Combat between men has existed for thousands of years. Dating back more than 5000 years ago, war and conquest are still with us today. When we talk about martial arts, we have to go back in time and understand what lead up to the development of what we think of as the martial arts today.

Life long ago, as we can imagine, was very different than today. Man, for the most part, had to travel by foot from place to place. Disease, starvation and pestilence were common. As civilizations grew, power and control over the land became of prime importance. Wars between people and countries grew as more people populated the planet. To aid warriors in their conquests, weapons were developed. As weaponry improved, wars became bloodier. A ruler who's warriors had weapons far outweighed those who didn't. Throughout history fighting has been a part of every civilization.

The sands of time have erased almost all evidence of what warfare was truly like for those early civilizations. Common sense tells us that they must have used some kind of technique to defend themselves against their aggressors. However, these methods of fighting were rarely written down or depicted in paintings; and all oral translations have been lost over the thousands of years. We know something must have existed, but it wasn't an organized system like we think of today. However, it was probably these unknown techniques that lead to the formation of an organized system of unarmed fighting.

It wasn't until the late 5th or early 6th century A.D., that we begin to see a truly organized system of fighting emerge. An organized system is thought to have started with a man named Bodhidrama. Bodhidrama was an Indian monk who traveled to China from India. He was thought to be in his fifties or sixties when he made the difficult journey across the Himalayas into China. Finally settling in the Shaolin Temple in the Songshan Mountains of central China. Bodhidrama brought with him the religion of Zen Buddhism, which became an intregal part of Shaolin life. Bodhidrama's Zen required long periods of static meditation. Legend has it that Bodhidrama starred at a cave wall for 9 years in order to perfect his mind and prove to the monks of the temple that he was worthy of being a member of the temple.

After completing this unbelievable feat, he began to teach the other monks. After some unknown period of time, Bodhidrama found that the other monks were able to control their minds but their bodies were weak and untrained to do what their minds wanted. With this problem, Bodhidrama created a series of exercises to develop strength their bodies. These exercises were called the Eighteen Hands of Lohan. It is these exercises which directly lead to the development of Shaolin Kung-Fu.

These exercises were originally developed by Bodhidrama to promote spiritual development and health. From this the Shaolin monks were to instill in themselves matrial virtue, disipline, restraint, humility and respect for human life. It is also these exercises which we think lead to the develoment of the first kata or organized series of movements. It is thought that Bodhidrama based these first movements on what he learned from nature and his Zen teachings. This eventually gave rise to the five animal forms: Tiger, Bear,Monkey, Stork and Deer.

In the year 535 A.D., the Shaolin Temple was attacked and burned down. The remaining monks who learned from Bodhidrama spread throughout China and established other Shaolin Temples as well as travel to other countries beyond China. Several decades after Bodhidrama's death, the Eighteen Hands of Lohan were expanded by Ch'euh Yuan to 72 strokes or movements, which included both hands and feet. Soon after this expansion, Ch'euh Yuan met Li Shao, and together they expanded the 72 movements to 170 movements. It is this 170 movements which we know as Shaolin Kung-Fu. With this expansion, new animal forms were created; Leopard, Dragon, Snake, Eagle, Horse and Praying Mantis.

At it's peak there were hundreds of fighting monk soldiers. These fighting monks were brought into service by the leading emperor of that time. The fighting monks would offer their services to defeat and drive back the invading Mongolian Manchus. One legend has it that in one afternoon, 128 Shaolin monks defeated 10,000 Manchu warriors without one monk being killed. After their services were completed, the monks would go back to their temples rather than become part of the emperor permenant personal army. Because the monks would not join the emperor's army, the emperor decided that it was too dangerous to have so many fighting monks that weren't under his direct control. With that, the emperor hired a renegade Shaolin monk to lead an assault against the Shaolin Temple. The renegade monk knew the secret passages and booby traps and lead the emperor's army straight into the Shaolin Temple. Of the 128 fighting monks, 124 died in the attack. The five remaining monks went underground and were known as the 5 Ancestors. Even though the temple was destroyed, it was later rebuilt and used again by the remaining monks.

In 1928, the Shaolin Temple was once again attacked and destroyed by fire. With it, many if not all, historical documents, secret texts, and martial arts documents were lost forever. Throughout history the Shaolin Temples were attacked and destroyed, but the monks survived to spread their teachings throughout the nearby lands. Even today, some of the oldest fighting forms can be traced back to the early days of Shaolin Kung-Fu. One place that benefited from the spread of Kung-Fu was Okinawa, a small chain of islands between China and Japan. Okinawa or Ryukyu Islands as they were called then, were the center piece for the development of karate as we know it today.

[Continue with the Okinawa Martial Art Development and History]