The heaviest emphasis in the Northern Lights training curriculum comes from Northern Shaolin. This is the traditional martial art developed in the Shaolin Monastery. The monks at the monastery practiced open hand and staff fighting techniques, and were devotees of Buddhism. Later, in the 6th century, Bodhidharma visited the monastery and, seeing that the monks needed something to help them develop their concentration and strength for meditation, instructed them in techniques of physical condition and focus, including the Eighteen Lohan Hands. The martial arts established by the monks and enhanced by Bodhidharma provided a powerful foundation on which the rest of the Shaolin system was built.

Eagle Claw was founded in the Sung Dynasty, in the 12th century; it was developed for war by General Yue Fei(Gnok Fei). Yue Fei devised the “108 Fighting Techniques.” This system combined blocking and punching with intricate locks, holds, bone/joint/sinew manipulation and pressure point strikes. The general then trained his soldiers in this system, and they earned a fierce reputation for crushing all enemies in battle. In the 16th century, during the Ming Dynasty, a Shaolin monk named Li Chuen studied the 108 locking techniques of Yue Fei, and combined them with the leg and tumbling techniques of the Faan Tzi system. Li Chuen refined and compiled them to form one complete system, now known as Northern Shaolin Eagle Claw.