Hi,
I really want to join the shaolin temple but I don’t know how to do it, so if anyone can help me please answer these questions.
How would a foreigner get in the shaolin temple?
How long would I spend in the temple?
What language do they speak (Mandarin or Cantonese)?
Thanks
They speak Mandarin (I’m pretty sure, anyway).
I’d also assume that you’d have to be a very,very skilled Sifu or near-Sifu to even have a chance at studying there. Plenty of those on these boards, hopefully one will give a better answer.
Good luck and keep training hard on your way to Shaolin!
Shaolin membership
Well, it’s not like a club, so there’s nothing to join. And generally, outsiders don’t train in the temple, they train at the many private schools outside.
There is info online about some of the schools around the temple. Do a web search. Good luck.
Kungfu Qigong and Shaolin Temple
We’ve published more articles on Shaolin Temple and it’s surrounding schools than any other Western magazine. Check out some of our back issues. http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/mag.html
I feel so sorry for you guys.
Let me start off by saying that the shaolin temple is fake. I’m not dogging it out, I am saying what you see and hear are only but a pretty picture of what the Chinese Gov. made up. Sorry guys/gals. I used to be just like you and think how I could join the temple. I have been studying martial arts for 13 yrs and talked to many masters from China and they tell me that the temple is a tourist trap. The monks are not even real. I even met some of them and watched how they train. They train in modern wushu. I train in wushu and I can tell you that’s what they are doing. Not some mystical art from 2500 years ago. Chinese wushu back in the day didn’t have 720 twists into splits and have half ass jokers doing modern wushu really badly. I admit some actually have some skill, but most from what I have seen and heard, its all propaganda. 
China is a very poor country. The people need money so they restore the temple after being torn down once during japanese occupation of ww2, and once in the Cultural Rev. Back in 1979 or 1980 there were reported that there were only 2 monks living there and when that awsome movie" Shaolin temple" came out, Starring my fav, Jet li, all these kids from all over China wanted to go and become monks. And then came the tourists. It really sucks that it came to this, but I have excepted the facts and moved on. I train very hard in wushu and traditional wushu. I am going to China in a year to live with some friends for a year or maybe even longer. I just want to say that I love shaolin temple as much as anyone but I know what is the truth and whats not. Sorry.
i’ll go with wusu2002 on shaolin temple…it’s booby trap or honey pot u can say… if u r really intrested try
china:
Chen Family for Chen tai-Chi
bejieng
Ma shanxu for Ba-gua
san deigo california
shrfu Mike patterson and Sifu park bok nam, bruce kumar frantiz
-TkdWarrior-
spar one of them then say that **** yo. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be a monk. Doing chores all day and going to sleep at like 8:30 is a great way to live till a ripe old age, bored out of your ****
About time
We haven’t had this discussion for a while and I was beginning to wonder.
Shaolin Temple is a tourist trap but so is Bodh Gaya and many other sacred sites. Does that invalidate it?
Most schools in modern China teach wushu - few are exclusively traditional. Does that invalidate all of them?
The truth is more complicated that saying ‘Shaolin is fake.’ Do some research beyond what you have heard.
Chen Family for Chen tai-Chi
Have you seen the Chen family demonstration video on sale on this site? If you watch it you can see Chen Xiaowang’s little kid do an airial into chen style elbow, lol.
spar one of them then say that **** yo. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be a monk. Doing chores all day and going to sleep at like 8:30 is a great way to live till a ripe old age, bored out of your ****
Seems some of the monks agree with you 
Training in the temple
I remember that Temple training was an option in 1999, but I thought they shut it down. Interesting.
Foreigners are training all over the valley. Legally it was only the big three schools the could officially accept foreigners - the Wushuguan, Taguo and Tongshan’s. Tongshan’s school in the valley (actually the oldest private school) was being shut down when I was there last in 2001 - he was moving down to Dengfeng. Now despite the legality, people train everywhere and you really have to mess up for anyone to invoke that rulse and shut you down. I’m not sure what the standing of all that is now. Not sure anyone is.
