When many people think of Shaolin Kung Fu they think of meditation and chi. While it is true that Shaolin Kung Fu does stress meditation and the use of inner energy, it is actually an external form of Chinese martial arts. This means that it is more involved in the external powers and forces. There are many styles of Shaolin Kung Fu which can include many types of attacks and defenses including joint locks, punching, kicking, throws, straight blocking, force direction, and many more. However, the two things that most types of schools of Shaolin Kung Fu all stress is fast handwork and quick footwork. Many Shaolin Kung Fu exercises promote these skills.

When practicing Shaolin Kung Fu, striking it is important to keep the feet moving as you punch. If your feet are planted like roots you will not be able to adjust to the next attack or set up another attack. Your moves must flow from one to another and you must be ready to change your motions in mid-movement in case an opponent launches an attack. You should practice staying light on your feet and moving your weight around. Each attack must leave the door open for another quick attack, or a sudden defense. Your Shaolin Kung Fu exercises should strive for agile footwork while striking, rather than training both aspects independently.

When practicing Shaolin Kung Fu punching you should also have targets that help improve your accuracy and speed. A strong punch is meaningless if it does not hit the target, or is so slow that it is easily blocked or countered. Your punches must also be fast so that you can quickly move into another attack, or react defensively. After a punch is thrown it should be retracted quickly so that arm can defend if needed. Many martial arts shops sell pads that can be mounted on a human body in many places such as the hands, ribs, and legs. Your training partner should wear these pads so that you can practice at full speed and have moving targets. While striking the pads at full speed your training partner should be moving around so that you have a moving target. Hand mounted pads are great because they can be moved very quickly to aid in the training of fast combos. You and your Shaolin Kung Fu training partner can develop a routine in which you strike at the left side of the face, and then the chest. Your partner can move the pad from one location to the next quickly, which forces you to strike two targets as fast as possible.

If your hands are fast and precise, and your footwork is light and agile, you will have quick attacks that cannot be blocked and will be able to react to any defense of offense. Too many people hit a punching bag target with their feet flat. Punching bags do not challenge your precision like a smaller moving target does.

Although today martial arts is something that is considered by many people to be sport, marital arts began with the war like nature of humans and the need to defend yourself.

In modern Western Civilization, we have become, for the most part, accustomed to war being a serious but far away event. Although personal violence comes into our life from time to time, it is mostly on the television news. It has not always been this way. People have been forced to defend themselves, their homes, and their families from deadly personal attack since the time we all lived in caves and dressed in animal furs. The history of martial arts begins there. It begins when the man had to be able to fight to defend himself or lose his life to a stronger and better fighter.

The story of martial arts begins with the development of a warrior tradition in human development. Methods of self defense were developed using weapons when they were available and bare hands and feet when they were not. Once these skills were learned, they were passed on from generation to generation. The clans that learned them well and perfected them the fastest were the ones that survived.

Many of these early forms of martial arts were transformed as weapons began to improve. Wooden clubs were replaced with swords, and slings were replaced with crossbows. The techniques of martial arts became the techniques of warfare. One of the earliest events in the development of martial arts as a spiritual practice was the writings of a man named Bodhidarma who lived around 550 A.D. He was credited with associating the unarmed martial arts of the time with the meditative practices of Zen Buddhism. He is also said to have influenced the Shaolin priests of China. The Shaolins were later introduced to popular culture through the television show, Kung Fu.

Over the years, many of the Asian martial arts disciplines were formalized through a system of teacher and learner. The teacher was the experienced Master who passed on the knowledge of the arts to his students. Some of the forms became highly stylized with tests being administered to pass to a higher rank, but others remained rooted in the teacher/student method. Experience was the important thing and training.

In recent times, martial arts have entered popular culture via the medium of movies and television. Many events such as “full contact karate” events and “mixed martial arts” (MMA) competitions have replaced boxing as popular television and arena events. Although some martial arts purists have decried the competitions as straying away from the meditative and self discipline aspects of the traditions, they continue to attract much interest and have helped spread knowledge of martial arts to a wider audience.