Shaolin Kung Fu Academy
Origins of the Shaolin Crane Style

There was once a young monk who was dedicated to Shaolin. He was brilliant in his studies, courteous in his manners and exceedingly good in his kung fu. In all things he excelled though except his kung fu. Even the newest of novices was able to best him in friendly sparring. It seems that our young monk did not have an aggressive bone in his body and not the mind to really hurt anyone. This was perplexing to his teachers who were trying to teach him the fullness of balance and life. Much was tried, nothing worked. The students teacher suggested that he meditate on the problem for a while and see if he came to a solution.

There is a nearby hill by Shaolin, only 30 minutes walk. The young monk would do his daily duties and then instead of training he would go up the mountain, into a peaceful clearing and meditate. it was quite restive and the monk enjoyed this. He this this every day fitting into the nature of the area well, so well that the animals came quite close to where he sat without showing fear. Even a flock of Cranes grazed there without taking notice of him. All in all, it was peaceful, but the young monk was not getting anywhere. As it was quite beautiful there and he did not really enjoy sparring and defence, he preferred to continue spending his time on this mountain.

One day, he heard a foreign sound, something was not quite right. None of the animals seemed to have noticed anything but the monks knew the area well now and had an uneasy feeling. He was right, he soon saw a Tiger staking the flock of Cranes. The young monk was in a conundrum; his teaching is to be one with nature, but his sympathy was with the Cranes. Before he could decide to warn the Cranes, shoo them away the Tiger attacked, the Cranes had not enough time to get away. At least one was doomed, he thought. Surprisingly, one of the Cranes was acting strangely, making a lot of noise and moving in a different direction to the other Cranes. The fluttering of this Crane and the load whooping caught the eye of a Tiger who swerved to pounce on this seemingly startled Crane. The Tiger leapt into the air coming down on top of the Crane . . .except the Crane was not underneath the Tiger. It had . . . side stepped and avoided loosing more than a few feathers. And what surprised our young monk even more was to see the Tigers nose bleeding. The Tiger turned, and now irritated sprang even sooner. This time the monk, ready for the unexpected, saw what the Crane did. Moving sideways, extending it's wing to keep the Tigers focus, the Crane withdrew the wing at the last possible moment leaping aside using the Tigers snout to propel itself away and behind the Tiger. This was incredible. And again, the strong talons of the Cranes other leg raked over the head of the Tiger almost damaging an eye.

The Tiger seemed perplexed with this turn of events and attacked quicker, stronger, harder and with greater effort, but with much the same result. After a while of this the Tiger tiered, bleeding and of heavy breath. The Crane was not totally unscathed and had lost a few feathers but seemed unharmed. It slowly backed away started running and took flight.

The Monk found this so absolutely startling that he did not notice his own danger. But as it was, the Tiger was so tired that he had no interest in the monk or anything for that matter and just lay there licking it's wounds. The Monk stood up slowly and carefully backed away raising little or no interest from the Tiger. He ran all the way back to the Walled Monastery and told everyone of the event.

A couple of days later the young monk was summoned to the Abbot who asked to hear his account of the events. And as so often from clever teachers, he asked what the student had learned from this encounter. What was the actual content of the conversation can only be speculated at but eventually they came to compare the young Monks spirit and method of approach to sparring and self defence to that of the Crane; where the Crane would not attack and would not seek to deliver the superior blow, but just concentrating on distracting, surviving. And, when ever possible, giving the attacker something to think about to help them see the futility of their attackers.

Using this strategy, the young monk still did not win against his fellow students, but he also did not loose as often. As a gentle person, it was not in his nature to really hurt people even if they were attacking him. It is said that he thus developed the 5 Crane Attitudes; the Evading Crane (Evade & Run), the Distracting Crane (to allow someone else to run away), the Teaching Crane (where the Crane remained to physically teach the opponent through painful counters whilst evading), the Punishing Crane (where the stylist would go for vital parts of the attacker) and the White Crane (usually debilitation or death through Poison Hand or Dim Mak; white being the death colours in China). But this happened over some years as the young novice rose to become a master and then Adept of the Shaolin Crane Style.

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