"wouldn't girls be able to go back to those original teachings and learn backward, kind of reverse engineer original "shaolin" kung fu?" what do you mean?
I just came from watching it about 45 minites ago.Well the movies was ok,it's just that some of the things were too unrealistic.If you ask me the first was better,not that the second was bad,you should check it out anyways.
"if you are grabbed, you learn how to reverse it and take the opponent to the ground in some sort of a lock. if you are punched, the same." what about kicks or weapons?
I'm a 8th kyu,and I do know that Karate doesn't use weapons.It's just that you said that shorin ryu uses weapons,and that is a karate style.At my dojo Karate is separate from weapons.The weapons there are taught in the Kobudo class.
well it depends what kind of high kick.If you do a high round kick that's fine,but if you try to do a high spinning back kick,then I would say they are useless.
it has all ranges of combat and it takes all that is usefull and throws away all that is useless.So if you find your shotokan knife hand strikes usefull then keep them. "to have no style as a style" "to have no limitation as a limitation"
maybe he used that on you because youre less experienced than him/her,but for somebody close to their level it's not a great idea to use them.Although I have seen people in the ufc use spinning back kicks.