Question about Shi Deyangs school...?

[Shaolin87]

HI all, im new to the forums, and sorry if this has been posted up before, but has anyone ever trained at Shi Deyangs school? If so could you give me more information on training there, I already have his website and I'm just asking for some more details.
http://www.shaolindeyang.com/english/calling/detail.asp?id=118&title=INTERNATIONAL%20TRAINING%20PLAN

Thanks

peace~ :)

[LFJ]

amituofo! thank you for your interest. i'll try to answer any question you may have. :)

the school is run by a number of coaches, as master shi deyang is often very busy and frequently travels out of china. the coaches are mostly personal disciples of his and have been training with him for years. however, like master shi deyang, none of them really speak english. but thats a minor detail.

its advised to stay in a nearby hotel and eat outside. otherwise if you choose to live in the school the conditions are very poor. hard wood bed, ditch in the ground for toilet, and the food may not suit your bodys bacteria well, and doesnt come with water. you can buy a bottle. but if you're really hardcore, its up to you.

there are also different classes you can choose from. you can learn traditional shaolin wushu, modern wushu, qigong, sanda, and chan buddhism. however, in any case you'll be thrown in with the rest of the chinese students.

the school really cant accommodate western comforts like some other schools in dengfeng. but the training is top.

there are six training periods per day each an hour and 10 mins long, most with only 20 mins break in between. here is the schedule:

morning:
5:00am; wake up
5:20- 6:30; morning session (very intense conditioning)
6:50am; breakfast

8:00am; warm-up
8:20- 9:30; session 1 (stretching, forms and whatnot)
9:50- 11:00; session 2
11:20am; lunch
11:55am; noon break

afternoon:
3:00pm; warm up
3:20- 4:30; session 1
4:50- 6:00; session 2
6:20; supper

evening:
7:00pm; warm up
7:20- 8:30; evening session

sleep by 9:00pm.

[Shaolin87]

Oh this is great LFJ thanks alot. :D

By any chance would you know how far the distance is from the regular hotel to his school?

Amituofo

[LFJ]

there is a hotel called "wudu dajiudian" up the street from the school. a busline goes straight in front of it. 1 yuan will get you there in no time. walking takes about 10mins, or more depending on your speed.

the only thing is, pricing for the school is set. whether you stay in the hotel and eat outside, or train, sleep, and eat in the school. the price is set. but if you choose comfort and good food, the hotel is nice and there are restaurants and small convenience stores nearby. very cheap. there's one store right across from the school where we sometimes buy special snacks.

[Pk_StyLeZ]

amituofo! thank you for your interest. i'll try to answer any question you may have. :)

the school is run by a number of coaches, as master shi deyang is often very busy and frequently travels out of china. the coaches are mostly personal disciples of his and have been training with him for years. however, like master shi deyang, none of them really speak english. but thats a minor detail.

its advised to stay in a nearby hotel and eat outside. otherwise if you choose to live in the school the conditions are very poor. hard wood bed, ditch in the ground for toilet, and the food may not suit your bodys bacteria well, and doesnt come with water. you can buy a bottle. but if you're really hardcore, its up to you.

there are also different classes you can choose from. you can learn traditional shaolin wushu, modern wushu, qigong, sanda, and chan buddhism. however, in any case you'll be thrown in with the rest of the chinese students.

the school really cant accommodate western comforts like some other schools in dengfeng. but the training is top.

there are six training periods per day each an hour and 10 mins long, most with only 20 mins break in between. here is the schedule:

morning:
5:00am; wake up
5:20- 6:30; morning session (very intense conditioning)
6:50am; breakfast

8:00am; warm-up
8:20- 9:30; session 1 (stretching, forms and whatnot)
9:50- 11:00; session 2
11:20am; lunch
11:55am; noon break

afternoon:
3:00pm; warm up
3:20- 4:30; session 1
4:50- 6:00; session 2
6:20; supper

evening:
7:00pm; warm up
7:20- 8:30; evening session

sleep by 9:00pm.

man this makes me wanna go back to china and train
maybe when i graduate from college...i will take me a 2-3 month vacation n go to deng feng n practice for a month.......

[LFJ]

and what will you do for the other month or two? :)

[HtownShaolinBum]

man this makes me wanna go back to china and train
maybe when i graduate from college...i will take me a 2-3 month vacation n go to deng feng n practice for a month.......

That is what I am thinking about. I have never been to China, but I graduate college in about a year, and I was thinking of taking a vacation there, see a few sites, then head to Henan and train my balls off for a couple months. It would be a humbling experience to be surrounded by so many people with a common goal. I of course need to get in much better shape before I attempt something like that.

[LFJ]

the daily morning conditioning usually consists of running to the nearby park where we run to the top of the mountain up the side steps. then run down the other side. hop back up. crawl down on the hands. hop back up on one foot, and so on. its very intense.

the photos are attached. the one showing the steps is only about half of it. there's a bunch of steps then a level surface before more steps.

then there's another mountain that just has straight steps all the way to the top which takes the entire training session just to make it to the top and run back to the school. no crawling and all that. but its tough enough!

this is all before breakfast and before the other 5 training periods to follow on the same day.

