Shaolin Kung Fu is the martial art form in CHina dating back around 1660 and associated with the Shaolin budhist temples. Shaolin means \"external\" school, as opposed to \"Wudang\" which means \"internal\" school, and generally described the nature of the school of thought, whether it be the '\"soft internal\" arts such as Tai Ji(Tai Chi), and the hard external styles such as Kung Fu or Hung Gar. \"Kung fu\" means roughly any skill that is prefected individually; meaning that while Kung Fu could be the perfection of smithing, to leatherwork, to harvesting, in this case it means the perfecting of the Shaolin philosophy, primarily in a martial sense. The Term \"Wushu\" means \"Martial art\" and is thus a more specific concept than kung fu as \"specific skill\". In either case it is the same thing, except that modern Wushu is entirely for show and has lost many of its connections to applicable martial arts. As such, it is best to describe Shaolin Kung Fu as a kung fu, because this not only connects it with the historical form, but also with the philosophical natures of the Shaolin.
Shaolin Kung fu exemplifies the concept of \"Qi\" which can be translated into many words accurately and has no single meaning, but roughly means ‘energy’ or ‘spirit’ and ‘breath’ or ‘air’ as sort of a double meaning exemplifying the connection between breath and life or spiritual energy, also refered to as \"ki\" in other asian arts. It is generally understood as the universal energy that flows through and around us.
THus, SHaolin Kung Fu can be considered \"PErfected Skill in Qi, or \"Prefected skill in the art of Spirit and Energy\".
Shaolin Kung Fu is a highly effective martial art in terms of energy use and posture use, modeled historically after postures that exemplify peak physical advantage and are often described in terms of natural occurances, such as animals are elements. THe art includes not only contact attacks, manipulations, holds, and pressure points, but also meditation, understanding, and medicinal studies, and in traditional practice the Shaolin monks learned both the martial art form and the academic nature of medicinal herbology and energy work. The medicinal and philosophical teachings of shaolin exemplify the use and understanding of the universal energy, whereas the martial arts of the Shaolin exemplifies the effective use of energy in the form of force, power, speed, and control over not only your movements and self energy but your opponent's energy as well. THis is notably different then Aikido in that Aikido is a much newer adaptation of the Japanese Samurai arts and in its modern form is purely energy manipulation and thus considered less \"violent\", whereas Kung Fu is more direct use of energy(note: Aikido if catagorized in terms of chinese thought would be an \"internal\" school).
Further expansion on this to follow, hope that explains it well enough for now. I'll have to refresh my memory to dig out more then that.
