Shaolin

Shaolin is a quiet, solitary art. Beyond acquiring inner peace and harmony, it requires absolute inner stillness and the ability to contemplate void without flinching in a total absorbtion of what-is in the moment. Without that, you cannot find center. Without center, you cannot find self. And without self, you cannot become selfless, entering the necessary state where egoism cannot meddle with intent.

Shaolin is not the art of an aggressor. Yet neither is it meek. Soft and hard, hard and soft - one motion, one movement, one moment.

Simultaneously gentle and merciless, Shaolin does not battle with an enemy.
It simply, cleanly and absolutely ends confrontation by any means necessary utilizing the most conservative, most effective action. Seem from afar, its movement can seem to an observer to be explosive, its result magical...and it is, yet the foundations remain rooted in only principle. Effective application can only come from principle.

Shaolin is not flamboyant. It is practical. The art of the peaceful warrior and scholar, it is the art of the farmer, the peasant - that is its roots, and those roots are ancient beyond measure.

To maintain integrity of self, yet never violate another - that is its perfect form and expression.