9/21/2018 The Origins and Lineage of Shaolin Wugulun Kung fu – SMA bloggers

SMA BLOGGERS

NOVEMBER 22, 2014NOVEMBER 15, 2015 DAVE KELLY CHINA, MARTIAL ARTS, MASTER &
SCHOOLS, TRAVEL & TRAINING

The Origins and Lineage of Shaolin Wugulun Kung

fu

Shaolin ChanWuYi and Wugulun Heritage

The origins of Shaolin ChanWuYi and Wugulun Kung Fu date back to the sixth century. When
Bodhidharma, who is credited with bringing Buddhism from India to China, se led in Shaolin there was
already a Buddhist temple there.

While si ing for nine years in a cave behind the temple, Bodhidharma developed Zen Buddhism which
he introduced to China and which later spread to Japan and the rest of the world. Needing some form of
exercise to maintain the health of his own and his disciples’ bodies, he developed a series of movements
or exercises designed to promote health and fitness – based often on the movements of birds and
animals they observed around them — and at the same time to deepen the practice of meditation. Herbs
from the mountainside were collected and used for healing.

Master Wu Gulun

Due to China’s turbulent history, the Shaolin Temple, with its highly skilled fighting monks, was
sometimes in favour with ruling dynasties, sometimes not. It was destroyed and rebuilt a number of
times. Around 1870 it was again in disfavour with the rulers of the Qing dynasty and the temple was in
imminent danger of being destroyed yet again. The Temple Master instructed one of his foremost
monks, Wu Gulun, to leave the temple and carry the traditions of the Shaolin culture with him to
preserve them. He had, however, first to fulfill a rule of the Temple: that anyone leaving the temple
should fight and vanquish all the monks to prove his strength and suitability to cope with the secular
world he was entering. As the top Kung fu student, Wu Gulun easily achieved this feat and disappeared
into the mountains to live in an isolated village, Bai Yu Gou, where he continued to practice and
preserve the secrets of the Shaolin heritage.

(h ps://studymartialarts.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/c8df10f3-cf64-4f99-9a69-367091de563e-
org.jpg)Master Wu Shanlin

As he needed to be able to pass on this knowledge he married and had a son, Wu Shanlin, to whom he
taught all the ancient secrets. Master Wu Shanlin became the second Grandmaster of the Wugulun
lineage. Continuing to live in the small village, Wu Shanlin married and had two sons, Wu You De and
Wu Tian You. To them and also his nephew, Qiao Hei Bao, and a young orphaned student, Zhang Qing
He, he passed on the traditions.

Wu Tian You had a son who sadly died when he was quite young. This son was Master Wu Nanfang’s
father. From an early age Wu Nanfang studied with his great grandfather, Wu Shanlin, then with Qiao
Hei Bao and Wu You De and later Zhang Qing He. He is thus the direct descendent and inheritor of the

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Shaolin ChanWuYi and Wugulun tradition.

The 1920’s in China was a period of huge unrest and

turmoil. In 1928 a general, Shi You Shan, was looking at the
Shaolin temple as a possible source of resistance and danger
so he sent one of his underlings there to try to gauge just
what kind of a threat the fighting monks posed. The
underling asked who the best fighter was as he wanted to
fight him and see how strong he was. He was told that
actually the best fighter, Wu Shanlin, was not in the Temple
but in an isolated village in the mountains. The underling
found Wu Shanlin and challenged him to fight with his
sword. So powerful was Wu Shanlin’s qi that he paralyzed
the man’s sword arm with just a look and a shout, causing
the sword to fall uselessly to the ground.

Within two days of Shi You Shan hearing about this incident, he decided the Temple was indeed a threat
and destroyed it almost totally.

As Master Wu Gulun’s greatest desire was that the Shaolin tradition should be returned to the Shaolin
Temple when the time was right, Wu Shanlin returned to the devastated Temple with his son, Wu Tian
You, with the intention of helping to rebuild it and restore the traditions and heritage which he had been
preserving. He found to his dismay, however, that the monks were demoralized by the defeat, and most
decided to either return to a secular life or join the army. The remaining few were men of poor character
and Wu Shanlin felt he could not pass on his knowledge to them as it might be used wrongly, maybe to
hurt people rather than to rebuild the Temple. He stayed for three years, teaching a few basic Wugulun
kung fu moves, but then returned to his village to wait for a more auspicious time. Many current kung
fu teachers claim that they know the original kung fu forms from their teachers who had practiced under
Wu Shanlin. In reality they know only a few very basic forms.

Master Zhang Qing He

Zhang Qing He, the third Grandmaster, was an orphan who was rescued and looked after by the monk,
Chun Quan, in a small temple on the Luoyang side of Song Mountain. Chun Quan sent him to study
with Master Wu Shanlin when he was about twenty years old. Zhang Qing He also qualified as a doctor
and was in fact be er known for his medical skills than for his kung fu.

In about 1988 Master Zhang Qinghe came to live at the Shaolin Temple to treat his beloved Buddhist
Master who was very ill. There he came into contact with a young monk, Dejian, who was studying and
teaching at the Temple. Dejian started training in the Wugulun Kung fu style with him. In 1990,Master
Zhang Qing He requested Wu Nanfang, who was teaching Wugulun Kung fu nearby to come and
introduce Dejian to Wu Nanfang. They are brothers, because they are fellow apprentices of one and the
same master.

