as a smart guy once said, "every martial art is good for what it has been invented for"
I can only second that. ask yourself what you really want from learning a martial art or self defense form and then read about it online and inform yourself.
Shaolin Kung Fu has many many sides to it but the emphasis is clearly on the "art" part of it.
A lot of movements and katas need to be learned and studied for quite some time until you got it right.
If you want to learn how to defend yourself effectively on the streets, there are quicker, more effective and to the core ways than learning a whole catalogue of shaolin kung fu.
Now don't get me wrong, almost EVERY martial art is helpful in defending yourself against some bully or a drunk, or just basically against anybody who didn't train in a martial art. And if Shaolin is what you really wanna do and if that is what motivates you to bust your butt than by all means do so and have fun with it.
Otherwise you may wanna have look in other systems. for pure self defense there are quite a few effective systems available, each with mostly different outlooks and such.
Krav Maga, Systema, BJJ, Judo, wrestling but in the end MMA is also something that would make sense to learn since you right away get the full package.
Myself, I felt I kind "wasted" a lot of time learning oldschool japanese ryu ju jutsu until I had a brown belt but honestly after finding Krav Maga for myself I realized that after 3 month of training, my chances are now way higher defending myself agains attackers or weapons than learning ju jitsu for several years.
But let me finish by saying, there is never no ULTIMATE martial art which is better than anything else. Even if a Gracie tells you otherwise, it stupidity. Everything has something that they bring to the table. So venture ahead
