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we trained one year Shaolin Kung Fu in the second largest Kung Fu school of China in Shaolin and would like to give our experiences, impressions and many tips to you.
As a child we watched all Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies and after many years of martial arts training in German, we thought of starting training at the origin of all kinds of martial arts - Shaolin. After various chinese contacts (with a translator - no one speaks German and it is hardly to find a chinese who speaks English) we started our journey to Beijing and with an inland flight to Zhengzhou, the capital of the Henan province.
The head master picked us up at the airport, unfortunately he couldn't speak one word English. He only had a large handpainted sign of the translator: "Please follow this person, he will bring you to the school". After 2 1/2 h we are arrived at shaolin. Thousands of students train in numerous schools (Meanwhile all schools in shaolin were destroyed and moved to the nearby city Dengfeng).
At the next morning we bought training equipment like shoes and clothes with the coach and after breakfast we started our training. The first day was OK - however the next 4 weeks were only pain.
05:30 - 07:00: Running, condition training in the mountains, i.e. climbing up stairs, hoping up stairs with left or right leg, moving down stairs with pushups, 1 1/2 h training.
Afterwards we strengthened our body with breakfast consisting of rice, noodles or deep-fried dough.
09:00 - 11:30: Morning training: Warming up with running, sprints in order to improve your speed, extreme stretching, splits and more, basic techniques such as Kicks, punches, stands.
12:00: Lunch consisting of rice, noodles (what else?) and vegetables, the legs are tired due to extreme stretching, the muscles are stone-hard. Unfortunately the room is on 4th floor but due to muscles pain each step is a hard fight. The toilets are in the ground floor so we had to use the stairs frequently. NOw it is time to relax.
14:30 - 18:00: Afternoon training: Warming up exercises and sprints. The emphasis in the afternoon training are acrobatic exercises (e.g. summer sault) and learning new forms. At the beginning we learnt Wu Bu Quan and Xiao Hong Quan, some simple fist forms. After that the movements become more complex and you will learn various acrobatics. At advanced level weapons are taught such as stick and sword, in addition three-stick, 9-section whip, spear, Shaolin meteor hammer and more.
18:30: Dinner as previously mentioned consisting of rice and noodles.
The first 4 weeks are very very extreme, your body doesn't know this kind of heavy training for 8 - 10 hours a day.
Muscles are everywhere hardened and each step means pain. There is one day off a week, so your body will be recovered. Temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius and the unusual food stresses the body too. Like all foreigners we got extreme diarrhea after the first week (5 days long). Immodium and other medicin didn't heal, only Chinese medicine got an improvement. After 4 weeks pain decreases to a "normal measure". Every day you will have pain but it is OK. After 4 weeks you will learn new forms, acrobatics and more so we recommend to stay at least 4 weeks. We never repented to live one year in shaolin training every day. We got many chinese friends. If we will get the opportunity we would like to to do this adventure again, even if the living conditions are extremely simple and primitive.
We wrote down our experiences, training conditions, the training, tips, many pictures and videos on our homepage, so please take a look at http://www.shaolin-wushu.de.
Greeting
Shaolin Monk http://www.shaolin-wushu.de
Shaolin Kung Fu, information, training, traveller reports and tips, many free videos and more
Cheap Shaolin Kung training trips to china
Martial Arts Online shop mit products directly from shaolin/china
You should take a look at these real cool videos at http://www.shaolin wushu.de/downloads.htm
We expecially like these 3 videos:
1. Shaolin Qi gong exercise: Breaking wood between your legs NOT COPYING!!!
2. Shaolin Qi gong - Breaking steel with your head
3. Handstand on only 2 fingers
Like you said, as a child you dream about going to Shaolin after watching those movies where the monks train in the moutain, but you actually got to experience it first hand.
That is an interesting post! I am in China right now studing at a martial arts academy! I was here two years ago studing as well! The training is really intense but it does get better once the body gets used to it. This school does cater to westerners though so the food is really nutritious and we also get saturday off from training.
That is an interesting post! I am in China right now studing at a martial arts academy! I was here two years ago studing as well! The training is really intense but it does get better once the body gets used to it. This school does cater to westerners though so the food is really nutritious and we also get saturday off from training.
Hey, welcome aboard.....good luck with your Wu Shu
__________________ What do I know? Since I didn't post my styles or experience, I have no experience, no knowledge, no say.
That post before mine, was that for post counting? How about the one after?
Hey, my post count has the same palaverment tone as anyone elses'
This isn't wushu i'm studing. Most of the martial arts in China now are wushu but this is a traditional school. The mantis here is not wushu.....most of the shaolin in China is wushu as well but the shaolin master we have was trained in secret and it looks nothing like what most of you see back home. It does not look pretty and there are no acrobatics.
