Shaolin policy on teaching martial arts to laity...confusing inconsistencies.

[Ken Cheng]

In Gordon Liu's famous 1970s wuxia movie 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (also known as MASTER KILLER in some English-speaking markets), which was set during the Qing Dynasty, it was made explicit that the Shaolin Temple did not initially accept laity (e.g. non-monks) for training in Shaolin martial arts. It was only at the end of the film that San Te (Gordon Liu's Shaolin monk protagonist character) established the 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which was created specifically to train laity in Shaolin martial arts.

This contradicts Jin Yong wuxia, which established that as early as the Northern Sung Dynasty, Shaolin was willing to teach its martial arts to laypersons such as Kiu Fung. Jin Yong, however, even seems to contradict himself in terms of Shaolin policy towards training non-Shaolin monks in martial arts. During the prologue of HSDS, young Cheung Gwun Bo is sentenced to be beaten and crippled for learning Shaolin martial arts despite not being an official Shaolin monk and therefore, being unauthorized to learn Shaolin martial arts. Apparently, this policy was put into place by Shaolin after the Fireworker Incident, which took place around seventy years before Cheung Gwun Bo's incident, but this goes against the fact that the Dragon Gate Courier Agency proprietor was a known practitioner of Shaolin martial arts, trained by a Shaolin monk, even though the proprietor himself was a layman.

The issue of whom Shaolin was willing to train in its martial arts, and when it enacted such policies, is very confusing.

[Mandred Skavenslayer]

We can't really use the Shaw Brother classic to compare with JY works as they are independent creations.

However the Z3F incident is not a contradiction as his punishment was not because he had learnt Shaolin martial arts but because he had learnt it without permission. There seems to have been no rules about laymen learning martial arts so long as they have permission from the right people.