how do i join the shaolin temple

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Shaolin Kung Fu
21

Stumblefist makes some great points - many of the terms in China have double meanings, like 1984 doublespeak. But the more I learn about China’s history, it seems to have always been so. In essence, to understand China, one must understand it’s context. And if you understand it’s context, well, write a **** book because we are all trying to figure out China, even the Chinese. At the martial nucleus of this lies Shaolin.

Brad - I’ve helped a lot of master out. It depends on what type of visa you want, what their standing is, it’s different for every one. Canada is easier to get into. And cheaper.

22

The Shaolin Temple is actually called the “Wushu institute” last time I checked. This is the Shaolin Temple in Hanon Isn’t it?

Anyway, our school does a cultural exchange program (one of the only schools in the world - possibly the only) with this temple. Where they teach us and show us some of the tricks they know, and we teach them some good GING MO KUNE (mainly southern praying mantis). From what i’ve heard from my instructor, they’re always wanting to sign up for our classes! they love it!

Also, I think people disiring the most hardcore training and teachers in kungfu should either look to populated american citys, or hongkong.

I couldnt think of anywhere else where more excellent chinese instructors would be.. :slight_smile:

23

In April 1986, Si-Jowe (Dr Malcolm Sue - founder of Ging Mo Kune) led the very first Australian team of students for a visit to the Shaolin Temple and once again proved to the monks and head monk of the Shaolin Temple that the style Ging Mo Kune was not only unique, simple and effective in the philospophy of self defence and also devastating in practical fighting situations, but also that it was deep in its philosophy, traditions and that the art maintained an extremely close link to its culture. Once again the head monk of the Shaolin Temple was very satisied to recognise the style of Ging Mo Kune as an official style of the Chinese martial arts and honoured the Malcolm Sue kung fu school with the amalgamation with the shaolin temple of china. It was a great honour for all disciples of Ging Mo Kune. A legend was born in the world of Martial Arts in Australia.

I wish I had some URL’s to show you, but our website is incomplete at the moment. I’ll be going to China next year, and I promise everyone on this board i’ll sneek in some pictures with my digital camera of me training with the shaolin monks!!! im very excited to say the least!

24

www.malcolmsue.com.au

yeah we have official recognition written down at our training centre, sorry about the incomplete website :mad:

we’ve also got a few of the shaolin made swords, VERY nice! they are! :slight_smile:

25

Recognition

You know, I hear of so many people who go to the temple now. The odd thing is that so few come back with the names of the monk or instructor that they worked with. It’s sort of embarrassing when you think about it. It’s objectifying the masters.

This is not meant to denigrate your posts, Ging Mo Fighter, since I’m sure you will be able to provide the appropriate names on your website when it is complete. You’ll have to give us a heads up. Nice site so far. You might as a way to get around all the flash animation as an option.

The names are really important when it comes to any certification. Some of the more unscrupulous privats schools would actually sell certs. Most of that has supposedly been cleaned up, but I’m sure that there is stuff going on under the table in Dengfeng. There are over 100 schools, many with student bodies nearing 1000. That’s a lot of schools and a lot of competition.

As for teaching in the temple, Yan Lu maybe the official delegate, which makes me wonder how the relationship of the temple is with the wushuguan now since they were the officials for so long. Before that it was Chen Tongshan and Liang Yiquan. All is impermenent, especially at Shaolin. However, any monk and eve a few folk masters can teach in the temple if they have the right connections and they can find the space. Like I’ve said before, I’ve taken many lessons in the temple. I was also initiated in the Temple. It was just a matter of my monk master asking the right people. He was formerly from the wushuguan, but now he runs a private school in Dengfeng.

As for the abbots, and this gets really confusing over the last few decades, Yongxin has been abbot since 1999. The abbot previous was Xingzhen, who only held the position from 1986 to 1987 when he died at age 73 (he had been a monk since 1932.) there have been many ‘honorary’ abbots such as Hai Deng (see http://store.yahoo.com/martialartsmart/pr-tzjl01.html ) in the early 80’s, and Suxi between Xingzhen and Yongxin. Suxi might have been transferred to the newly opened Southern Shaolin Temple, I’m still not clear if that has been official. Also a lot of the monk exhibition tours will have a senior monk in their troupe, who is usually refered to incorrectly as an “abbot” (they should just be called something like “senior monk,” but that doesn’t sound as good.) Wanheng had that happen to him on one tour. So the abbot thing is pretty tricky, or at least it was before. Now it’s very clear.