WoW!
What an adventure man! I wish I could someday do the same in the TaeKwonDo temples in South Korea (Around Seoul). I've been there on a school trip for two nights and it was GREAT. Luckily we didn't have to eat Kim-chi(Korean Food) and other traditional foods for EVERY MEAL. The TKD temples in Korea are just like the Shaolin temples in China; TKD practice, meditation, muscle training, general exercise, traditional food and housing.
And again, thanks for sharing your wonderful experience with us!
__________________
JoaNor
Japanese "CowBoys": "Yee Haw, Rope 'em Dawggies" - 47MartialMan
White, Yellow, Orange, Pink, Green, Purple, Blue, Brown, Red, Black - 1st Dan, Black - 2nd Dan
we trained one year Shaolin Kung Fu in the second largest Kung Fu school of China in Shaolin and would like to give our experiences, impressions and many tips to you.
As a child we watched all Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies and after many years of martial arts training in German, we thought of starting training at the origin of all kinds of martial arts - Shaolin. After various chinese contacts (with a translator - no one speaks German and it is hardly to find a chinese who speaks English) we started our journey to Beijing and with an inland flight to Zhengzhou, the capital of the Henan province.
The head master picked us up at the airport, unfortunately he couldn't speak one word English. He only had a large handpainted sign of the translator: "Please follow this person, he will bring you to the school". After 2 1/2 h we are arrived at shaolin. Thousands of students train in numerous schools (Meanwhile all schools in shaolin were destroyed and moved to the nearby city Dengfeng).
At the next morning we bought training equipment like shoes and clothes with the coach and after breakfast we started our training. The first day was OK - however the next 4 weeks were only pain.
05:30 - 07:00: Running, condition training in the mountains, i.e. climbing up stairs, hoping up stairs with left or right leg, moving down stairs with pushups, 1 1/2 h training.
Afterwards we strengthened our body with breakfast consisting of rice, noodles or deep-fried dough.
09:00 - 11:30: Morning training: Warming up with running, sprints in order to improve your speed, extreme stretching, splits and more, basic techniques such as Kicks, punches, stands.
12:00: Lunch consisting of rice, noodles (what else?) and vegetables, the legs are tired due to extreme stretching, the muscles are stone-hard. Unfortunately the room is on 4th floor but due to muscles pain each step is a hard fight. The toilets are in the ground floor so we had to use the stairs frequently. NOw it is time to relax.
14:30 - 18:00: Afternoon training: Warming up exercises and sprints. The emphasis in the afternoon training are acrobatic exercises (e.g. summer sault) and learning new forms. At the beginning we learnt Wu Bu Quan and Xiao Hong Quan, some simple fist forms. After that the movements become more complex and you will learn various acrobatics. At advanced level weapons are taught such as stick and sword, in addition three-stick, 9-section whip, spear, Shaolin meteor hammer and more.
18:30: Dinner as previously mentioned consisting of rice and noodles.
The first 4 weeks are very very extreme, your body doesn't know this kind of heavy training for 8 - 10 hours a day.
Muscles are everywhere hardened and each step means pain. There is one day off a week, so your body will be recovered. Temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius and the unusual food stresses the body too. Like all foreigners we got extreme diarrhea after the first week (5 days long). Immodium and other medicin didn't heal, only Chinese medicine got an improvement. After 4 weeks pain decreases to a "normal measure". Every day you will have pain but it is OK. After 4 weeks you will learn new forms, acrobatics and more so we recommend to stay at least 4 weeks. We never repented to live one year in shaolin training every day. We got many chinese friends. If we will get the opportunity we would like to to do this adventure again, even if the living conditions are extremely simple and primitive.
We wrote down our experiences, training conditions, the training, tips, many pictures and videos on our homepage, so please take a look at http://www.shaolin-wushu.de.
Greeting
Shaolin Monk http://www.shaolin-wushu.de
Shaolin Kung Fu, information, training, traveller reports and tips, many free videos and more
Cheap Shaolin Kung training trips to china
Martial Arts Online shop mit products directly from shaolin/china
You should take a look at these real cool videos at http://www.shaolin wushu.de/downloads.htm
We expecially like these 3 videos:
1. Shaolin Qi gong exercise: Breaking wood between your legs NOT COPYING!!!
2. Shaolin Qi gong - Breaking steel with your head
3. Handstand on only 2 fingers
These are FAKE JUNK ........I loathe these demonstrations. They are like magic shows....
__________________ What do I know? Since I didn't post my styles or experience, I have no experience, no knowledge, no say.
That post before mine, was that for post counting? How about the one after?
