The Staff Used by Shaolin Monks
Long Tapered Military Style Staff
Very little documentation has been done with regards to Shaolin people and what little was known had been also misleading. Generally, staves were used for protection in the early days. Monasteries had granaries and provisions such that they became a good target for bandits, rebels, and invaders. Since knives and edged weapons were not allowed inside monasteries, the monks learned to defend themselves and their monastery with the use of staves.
The long tapered military staff was thought to have been taught by the shaolin monks to outsiders and was used in the protection of farms. Cheng Zongyou and his relatives were one of those students. There had been some doubts raised on the book written Cheng Zongyou, when he referred to the use of tapered long staff as the original Shaolin Method, and one main reason was that he wasn’t a monk.
More exclusively attributedto Shaolin monks were the use of the Qi Mei Gun, a kind of staff that reaches upto the eyebrow. This kind of staff had a different set from that of the long military style staff. Specifically, it was used in Songshan Shaolin and southern Shaolin style and wasn’t taught to outsiders. Its other name, jin men gun, translates to “enter the mountain” or “inside staff”. However, even in both styles, the appearance of the staff, the use and techniques for power generation were different.
Qi Mei Gun
The Qi Mei Gun of the southern Shaolin requires it to be gripped by both hands, palms down because it was a double headed staff. The Qi Mei Gun of the Songshan Shaolin has a single “head” and single “tail” and thus requires a grip with one hand palm up, and the other hand, palm down. The latter hasn’t been much in use now and had become seemingly been forgotten.
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