<Snipped quote by AirBender>
Haha, you know, I was about to say "Are you sure you're not a bit biased because Shaolin Kempo is the style you train in?" before that last paragraph. You seem reasonable, though, so I'll put faith in your ability to be objective. Since the style is tailored for the individual, however, I'm not sure how I would go about talking about it if it came up. I don't know what exactly she would know and/or be capable of, or even how I would speak of the style in very broad strokes. Her ideal and my own would be that the skill doesn't get used at all, but it might nonetheless.
I wouldn't want to impose on you and ask for a crash course, because as you said, it would take a while to type up even if you were just giving me the gist. I suppose I could try looking up some videos on Youtube to get a rough idea just in case, but I also suppose I could just not worry about it at all unless a fight becomes unavoidable. That may be for the best, in the end.
All that said, if it's a good style to take on multiple attackers with, and if it's the best that money can buy, that's very likely the style for her.
<Snipped quote by Rune_Alchemist>
The most important thing is being able to fight and get away however possible, and if multiple styles would put her at a profound disadvantage against someone who had trained in one well, I'll just go with one style.
I haven't thought of when she started, though. It would definitely be important to start early, but you probably don't see a 5-year-old training in Shaolin Kempo. Seven or eight is probably a fairly good age, though. That would give her about eight years of the best possible training that money could buy, which is probably sufficient to at least be decent. She's still training, of course, but it's good to know. Thanks for the input!
Actually, you do see a lot of five year olds practicing Shaolin Kempo. We start as young as four. At my dojo we have a little girl who just turned eight, and man is she a fighter. So if you want her to have started at the age of five, then that would be very realistic. Which would give her about ten years of training. Because she started so young, she probably wouldn't be a black belt yet, but she's probably be a brown belt, or getting very close to testing for her brown belt.
Unfortunately, due to company policy, you won't find much for Shaolin Kempo on Youtube. If it does come down to her having to use her self defense in the RP, I'm more than willing to help you design a fight scene. In fact, I love writing fight scenes, so it wouldn't be a bother in the slighting.
Or you could go with a vague thing like you mentioned above but I missed because I was writing this... But the offer still stands if you want some realism to any fight scenes there may be. I extend that to everyone actually.