26

I understand about the names being important blah blah etc..

When I go to China next year i’ll get the names of most of the monks in the photo’s with me..

Until then, i’ll ask sifu who the head monk at the shaolin temple is that we communicate with now. :slight_smile:

27

i would rather stay home and train my azz off. if you lived at home and kept the same training schedule as shaolin monks your progress would be quite rewarding.

28

sure, sure, we all do what we can…

…but imagine living in a community where well over 10,000 people are training their azz of every day. Forget the monks, there are only around 200 of them. It’s the common students - there are tens of thousands.
That, friends, is Shaolin Temple.

29

temple

there are facilities for foreigners there to stay and train. It is expensive though.
yes there is much wushu influence but they do train very hard there and they are very good at what they do. If you want the experience and energy of the temple that is great but if you are looking to learn real shaolin i would suggest going elsewhere.
There is one of the last great monks who has a school in Zhengzhou(a few hours from the temple). I forgot his full name but his last name is Xu. He has the best jao medicine ever.
He brought a team over for Master Chan poi’s tournament in july of 2000.
If you want info on him i would suggest contacting Master Chan at the Wah lum temple in Orlando , florida

30

Stumblefist

i should say maybe older generation shaolin than real shaolin. seems they have geared more to wushu now and i don’t know if it is for political or monetary reasons although i think people would pay more to learn the old ways of the shaolin temple. Hopefully it is still taught there to a select group of monks?
Maybe they consider it one of their national treasures and don’t want to teach it to anyone else but it seems like most of the older monks have left the temple.
i can find out more info in 6 months as i will be going to china and my bagua teacher in china teaches some of the monks at the temple so i will ask him about it.

31

real shaolin

18 elders - You’re thinking of Zhu Tianxi, not a monk but a lyman disciple and folk master. He’s worked with Chan Pui and us. In fact, he did an exclusive demo for us at the end of this video . And he does make great Dit Da Jow.

stumblefist - The change at Shaolin saddens me - I enjoyed the days when you could train right down the street from the temple, hike the mountains, hang out at the tourist shops or just check out the other schools. Now as it all goes to Dengfeng, well, I don’t care for Dengfeng myself. The last time I went (2001) I was doing research for the magazine and the documentary, so I didn’t get the chance to train much. Quite a shame really. But I arranged for my master to meet me at Shaolin, which I’m sure was an incovenience for him. I fear that soon only a few of us will know what it was once like. Shaolin folk training will become Dengfeng city training and the temple will be up the mountain.

32

capitolism

I am always reminded, when this subject comes up, of some studying I did in college.

I went to Venice to study art. I took three classes, one of which was an Art History class. That was amazing to me, to see up close and personal the artwork previously available only in books. There really is a very big difference. Color for one thing- no book is going to capture the light of Venice and what it does to particles floating in medium.

In any case, a problem soon materialized for me. When I was growing up, I was a devout Catholic. To the point where at one time I thought I had a vocation. So…the art history classes were all pretty much held in the local churches. Venice is full of them- throw a rock in any direction and you were bound to hit a church which had some artistic treasure. Napolean couldn’t believe how many churches there were, and even razed many.

We were not the only ones looking at the paintings. There were invariably TONS of tourists too- so the priests and monks would celebrate their daily mass, and there I was, in a totally secular situation but in what should have been a very religious one. I found myself often slipping from class and celebrating mass. My teacher understood- after all, he knew what the purpose of the paintings were, how could he blame them for their inspiration?

In many of the more popular churches, it was pure insanity for me. The Tourists just couldn’t get it, that these were working churches, and they looked sort of like museums and not churches, with sections roped off, slippery when wet mop buckets, guard rails stuffed in closets not meant to be seen, and many of the priests and monks sat at little book tables selling things, selling candles, selling rosaries…looking slightly bored and befuddled by the throngs of people taking pictures, gawking, buying rosaries whose purpose and meanings they had no clue of. Outside of the churches also there were often stalls, selling books, rosaries, statuary, etc.

One time we went to a church which was being restored. It felt Holy, and there was nothing going on. We had to pay a special fee to gain access, which I didn’t mind because the money was going to the restoration. When we had looked at the painting, my classmates began putting donations in the till, and lighting candles. It was stupid to do that. The workers’ scaffolding was right over the candle offering, and I don’t think they saw the worker snuff out their candles as we left.

