Bak Sil Lum (Northern Shaolin)
北少林Northern Chinese style in the lineage of Gu Ruzhang (1894–1952), an instructor at the Central Guoshu Institute, who spread it to Canton after 1928. It has no separate heritage listing.
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About Bak Sil Lum (Northern Shaolin)
Bak Sil Lum, in Mandarin pronunciation Bei Shaolin, in English northern Shaolin, is a collective term for northern Chinese styles derived from the Shaolin tradition. On China's national list of intangible cultural heritage, only the umbrella Shaolin gongfu is inscribed (item VI-7, 2006) for Dengfeng in Henan province, with the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song as the protected institution, and we found no separate item for northern Shaolin or for the Gu Ruzhang lineage. The Hong Kong inventory of intangible heritage lists under code 3.63 the item Bei Shaolin ditang bagua men, which Liu Jinquan founded in Hong Kong (coach there since 1955), but this is a different lineage combining northern Shaolin, ditangquan and baguazhang.
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The spread of the style in southern China is tied to Gu Ruzhang (1894–1952), a native of Funing county in Jiangsu province. According to Kung Fu Tea, from 1906 his father Gu Lizhi taught him the form Shi lu tantui, and around 1911 he went to Shandong to Yan Jiwen, with whom he stayed at least eleven years and learned ten sets of northern Shaolin, weapon forms, the iron palm and the small golden bell qigong. HK01 gives the teacher under a different name (Yan Yunqi). At the Central Guoshu Institute in Nanjing he was a first-class instructor and section head, and at the first national guoshu examination in autumn 1928 he finished among the best thirteen. He was one of the so-called five tigers, masters invited to Canton, where the Liangguang guoshuguan was founded in 1929. According to Kung Fu Tea, General Li Jishen invited the masters in October 1928, the school began admitting students in March 1929 and Chen Jitang shut it down after about two months, and in June 1929 Gu Ruzhang was elected chairman of the successor Canton Guoshu Institute, which ended in 1938. The membership of the five tigers differs between sources, and Gu Ruzhang is on every list. Gu Ruzhang is a spreader of the style, not its founder, and took the forms over from his teacher. Kung Fu Tea does not list the names of the ten sets, and the Hong Kong inventory gives for its own lineage the beginner forms Tantui in twelve rows, Lianbu quan, Gongli quan and the sabre Meihua dao. We have no description of technique, weapons or training for the Gu Ruzhang lineage from a federation-level source or a heritage list. The sources give neither a founder nor a year of origin.
History
Northern Shaolin derives from the Shaolin tradition of the temple in Dengfeng in Henan province, which according to the description of the national item was founded in the 19th year of the Taihe era of the Northern Wei dynasty (495). On China's national list of intangible cultural heritage, only the umbrella Shaolin gongfu is inscribed (item VI-7, first batch of 2006), and the search returns no separate item for northern Shaolin or for Gu Ruzhang. The monastic tradition was already questioned by the historian Tang Hao in his book Shaolin Wudang kao of July 1930, in which he attacked the attribution of Shaolin boxing and the text Yijin jing to Bodhidharma, and HK01 adds that some of Tang Hao's conclusions are also disputed.
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The documented history of the lineage begins with Gu Ruzhang (1894–1952), in Cantonese Ku Yu Cheung, a native of Funing county in Jiangsu. HK01 states that from the age of eight he studied Shaolin boxing under the Shandong master Yan Yunqi and later under Li Jinglin, Sun Lutang and Yu Zhensheng, while Kung Fu Tea writes of his departure to Shandong around 1911 to Yan Jiwen, with whom he stayed at least eleven years, so the teacher's name differs between sources. The Central Guoshu Institute in Nanjing was founded, according to HK01, in 1927 (Wikipedia gives March 1928), with Zhang Zhijiang as director and Li Jinglin as deputy. Gu Ruzhang was a first-class instructor and section head there, and at the first national guoshu examination in autumn 1928 he finished among the best thirteen in the top class. In Canton the Liangguang guoshuguan was founded in 1929 with Wan Laisheng as director, and Gu Ruzhang was among the invited masters, the so-called five tigers heading south. According to Kung Fu Tea, General Li Jishen invited the masters in October 1928, the school began admitting students in March 1929 and Chen Jitang closed it after about two months, and in June 1929 Gu Ruzhang was elected chairman of the smaller Canton Guoshu Institute, which ended in 1938 under the Japanese occupation. The membership of the five tigers differs, Kung Fu Tea names Wan Laisheng, Fu Zhensong, Li Xianwu, Wan Laimin and Gu Ruzhang, HK01 names Fu Zhensong, Gu Ruzhang, Wan Laisheng, Geng Dehai and as the fifth either Wang Shaozhou or Li Xianwu. According to Kung Fu Tea, Gu Ruzhang left the region in 1931, in 1932 was chief instructor of a military academy in Hebei and in 1934 chief instructor of guoshu of the Eighth Army, and the author found no precise details of his later steps. The sources give neither a founder nor a year of origin.
Training
According to Kung Fu Tea, Gu Ruzhang was taught the form Shi lu tantui from 1906 by his father Gu Lizhi, and Yan Jiwen taught him ten sets of northern Shaolin, weapon forms, the iron palm and the small golden bell qigong, the article does not name the ten sets. The description of the national item Shaolin gongfu says it is passed on mainly through oral rhymes and a master's direct teaching in the traditional system of monastic lineages, which concerns the temple, not the Gu Ruzhang lineage directly. The Hong Kong inventory lists for the Bei Shaolin ditang bagua men lineage, founded by Liu Jinquan, the beginner forms Tantui in twelve rows, Lianbu quan, Gongli quan and the sabre Meihua dao, at the intermediate level among others the spear Wuhu qiang and the sabre Bagua dao, and the lineage has, per the inventory, over twenty bare-hand and weapon forms and combines northern Shaolin hard boxing, ditangquan and baguazhang. It is a different lineage from Gu Ruzhang's. We have no federation-level source or heritage list for the basic training content of the Gu Ruzhang lineage.
Today
There is no separate listing of northern Shaolin on China's national list of intangible heritage, only the umbrella Shaolin gongfu is inscribed, with the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song as the protected institution. In Hong Kong the inventory of intangible heritage lists under code 3.63 the Bei Shaolin ditang bagua men lineage, which according to the informant Zheng Baolin (2010) he leads himself as the fourth transmission level, his father Zheng Rong having named him head of the school in 2003, and this is the school's own information listed in the inventory. Northern Shaolin is not a separate competition discipline of wushu. The 2019 IWUF rules for traditional wushu do not name Shaolin at all and set individual routines at 40 seconds to 2 minutes. We found no federation overseeing Bak Sil Lum.
Frequently asked questions
Who spread northern Shaolin in southern China?
Gu Ruzhang (1894–1952), an instructor at the Central Guoshu Institute, was one of five masters invited to Canton, where the Liangguang guoshuguan was founded in 1929.
Is northern Shaolin listed separately on China's national intangible cultural heritage list?
No. Only the umbrella Shaolin gongfu (item VI-7, 2006) is inscribed, for Dengfeng in Henan.
Is northern Shaolin in Hong Kong's inventory of intangible heritage?
Yes, under code 3.63 as Bei Shaolin ditang bagua men, but this is Liu Jinquan's lineage combining Shaolin, ditangquan and baguazhang, not Gu Ruzhang's lineage.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.