The Shaolin and Wu Tang martial arts were only selectively taught to certain individuals. A person would have to be of Royal Chinese Blood, well respected and high ranking in the Chinese Military, or be someone with traits of extremely high character, moral values, and dedication in order to be trained. More information is available on the Prospective Students page. Although during certain periods in China's history the general public was taught some martial arts skills during times of war and oppression, these skills were basic and minimal depending on the severity of the situation and were usually broken down to the point where a person could learn fairly quickly to be decent on the battlefield (keep in mind that even these basic skills were far advanced compared to the typical warfare of the day). This being the case, the number of people actually learning the complete Chinese Martial Arts systems were relatively few. It is for this reason that the Chinese masters have placed such an emphasis on genealogy of their systems along with a considerable amount of documentation (Our genealogies are listed on the main page for each system of study). A true master should be able to trace his system back, teacher by teacher, to a certain Temple, General, or Emperor…depending on the system of study.