In any case, to bring this long rambling mess to an end, when I went to Shaolin the similarities were striking, with a dash of colonial Williamsburgh thrown in as well. Some of the ‘monks’ were clearly just workers, but others were clearly not. Or maybe, it is not so clear… I think quite a few could see which way the wind was blowing and got out while the getting was good…

I liked Stumble’s ‘double whammy’ analogy. It’s a complicated issue, one which I don’t think an oustider can really fathom. I don’t even think a lot of the principles can really fathom what is really going on there, or what really went down, and what is going down…it’s mostly conjecture.

Anyway, I can’t wait to go back.

33

Why?

Why would anyone want to live in the modern shaolin temple?
Dont you know that it exist to provide money and jobs for the communist government of china?
Are you that insecure with your life that you have to run away to some other part of the world and train madly in some rundown tourist trap?
Do you live in some fantasy world like in the old shaw brother movies where you train hard and become some sort of hero?
If you want to learn real martial arts there are plenty of places in the USA where you can learn legitimate stuff without the inconveniences and troubles that your desires entail. Think of visas, money for travel, language barriers, cultural problems, etc.
There is a greater chance that you will learn something useful if you study martial arts in the USA.

Peace,

Sin Loi

Yi Beng, Kan Xue

34

external vs. internal

There is something to be said for the pilgrimage. I think I can speak for both Richard and Stumblefist (and anyone else who has been to Shaolin) that despite the garish tourism, there is still something worthwhile there. If you can penetrate past all the craziness, you can stand on the land itself and fell it’s power. For me, Shaolin is an immensily spiritual place. Everyone tries to make money off of spirituality. It happens around the world. It happens in Cahtolic churches, it happens at Bodh Gaya where Buddha was enlightened, it happens at Shaolin. But it doesn’t matter what is on the outside. What matters is what is in your heart.

35

it’s easy to criticize…

from a lack of experience or understanding, or exposure to an understanding which is different from others. Like I am constantly amazed at the automatic wushu dismissal. I understand it too, and to a certain extent it’s true…but there’s a flipside that is not given equal time.

While it is obvious that the temple has changed over the years, within a historical context, this manifestation is nothing new.

It is easy to see that there are many aspects of the current temple that are akin, to say, St.Peter’s Basillica, as others have mentioned. But on another level, I think you can also see that many of the monks are really caught between a rock and hard place so to speak. It’s not their fault they were born in communist china, and to many, that doesn’t stop them at all. Why should it? Because we percieve it to be bad? Not everybody there is what they seem to be. I think it is very difficult to peel back the many layers that have been laquered onto Shaolin. Like Gene says, being there has the possibility of pushing you to a higher level of understanding. Standing in the depressions of the monk’s feet, well, that was something else. I made it special because of what I brought to it. Otherwise, it was just like standing on any other brick floor.

I will go back because I am a part of the tradition which negates the ‘rundown tourist trap’ and because I met people there whose ideals I want to make a part of my life, and whose ideals I am trying to live up to, whose ideals are not run down, but are living. Do these ideals exist elsewhere? I should hope so!

My own teacher is constantly telling us where the true temple lies, as you say it is not necessary to go abroad to achieve great martial abilities, or to become a wonderful person, a hero like in the movies. Heroic things are open for you to pursue and do right now. But we do require that spark. It is not for any of us to say where and how that spark is to be made available. Another thing my teacher is fond of saying is that training is more than just class. In some ways we are always in class.

Some of the most inspirational experiences of my life occured in China. Besides waking up every morning and seeing hundreds, if not thousands of students training in the rubble of their former schools, there was the experience of seeing the interaction of my teacher with his masters and hearing Shi Su Xi speak about some of the history we were now part of.

Perhaps the most intense time was had when we visited Shi De Yang’s new school, which he was scrambling to get going so he could have some place to receive Shi Yan Ming. Shi De Yang’s students worked very hard. They planted flowers, stood in the dust of the road for hours waiting for gong fu brothers they had never seen before, and when we got there and were ushered into a receiving room, there were bottles of water on each table to refresh us. Such a simple gesture, from those who don’t have much of anything at all, went a long long way into allowing us to understand why we would all want to go back. I remember quite clearly the look of utter shock and amazement of one young boy, when one of my gong fu brothers put a long mala around his neck…of course the look turned to a poignant sadness, because the boy had nothing to give back, but the hug that ensued seemed to eradicate any awkward cultural condition, and instead of a chinese and an american, there simply stood two gong fu brothers…

36

check out this sifu - look under shaolin program:

http://www.chungwahkungfu.com/index2.htm

37

OK

First you have to acquire a time machine… I’ll tell you more once that is done!