[Shaolin87]

Wow these are great responses. Anyways I finish college in the next semester which is like 2 classes left (waste of time) lol. And I'm only 20 which is awesome so im still really young. Ive been to China before when I was like 15, but I was training at a Modern wushu school in Zhejiang. So im looking for a more serious school and this seems to be it, Plus Shi Deyang is great! lol



OO and I think I might try going all out roughing it in the school, and see how it goes and decide from there

[Shaolin87]

the daily morning conditioning usually consists of running to the nearby park where we run to the top of the mountain up the side steps. then run down the other side. hop back up. crawl down on the hands. hop back up on one foot, and so on. its very intense.

the photos are attached. the one showing the steps is only about half of it. there's a bunch of steps then a level surface before more steps.

then there's another mountain that just has straight steps all the way to the top which takes the entire training session just to make it to the top and run back to the school. no crawling and all that. but its tough enough!

this is all before breakfast and before the other 5 training periods to follow on the same day.

Oh wow, LFJ your pictures are great, it'd be cool to see some more. Will you post up some more, or do you have a website with them all posted up?

peace~

[Pk_StyLeZ]

haha opps i mena take a trip there for 2-3 months and probably train all that time..well prob take a week or two for sight seeing.....
i trained at china for a week before bak in 2003 i believe....it wasnt anythin as intense u listed...mainly form learning for a week..but still intense...but didnt get any conditioning out of it
i wanat to actually wake up early and run the mountain and etc

LFJ u train at shi de yang right now or someting?

[LFJ]

shaolin87-

those actually werent my pictures. i was google searching one day for some shaolin temple photos and came across these two. but i recognized the place and saved the pictures. this is one of the main places we run to for the morning training, the mountain at this park. you'll also see many other schools training out there at the same time, taking advantage of the many stairs. its just 1min run up the street from the school.

roughing it in the school is not a bad idea, but i'm letting you know its not for the faint of heart. master deyang had to move schools a number of time because the government "needed the land". and now the conditions are very poor. imagine, the toilet area is just a ditch dug into the ground which gets cleaned out once a week. when the air blows across the training yard... you run faster to the other end. lol. some can handle it. others prefer western comforts of the hotel. the food is mainly bread buns, various vegetables and noodles, and sometimes you get something special like eggs and some meat. dont expect sanitation though. well, you may know.. even restaurants in northern china have a reputation for not being very cleanly.

[LFJ]

pk_stylez-

at master shi deyang's school, no one gets cut any slack. foreigners are tossed in with the rest of the chinese students. so even if you train just one day, you'll experience the intense work-out.

i'm not in china now, but will return soon. my study is with master deyang whenever he comes back to china. many times each year he is travelling mostly in europe. but still, it being my shifu's school i try to help others interested with information and in getting there. and to help him in spreading his genuine teachings. :)

[Shaolin87]

Nice! its a total go now, yea Im gonna try my best to rough it, and I had some pretty bad memories from northern China facilities like the toilet situation and all always gets me cracking up

[LFJ]

sounds good. i hope you enjoy your experience there! when the time comes i may be able to assist you in contacting them and arranging pick-up if you need. btw, the reason i brought up the toilet issue is because its not even like the average chinese hole-in-the-ground "toilet". its literally a ditch in the ground, with a pile here, a pile there. :D its usually a first for most people. lol, but understanding the situation and the lives of those children there really helps appreciate those comforts in the west you dont even think twice about. many of the kids are from orphanages too- training for free of course. so your tuition helps them a lot! at least they get to eat.

[ngokfei]

that's some serious training schedule.

I'd probably have a heart attack trying to do all sessions in one day. Hell just doing the morining session would make me puke:o

Oh to be 18 again, what am I saying it hurt just as much then:D but my ability to recover was greater then.

I guess I'll have to pass, definetly need those western comforts:cool:

Trained for a 3 months at Shi guo Lin's school back when I was 35 and out of shape. While I still could hold my own My conditioning was really pittiful. Remeber taking a short break to do some stretching from doing the Wubuquan and the junior monk there Shi Hengxin went ape **** on me. He didn't speak any english but through translation had me do the set 10 times no stop.

I did it but that set the tone between us. In 3 months my body did get back into some shape but all they did was push forms. I learned 5 sets in 3 months and not one application session - time to move on;)

Not to put down the school though, Shi Guo Lin knew some stuff and since we were the same age he took pity on me. :DUntil he found out that I had previous training (thanks to a visiting teacher):eek:

Sh Deyang's vcd series is the most comprehensive and i'd recommend it

[Siu Lum Fighter]

Ya, what's up with that? There was a whole thread on this, "Shaolin schools no teachie applications," I think it was. When I learned from my sifu he may not have shown me every application for every move, but he showed me quite a bit. Learning the applications sometimes drastically modifies the way I perform some moves.

