White Crane Kung Fu is a classic Chinese martial art that fits in perfectly with natural human body movement. It blends beautifully with Wing Chun Kung Fu and can be practiced perfectly on a standard Wing Chun wooden dummy.
Even Michael Jackson could be seen doing crane-style moves, as well as plenty of Wing Chun style moves in his later years.
Where did the Shaolin nun live after the Shaolin temple was burnt down? The story goes, she immediately became leader of a nearby White Crane temple, after her experience with the Shaolin. I guess she then made her new system (Wing Chun) and her new school (White Crane) very similar.
The story goes, that the Shaolin temple was burnt down, and 5 grandmasters escaped. 4 priests and a nun, and the nun was the best boxer of them all. The nun, Ng Mui, then lived in a White Crane temple, where she immediately became the leader, with her skill so advanced. She brought a girl called Yim Wing Chun back to the temple to learn some martial art, and this is where Wing Chun Kung Fu gets its name from.
But being the leader of the White Crane temple at the time, Ng Mui inevitably also reshaped the style of White Crane Kung Fu. Indeed, Wing Chun and White Crane became 2 names for what is pretty much the same style. White Crane then led to Okinawan Karate, and to Japanese Karate as we know it today.
Somewhere along the line, Wing Chun picked up sticking hands, an excellent empty-handed combat training exercise, at least as good as if not better than Tai Chi's Pushing Hands exercise. This focus on handwork in Wing Chun schools may have led to the neglect of some complimentary crane-style legwork which is far more prevalent in White Crane schools today. But still, White Crane and Wing Chun are two very close branches of the same great system of Chinese Kung Fu. The basic hand techniques are identical, and even classic crane-style legwork can be practiced quite perfectly on a modern Wing Chun wooden dummy.
This movie wasn't all bullshido. In fact, the moves were quite realistic. Although the jumping crane kick may have been over-fancified, the whole wax-on / wax-off & sand-the-floor business is a typical accompaniment to a standard crane kick. The paint-the-fence move is even more synonymous with crane-style martial arts (hense the crane-beak when the hand is high). And all of these moves fit fluidly with Wing Chun Kung Fu. There's even a Wing Arm (bong sau) in Wing Chun, as well as Tai Chi, White Crane and Shaolin styles.
No surprise then, that traditional Okinawan karate, as featured on The Karate Kid, stems largely from traditional Chinese White Crane Kung Fu. The movie was not all bullshido!