Shaolin Kung Fu Animal Style

In the world of martial arts, there are few styles that capture imagination like animal styles. These systems are well known and commonly practiced in Gong Fu, but are generally misunderstood and misrepresented. In this article, I would like to highlight the link between animal style itself and modern training.

General myths about animal style

In today’s martial arts, there are many misconceptions about animal styles that need to be addressed before proceeding.

General myth: Animal style is just a show, no real function.

Looking at the vast majority of animal stylists around today, it’s not hard to believe this. Animal styles were developed to emphasize a group of similar concepts, so style imitation actions aim to bring out functionality. Unfortunately, many practitioners are obsessed with trying to be animals and forget why they were there in the first place.

General Myth 2: Animal style is about hand position.

Often, the depth of many practitioners stops at the formation of hand positions. I’ve heard instructors tell students that the tiger style is a tiger claw and the crane style is all about using the beak hand. If you believe it, I think it will be true, but in my experience it is not. There are many animal styles that do not include any signature hand techniques. There is a complete system of tiger boxing with no claws, and a crane style with few beaks is very common, but it is often overlooked because the parts are invisible.

General Myth 3: Animal style was created by Daruma at Shaolin Temple.

This is complete garbage, but unfortunately Shaolin Temple seems to be spreading. Watching a show of traveling monks and a documentary about Shaolin Temple made over the last few years shows that this myth is being pushed very strongly. The modern animal style coming out of the temple is not a classic style. They are full of acrobatics and generally run around and pretend to be animals, but have few real features (except marketing).

Martial arts have evolved and the animal style of Shaolin Temple that is commonly practiced today is contextually valid, but it is ridiculous to pretend that all the martial arts found in Shaolin Temple today were developed by Damo. After all, Da Mo (Bodhidharma) lived for over 1000 years before the first Shaolin animal shapes were created. This myth does not trust the myriad masters who have made outstanding contributions to Shaolin Kung Fu in Shaolin’s more than 1500 years of history.

So what is the animal style?

Animal style, more precisely known as imitation style (Xing Quan), is a unique feature of classic Chinese martial arts. The Master has developed these styles as a way to explore the nature of human consciousness by exploring the different “minds” that animals represent. Animals are a prototype that practitioners can explore to understand changes in the human mind.

The purpose of imitation is to free ourselves from our everyday identities, thereby exploring ideas that we would not normally think of. This creates a paradigm shift and expands our understanding and barriers accordingly. The first imitation system was not martial arts at all, but was developed for health prevention.

Wu Xing Xi (Five Animal Frolics) was developed by Hua Tuo and uses the imitation behavior of tigers, bears, deer, apes and birds to regulate and balance the body’s natural health system. Although these exercises were popular for health, they did not directly stimulate the development of animal imitation systems.

In the 1600s, Shaolin Master Hakuuho set out to activate the Shaolin system. He traveled to China for three years, met the Master and learned different styles. Three years later, he returned to Shaolin Temple to combine the five systems he encountered while traveling to create a new style. This “new” style was Shaolin’s Five Animal Fists-Shaolin Temple Wu Xingquan.

Shaolin Five Animals

Shaolin Wu Xing Quan contains five different counterfeit products: Tiger, Crane, Snake, Leopard, and Dragon. Each of these styles existed before this form, but it was Hakuuho who combined them into a single style in which each animal complemented the other. There were centuries of animal boxing records before Hakuuho, but they were scattered examples, and none of them were as imaginative as this style.

Each of these animals will be explored in detail in a later article, but I wanted to mention another version of Hakuu Feng’s boxing, Uxin Banner.

Wu Xing Ba Fa Quan means the eight laws of five boxing animals and is a summary of Bai Yu Feng’s original style. At Wu Xing Ba Fa Quan, various aspects of the system help train practitioners to improve all kung fu. In this way, Tiger exercises help develop muscle strength and increase bone density. Cranes develop gin (exposed qi), and snakes develop smooth control of the qi itself. Leopards develop speed and power, and dragons develop the ability to rest. This is all possible because BaFa or Eight Laws are properly applied.

The eight laws are as follows:

Correct use of internal skills

Correct use of external skills

Correct application of mind

Development of six harmony by hand

Development of 6 harmonies with legs and footwork

Correct application of the three zones of the body

Correct application of ChinNa function

Correct development of Qigong.

Some historians believe that the style of Hakuuho was originally called Uxin Banner, but the most common version of Shaolin Temple today is just a variation of the summary format.

After Bai Yu Feng

After Bai Yu Feng, imitation styles became very popular and various imitations began to appear. In addition to the original five animals of tigers, cranes, leopards, dragons and snakes, mantis, eagle, monkeys, drunks, white monkeys, dogs, phoenixes, elephants, lions, swallows, hawks, ondori, ducks, fish, etc. There are many others, turtles, toads, scorpions and many more. Some animals have become very popular and have evolved into their own systems, but many others have survived as some techniques, such as vultures.

As the concept of imitation practice spread, not only the entire system of movement, but also the style of weapons such as monkey poles and drunken swords began to emerge. Throughout the movie, they are still popular to this day.

The imitation style is popular at Shanmen Shaolin Izumi, and the curriculum has many imitation routines. Students begin learning Uxin Banner at level 6 (purple sash).