(h ps://studymartialarts.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/img_51241.jpg)Master Wu Nanfang and Master

Dejian

This was an historic meeting as it is these two masters, Wu Nanfang and Dejian who, after the death of
Master Zhang Qing He in 2004, are currently concerned with the preserving and passing on of the
Shaolin Wugulun Kung Fu tradition — Master Dejian from the San Huang Zhai Monastery and Master

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Wu Nanfang from the Shaolin Wugulun Kung fu Academy.

Information courtesy of the Shaolin Wugulun Kung fu Academy.

_______________________________________________

“If you would like to study at the Shaolin Wugulun Kung Fu

Academy (h p://www.studymartialarts.org/school/shaolin-wugulun-
kung-fu-academy/75.html) or would like to find out more information
about the kind of training you can expect at the school click the link
above. It is my opinion that this school is one of the very few authentic
Shaolin Schools left in China and is definitely worth considering if you
wish to study authentic Shaolin martial arts. Lately, I’ve been
somewhat disillusioned with some of the training and also the
managerial practices I’ve witnessed at some of the other more popular
Shaolin International Kung Fu Schools in China. Maybe its time for a
change a return to the roots of Shaolin with more focus on self discipline and quiet meditation rather
than the flash and high flying kicks of the modern perversion we see so often. A perversion that turns
poor young ambitions Shaolin masters into business men who scramble over westerners for money with
li le thought to the detriment they are doing to the name of Shaolin and China as a destination for
martial arts.” – David Kelly
TAGGED ADVENTURE TRAVEL, CHINA, FEATURED, MARTIAL ARTS, SCHOOLS, SHAOLIN
KUNG FU, STUDYMARTIALARTS.ORG, TRAVEL

Published by Dave Kelly

Living and working in China on study and teaching programs. - Language Learning - Martial Arts
Internships - English Teaching View all posts by Dave Kelly

4 thoughts on “The Origins and Lineage of Shaolin

Wugulun Kung fu”

1. Alex says:
NOVEMBER 25, 2014 AT 2:15 PM
Although most of this article is quite good in telling the story of the traditional Shaolin Kung fu, only
the first two paragraphs are questionable. There is no historical eve dance the Da Mo or
Bodhidharma ever knew anything about Kung Fu or Qigong. Although he did introduce Zen to east
Asia his influence stops there. The idea of him developing a martial art or even any type of
movement exercise came toward the end of the Ming dynasty in the forward to a book published by
a Chinese doctor. Since it was customary not to take credit for work or ideas that one had, he
a ributed his exercise specifically the “Marrow Washing Tendon Changing Classic” to Bodhidharma.
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I refer you to several carefully researched studies on the subject; The Shaolin Monastery by Meir
Shahar University of Hawaii Press, Tracking Bodhidharma: A Journey to the Heart of Chinese
Culture Paperback by Andy Ferguson, Spring Autumn: The Spring and Autumn of Chinese Martial
Arts – 5000 Years by Kang Gewu and Chinese Martial Arts by Peter A, Lorge. I have a deep respect
for Master Wu Nanfang and Master Dejian, to me they are the only true traditional Shaolin Kung fu
masters that are teaching today and I have followed them for many years. Except for the
Bodhidharma legend everything else in the article is completely accurate. Thank you.

REPLY
Dave Kelly says:
NOVEMBER 26, 2014 AT 1:11 AM
Thank you Alex for the insightful comments I’m glad someone has commented on this article in
such an in-depth and enlightened way. I agree with you about the first two paragraphs. The
origins remain hard to pin down to facts. It could be that the story/mythology/history whatever,
people would like to call it is sca ered with fragments of truth. For now there is no definitive
answer, I’m aware of. I would say though that with the spread of Buddhism and Indian
mysticism to China it wouldn’t surprise me if there was also a fusion and developing of
neigong/weigong/Dao yin practices and martial arts with ancient yogic traditions and martial arts
brought from India. It seems to me that it would be quite logical that Indian Buddhist
missionaries would require various useful yogic skills and martial arts when traveling long
distances through various counties and foreign lands. The skill of regulating your internal body
temperature/staying warm when conditions are very cold are practices used by Yogi’s and also
buddhist monks. As is the strict diet and meditation regimes for practicing monks.

It’s a fascinating topic that is for sure.

REPLY
1. Alex says:
NOVEMBER 26, 2014 AT 1:47 AM
Thanks for your response. Yes Indian Buddhists could have brought some yogic practices with
them but much of the Qigong that was practiced and is practice to this day predated
Buddhism in in China. Much of that goes back to the early Taoists. Andy Ferguson in Tracking
Bodhidharma cited many ancient historical documents pertaining to his visits of various
monasteries but not once was there ever mentioned any type of yogic practice, moving
meditation or exercise of any kind. We have a clear record of Bodhidharma’s teaching on Zen
but absolutely nothing about any Qigong type of teaching. Also, if you read the books I cited
you will see that martial arts was being practiced at the Shaolin Temple long before
Bodhidharma arrived. If you are interested, all the books I mentioned are really interesting
and a great read. I especially recommend The Shaolin Monastery by Meir Shahar and Tracking
Bodhidharma by Andy Ferguson.

Dave Kelly says:

NOVEMBER 26, 2014 AT 1:57 AM
Yes, I am and definitely will. They sound like a great resource.

REPLY

BLOG AT WORDPRESS.COM.

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