Lunar Silver Star

One of the oldest martial arts on the planet is Shaolin. It was brought from India by a fellow named Bodhidharma, and has been an inspiration to martial artists the world over. Interestingly, Shaolin evolved into an internal art atop Wudan Mountain.

I know there will be those who disagree with what I say here, but I hold to it, as I have watched students go through the evolution of hard to soft, and the evolution of art from Shaolin to Wudan mirrors what I have seen students go through. Indeed, as students peel layers off the art, so they peel off layers of unawaress, and attain the truly miraculous.

The student new to Shaolin learns to explode energy from the tan tan, to spread that energy throughout his frame and make his body like a rock. Arms become iron windmills, stances attach him permanently to the planet. This, however, is all based on exploding energy within the the body.

As a student explores the varieties of martial art he may encounter the concept of absorbing energy. The act of guiding a punch, instead of blocking it, brings awareness of the concept of drawing energy in, instead of just putting it out. This progression of art often starts with a hard Shaolin art, goes through a softer art like Wing Chun Kung Fu, and, eventually, ends up with Wudan Tai Chi Chuan.

And, even if the student stays within one art, he will evolve into the soft. The unfortunate fact of aging, of the body no longer being able to expel the tremendous force of some of the hard arts, will draw the student into the softer arts. He will punch so that he doesn’t get whiplash, he will use his legs so he doesn’t suffer hip injury, and he will become softer in his approach to the art.

As these progressions of age and art occur, students learn to use their minds and their bodies with less effort, and and they are often surprised that the abilities they gained in the hard arts grow even greater. Instead of exploding energy through their bodies, they push the energy with less effort, and focus it. Thus, awareness builds, and the blinders come off.

Instead of exploding energy brutally through their bodies, the students seep the energy through their bodies. They learn to guide this energy with their awareness, and the smallest of their motions contain ideas of energy. They learn that the crude body energy they used when they were young and robust was…unaware.

Finally, they make the change from hard to soft, from inner to outer, from internal to external, and the Shaolin adept becomes the Wudan sage. Instead of using violent art, the Wudan master moves with an opponent, drawing in the energy of the attack and transforming as he wishes. Yet, though there is wisdom in the Gung Fu of the Wudan variety, there is no disdain for the hard, for the true sage knows the need for his early Shaolin training, he knows the benefit of understanding energy on hard levels if the student is to make the transition to the softer Wudan intelligence.

Al Case has practiced the martial arts for 4O years, he began his Wudan training in 1974. You can see how soft he is by picking up a free ebook at Monster Martial Arts.