Real Shaolin Kung Fu: Shaolin Negative-Positive Hand Cudgel VCD
Performed and demonstrated by Shi Xinglin
Explained by Shi Deci
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Published by People's Physical Education Publishing House
ISBN 7887210437

As a basic weapon, the Shaolin cudgel skill is one of the important Shaolin kungfu. Before the founding of Shaolin Monastery, the local hunters often took tree branches as the stick to play martial arts. Because cudgels and sticks can be found everywhere in the forest, so it is very easy for Shaolin monks to take them as their weapons for defending themselves. That's why the Shaolin fighting monks especially pay attention to the training of Shaolin cudgel skills. The routines of Shaolin cudgel skills handed down from ancient time to the present include Qimei (eyebrow) cudgel, Fenghuo (wind-and-fire) cudgel, Yuanhou (ape-and-monkey) cudgel, Yinshou (negative hand) cudgel, Yangshou (positive hand) cudgel, Meihua (plum blossom) cudgel, Yunyang (wind-and-sun) cudgel and etc.

Shaolin yin yang staff is one kind of Shaolin staff techniques, combining negative hand and positive hand. In Chinese culture the heaven and the earth, the sun and the moon, day and night, male and female, are symbolized as yin and yang. The yang means hardness, the yin means softness. This set of routines is performed hard and soft with alternating feints and attacks. It is the combination of hardness and softness that is regarded as the superior skill in Shaolin kungfu. Frequently used movements are thrust, strike down, point, smash and brandish staff with vertical circle figure.