Bak Sil Lum (Northern Shaolin)
北少林Collective name for the northern Chinese styles of the Shaolin tradition. It fights at longer range, with deep stances and a rich register of kicks.
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About Bak Sil Lum (Northern Shaolin)
Bak Sil Lum, Bei Shaolin in Mandarin pronunciation and Northern Shaolin in English, is a collective name for northern Chinese styles derived from the Shaolin tradition of Henan and Shandong provinces. What separates it from the southern styles is above all distance and range of movement. Where southern schools work close in and with a rooted stance, Northern Shaolin fights at longer range, uses long extended arms, deep stances and a wide register of kicks including jumping and turning kicks. Rapid travel across the floor, acrobatic elements, falls and low sweeps are characteristic. Training rests on two pillars. The first is basic work, jibengong, meaning stretching, stances, kicks in the air and conditioning; the second is a body of forms, of which the most widespread lineage practises ten, bearing names such as Lianhuan, Putie and Chuanda. Weapons belong to the programme as well: the staff, the spear, the straight jian sword and the dao sabre. The spread of the style in southern China and from there overseas is bound to Ku Yu Cheong, who taught at the Central Guoshu Institute in Nanjing and in 1929 was among the masters sent to Guangdong as one of the so-called Five Northern Tigers. Reference works often list Ku Yu Cheong as founder; it is more accurate to call him the principal transmitter, since he took the forms from his own teachers, arranged them into a teachable body and gave them international reach. The older history of the style rests on monastic tradition that cannot be documented from written sources.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.