Hey, my post count has the same palaverment tone as anyone elses'
This isn't wushu i'm studing. Most of the martial arts in China now are wushu but this is a traditional school. The mantis here is not wushu.....most of the shaolin in China is wushu as well but the shaolin master we have was trained in secret and it looks nothing like what most of you see back home. It does not look pretty and there are no acrobatics.
.... IT IS Wu Shu...Shaolin Masters do not, or did not train in Mantis..........Ignorance is Bliss
__________________ What do I know? Since I didn't post my styles or experience, I have no experience, no knowledge, no say.
That post before mine, was that for post counting? How about the one after?
Hey, my post count has the same palaverment tone as anyone elses'
.... IT IS Wu Shu...Shaolin Masters do not, or did not train in Mantis..........Ignorance is Bliss
MartialMan, we have all been through this before. It is all subjective because it was done 4000 years ago. You do not know all of the things you say to be true. Maybe you do know them to be true, but they very well may not be true. If someone has been there and done it and you haven't than take their word for it. Don't tell them that everything they did was fake because you weren't there.
Besides, whether Shaolin ever existed (which I know it did and does) is really irrelevent. Because we act like we must go back to the "original" and for many that is Shaolin. The Shaolin were just people. People that trained very hard. This guy went and he trained just as hard as the humans that did 4000 years ago, whether or not it's name is Shaolin doesn't take meaning away from it.
The idea of Shaolin would not be around if it did not exist. There are temples to prove that. Yes, many people commercialize, but it is to make a living. Whether or not they make you pay or live with them and train for free isn't relevent as long as the training is real.
You seem to think that if their are thousands of students their and they are paying money, that is fake Shaolin hype because that wasn't how it was done 4000 years ago.
Times change. Back then, maybe their wasn't the means to make a profit making School. Yet the martial art was practiced. It has been passed down, this very real and effective martial art, to people who were poor and decided to make some money off of it.
Because we know that the ancient monks didn't do such things, we think that Shaolin is exticnt and that people that claim to do Shaolin training are mislead. That is most definately not true. The history of martial arts is always changing. It will continue to change as time progresses. Shaolin isn't fake and there is no reason for you or anyone here to bash other systems.
Very well put Militis! You said it perfectly. I'm not here to say whether one art is better than the other 47 martialman I'm just trying to explain that I don't study wushu, and if you think that ALL kung fu in China is wushu then you are very wrong. Praying Mantis has never had a wushu system developed out of if, so if you study Mantis Boxing you are studing just that...Mantis Boxing....not wushu. Also, during the cultural revolution in China many of the Traditional martial arts masters fled China because people of thier skill level were punished. Our Qigung master at our school was beaten during the cultural revolution because he was so superior in his carreer field aerospace. It doesn't mean however, that ALL the the traditional masters have left China....its just much more difficult to find a master that knows traditional kung fu because wushu has taken over. Like I posted before...the shaolin master is traditional. He was trained in private since he was a child just to learn the traditional fighting art. He also went on to win the national sanda kickboxing championship and was the kung fu master for the Chinese special armed forces. Now do you think the chinese are teaching thier special forces wushu??? He doesn't break things over his head and balls in front of crowds. The guys that do that stuff are still warriors but they've found a way to make money at it and that is what the crowd wants to see. I've studied under a shaolin master a couple years ago in china. He traveled much of the western world doing shaolin shows but when you talk to him his heart is in the raw fighting arts of shaolin. Its ALL available in China!
umm the the vast majority of monks in the shaolin temples are frauds, even a higher majority of the ones that do traveling shows.
__________________
Leisure may not be an option for this indefatigable human instrument of martial arts. It is the Tao, sort to speak passably, that he his set on such credenda, to which he may not abdicate. It is the WAY, the Do, of what certitude he has.
umm the the vast majority of monks in the shaolin temples are frauds, even a higher majority of the ones that do traveling shows.
That's the common misconception. If you have read BrooklynMonk's post (a non active forumer as of now) he wrote a very long and descriptive story of his stay at the Shaolin Temple. He stated that
the training and the art was very authentic and real. However, he said that the monks tried to jip him out of his money. He also stated that the Shaolin Temple has been a place of thieves and criminals in the past: that is why it was burned down so many times. The monks in the present day Shaolin Temple aren't frauds, they are just as real as they were 4000 years ago. They are human and they fall to human desires-such as money-just like the rest of us do. But they are indeed authentic Shaolin practitioners and are in no way frauds. And just because someone shows of their skills to a crowd doesn't make him fake. Where is the logic in some people?
Shaolin Kung Fu Training in Shaolin/China
Similar experience! 
IT IS Wu Shu...Shaolin Masters do not, or did not train in Mantis..........Ignorance is Bliss
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