In 2001, Taguo had already purchased a large plot at the edge of Dengfeng, closest to Shaolin. Allegedly they will be moving in phase three, which is scheduled for 2003. Taguo village was already very depleted (but far from empty) at phase two.
Stumblefist, I’m sure I asked you this before, but who do you train with when you visit Shaolin?
Gene-
You make a very valid point about “validity”.
Consider this posters and lurkers.
For you catholics, St.Peters bascillica is a tourist trap as is the entire vatican city. Does this mean that what goes on inside in the modern day is fraudulent?
For you american patriots, the white house is a major tourist trap.
Is it’s activities fraudulent? I understand that in both places you can buy trinkets, get tours and even get to see all the “bigwigs” if you’re lucky.
The same goes for hundreds if not thousands of places. Many cherished and held close to the heart by people who subscribe to them.
Frankly, I’m a bit tired of the old rant “wu shu isn’t real”. All I can say is “whatever”. What is your traditional Kung Fu doing for you that makes it so real? Have many of you ever even been in a situation where you’ve had to use real fighting Kung Fu?
Kung Fu is an achievement in anything, any field, any study.
Wu shu in modern times does not present itself as anything but performance art and it pretty good, even an excellent performance art. The athletes who do it are far more talented than 90% of the so called “traditionalists” I’ve met and they work harder to make their art work.
None of this couple of hours a week and then off for a cheesburger stuff that most MA’s are out there doing in this part of the world.
Don’t even get me going on all the fat guys I meet from various schools who claim to have seriously been training for “years”.
Traditional martial arts should be so lucky as to have their acts together as well as the wu shu federation.
Gimme a break, and let the leaders lead. Shaolin is a beacon for all who aspire to achieve Kung Fu and for me, that’s all it needs to be.
Ranting off.
peace
hmmmm
if these monks aren’t really monks but pretend to be genuine monks…i’d have a problem with that (say their buddhist beliefs, and not really comlying with them)
if these monks don’t train as hard as they try to market themselves as…i’d have a problem with that
if these shaolin temples are focused on being money spinners and enjoying the wealth generated from their ‘business’…it just seems a bit ..welll dodgy.
All these statements are subject to whether they are true. some of these things may not apply to all shaolin temple schools…
sorry for being so vague…but for those of you who want to hear the message i’m trying to say…dont believe everything marketed about Shaolin Temples. i’m well aware of a shaolin temple that isn’t what it trys to market itself…which leads me to consider all others with a degree of caution.
friday
You pose some good questions. The answers are not so simple.
First when you say ‘these monks’ you are lumping hundreds of people together, hundreds of different people. Shaolin Temple retains about 100-200 fully indoctrinated monks. These monks have been certified by Buddhist college, which is required by the government for both Buddhist monks and Taoist priests (but the Taoists go to a Taoist college.) Beyond that there are 100’s of warrior monks, martial arts masters who take limited vows and don robes. Beyond that, there are countless men who have left the cloth, former monks. And there are certainly several fakes, few at Shaolin since it’s China and paper tigers are burned the old fashioned way. Most of the fakes are actually outside of Shaolin.
Second, the people at Shaolin train hard, monks or not. They train very hard. I don’t think anyone questions that. Do they market more than they train? I wouldn’t say so. Some of the private schools market quite a bit, remember there’s over a hundred of them in Dengfeng so it’s quite competative, but none of them market as much as they do here in the states, not by a long shot.
Third, Shaolin Temple is under reconstruction, so money is certainly an issue, but reconstruction is the focus. I’ve been in the monks private quarters in the temple, and they don’t live that well, except maybe some of the senior monks like the Abbot or Shi Suyi. They deserve that. Moreso the temple is concerned with honor now - Abbot Yongxin is trying to get Shaolin and Songshan recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. That takes a lot of work and a lot of funding. But beyond Shaolin Temple, there are those 100+ private schools. They are private, so they are in it for the money. Some of these schools have 1000’s of students. Most of these schools have no monks, just folk masters. Also there is the tourist industry, run by the government. The are certianly in it for the money, and have a lot of political power because they are the government and the government is communist.
