Taoist Martial Arts at Five Immortals Temple
‘Kung-Fu’ is a relatively modern term used to describe a more wave of combat art in China which has its roots in a lineage dating back to almost 2500 years ago. The oldest known documents which depict such skills as swordsmanship and bare-hand combat date to approximately this time. Throughout the ages, schools developed in their hundreds all across Chinese terrain and what were later to become known as the ‘Martial Arts’ were practiced and perfected in many different forms. These arts finally accumulated under the umbrella term ‘Kung-Fu’ or ‘Gong-Fu’ which loosely refers to the particular effort involved in developing a skill which requires much time and devotion to perfect.
The Four Basic Applications
• To protect oneself and subdue the enemy
• To increase somatic vitality
• For performance and display (cultural)
• To cultivate virtue and purify the Mind.
The transmissions, theories and bare-hand combats are classified in two main groups as Internal or ‘Neija’ and External or ‘Wai Jia’. The internal practices are used to cultivate what is known as ‘One Breath’ and to develop softness, circularity, agility and emptiness. The external practices focus on developing fierceness and strength and hardness in the student. They cultivate skin, bone and tendon strength. Both internal and external practices are combined in modern teaching and hardness and softness are generally cultivated concurrently so that all aspects of energetic potential are properly understood.
On Heavenly Horse Peak, Wudang Mountain, in the humble Five Immortals Temple, Abbot Li Shifu resides and upholds a very ancient lineage of martial arts in accordance with the virtues and values of the old grandmasters. He is a master of Gong-Fu and his teaching practices are devoted to the upholding of traditional methods imparted by the ancient elders. He has received many transmissions from many lineages and from a very early age he understood the importance of upholding the ancient values that were cultivated by the earliest teachers and has devoted his life to the continuity of these wisdoms. The moral values of the Five Immortals continue to be granted by Way of his teachings so that the disciple of the temple may develop virtuous character in the practice of Gong-Fu
view original page with all the transmissions here