Jozen, please... seeing is not the same as knowing. They're the equivalent of card tricks. I learned those things in the first few years of my studies. Steel can be manufactured with different elements, influencing the yield strength and impact resistance. This can be be further influenced with heat/cold, creating a strong, but brittle metal construct (the more commonly created prop is the round shield).
The spear trick relies on the bending of the flexible shaft, to redistribute the energy upwards and away, instead of against the throat.
the brick trick relies on knowing how much spacing to place between each brick (the bricks, btw, are formed vertically, so they settle in layers vertically, thus creating easily-split bricks). The greater the spacing, the more you allow each brick to break, and the energy transferred down to the next brick, so the power required to break one brick is sufficient to break many (accounting for energy loss). The shorter the spacing, the less likely the bricks will break. If you wish to break a single brick within a line of bricks, you give that particular brick more spacing than the rest.
Etc, and so on. Take a few physics courses and you won't be so easily conned.
Oh, and btw, there are no more Shaolin priests. What presently exists are martial art practititioners (wushu dancers sanctioned and previously sponsored by the People Republic of China) exploiting ignorant tourists. Or maybe you're not aware of the religious genocide imposed by the standing, and previous, Chinese governments.