It’s easy to imagine the Shaolin Temple of Gordon Liu, Jet Li and Ddavid Carridine movies, but the reality is much different, much more complex. There are litereally tens of thousands of practitioners there, and each one has it’s own story. Don’t judge them all by a few bad apples.
Great Post Gene
Great post as usual Gene
Modern China is such as crazy place full of contradictions. However, I think the Abbot is on the right track in trying to bring budism into the forefront.
Shaolin will always be shaolin
Ok to back up gene a little on the temple and its modernism.Let me start by saying to the originator of the this thread it is the year 2002!
The Shaolin temple has been destroyed physically a number of times.It has a tremendous place in not just martial art history but Chinese history and cultural history itself.
The only way we have come to still actual walk on the grounds and visit this site is due to first the sacrifice and devotion of many monks.Second is due to the government using its appeal to earn money to then reconstruct it of course the government’s gonna make money..its a communist country. But I can assure you the monks that live there now dont live it up with the procedes of the tourism.They are always monks first martial artist second.People tend to forget kung fu itself was started as an excercise for out of shape monks.
Now for the Wushu…I personally like to watch wushu but would never want to learn it because of its lack of realism in some areas.However as for the temple the first shaolin kung fu (to simplify things) was a tendon excercise..not tiger claw..or praying mantis..just a simple excercise and it evolved from there.I’m almost positive when someone developed cannon fist form, the other traditionalists were not to happy..but it evolved none the less. Now there are many branches that grow from the temple.
So to say that the monks are fake for doing wushu is to say the first monk to try a lohan form was fake! Martial arts evolve plain and simple and Shaolin was one to change with the times and develop styles and system that corresponded to the times.
Now I have actually trained with the monks in wich you speak of...i assume its the same monks that put on demonstrations outside the temple. And if you ask them to demonstrate a traditional form they could perform it just as well as the wushu.I was actually taught a lohan form while i was there, it was traditional not wushu..(trust me the last thing i want to do is the splits)
I think we should all actually listen to Gene because of all of us on here he has been around and been involved with the temple alot more.
And to jump onto a forum and make such a bold statement without all the facts shows ignorance.Ignorance does not mean stupidity it just means you formed an opion before all the facts are known.
I'm glad you shared your opinion but maybe you should state it in a more appropriat(sp.) way.Rather than exploding onto a thread screaming shaolin is fake, when in reality The Shaolin Temple is just that a temple..Shaolin kung fu is not physical it exist with those who practice..and some times I'm ashamed at they some of the practioners on this forum behave...wushu or not we could all learn alot from those living in Shaolin
what thread was that in
stumble fish what thread was the dengfeng dangers and annoyances in id like to read it.
I visited the Temple last summer and I actually enjoyed the energy and athleticism of the Temple Monks and the advanced students of the Wushu Guan. I am a traditional player and I went there with my own opinions based on video surveys I had seen over the years. No doubt everyone’s gung fu there is shaded by contemporary wushu, think about it. The only way a martial artist in mainland China can get recognition and make a name for themselves is by competing in the various wushu festivals demonstrating you guessed it, contemporary routines. From my experience the only traditional divisions at competitions are for exhibition only and are not considered for national ranking of the competitors. The forms I saw that were quote Shaolin temple routines were performed with a lot of energy and raw essence that stirred something inside me. I worked out with some of the kids at Shaolin temple and they were all strong and full of energy. One of them even broke bricks over his pal’s head his own just for my amusement. As far as the comment about the lack of fighting ability, those kids train hard sun up to dark. I saw a few Lei tai bouts and yes they can scrap! Any one who assumes the level of a person’s fighting ability based on casual observation and underestimates their skill with out actually ‘tasting’ it is only asking for a nice ass whipping…..
Lokhopkuen
How much would it cost to bring someone(some random citizen) out of China permanately? Or can it be done? Legaly I mean. When I was there our tour guide said something like $10,000 to visit another country.