heart, the heart must be in unity with the mind, the mind must guide the breath Chi. Besides, the internal vision should be available in the brain and create plans; the brain must implement those plans, as far as the guidance of the breath Chi is concerned. The breath Chi strengthens the force Li which is a motive force of the breath Chi.

With the use of the breath an effort is made and the effort must reach the eyes and vision. When doing external exercises, one must go from small coercions to deep ones, from simple coercions to complicated ones. The intensity of loading should be increased smoothly and step by step, excessive efforts do not lead to success.

During external practices the secret of success lies in constant observance of the principle "Toil and Persistency". All the men who reached the top in the Shaolin practices got their high abilities in hard toil and reached successes only after a lot of regular exercises. One must rely only on his diligence. If you are not persistent in your heart, you will abandon your training half a way and loose what you have obtained during your practice.

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