[HtownShaolinBum]

.. even restaurants in northern china have a reputation for not being very cleanly.


Well, thats a good way to get the most effective conditioning of all:

IRON STOMACH TRAINING!

[LFJ]

iron stomach! tell me about it! i almost died last time i ate in a dengfeng restaurant. all dizzy and cold, yet sweating bullets at the same time. i prefer cooking for myself while in china. :)

[LFJ]

ngokfei and siu lum fighter-

this may not be obvious but shaolin is a buddhist monastery, not a secular martial arts school. to understand shaolin, you have to understand shaolin history, to understand this you have to understand buddhism.

in most shaolin schools, the fighting applications and theories are not taught. you learn the forms. then all that has to do with fighting comes through sanda. this is because the real tradition is protected by keeping it in the shaolin family, to ordained monks and their disciples.

when you go to a shaolin school that says they teach shaolin gongfu, you automatically think thats like any secular chinese martial arts school, where you should be taught to use those techniques in fighting. in shaolin, this is not so. although they do teach you shaolin gongfu. you expected too much from them. unless they say clearly they teach you to fight with gongfu applications. this comes from secular martial arts background and mindset. not understanding shaolin buddhist tradition.

you can go there and learn shaolin gongfu and then train sanda for fighting. if you want real shaolin applications for fighting, you'll have to become a disciple. but then, this is not so easy and one cant just become a disciple, especially not with the intention of learning to fight.

[Shaolin87]

Lol iron stomach. I remember getting a steak and eggs meal which made my stomach burn like crazy in Zhejiang a few years back, and about 3 mins after we finished the meal together I literally had to run as fast as I could back to the dorms at the training center. Lol It must've been funny to see a teenage laowai running frantically through the streets. :D

[LFJ]

even if you're not vegetarian at home, its a wise choice to abstain from meat in china! :) especially dont buy meat from those street-side chicken vendors who have the meat sitting out under the hot sun on the side of the street all day long. :eek:

[ngokfei]

LFJ

Shaolin a buddhist Monastery, No Your kidding:rolleyes:

It might have been a central place for the study of buddhism in the past but its far removed from being one of them today.

If your right in that they do no teach skills to Non Buddhist Disciples, well why don't they just come out and say it. Oh yeah, I forgot its no longer a high quality monastery and just a business machine for China:p

and they call it a shaolin "School"? Perhaps your right, "Shaolin Dance and Gymnastic School"

I'd like to see the abbott practice this schedule, he'd sure lose his "prominent profile":D

As for being a vegetarian, its a good thing but I wouldn't recommend eating anything Raw or unbottled, period - you'll pay for it for a long time during and afterwards (like finding worms in the toilet:eek:)

[richard sloan]

LFJ

Not sure if you still are veg, but try and get him to take you to his fav noodle shop, a muslim place with mutton soup, if you haven't gone already!

Ngokfei- I think you would agree that the way most people consider the "Temple" it is as a physical building- actually a compound of buildings? And people would then further go on to consider the monastery to be what we would perceive any kind of monastery to be. But this is not the full picture.

In some understandings this is where people would expect the 'buddhism' part to be, but in other senses the temple is actually a group or "family" of monks- sometimes multiple groups of monks and disciples with a lot of overlap- and this is where the actual transmission occurs, where the real buddhism is. The physical bricks of the compound are meaningless, who owns them and who politically is in control of them are also meaningless while the family style transmission is still intact, master to disciples. That is actually where the temple or the monastery is. While you can't deny the money machine aspect, it's not accurate to limit the term monastery per se to just that $$$ collecting apparatus while there are still active lines of transmission- like there always were, and probably always will be since the dharma is self evident.

[ngokfei]

lfj

eveyrthing you said about the transmission of the dharma is correct. Still Shaolin is not highly thought of as a Buddhist Monastery by the mainstream Buddhist Society even though trasmission is still taking place.

I see you didn't comment on why Martial Applications are not being taught along witht he Shaolin Forms.

Would compare this to being given a sutra and not assisted in its intereptations and meanings or how to incoporate the teachings into one's life.

[oasis]

Sh Deyang's vcd series is the most comprehensive and i'd recommend it

The dvds are even better because then you can use the subtitles

[ngokfei]

yes the DVD's are in english. But they do not translate everything being said though:eek:

[LFJ]

Shaolin is not highly thought of as a Buddhist Monastery by the mainstream Buddhist Society.

what in the world is that? and what does it have to do with shaolin actually being a buddhist monastery?


Would compare this to being given a sutra and not assisted in its intereptations and meanings or how to incoporate the teachings into one's life.

i wouldnt. as that is not the point. training is the practice which is the teaching itself. that is life.

[LFJ]

I see you didn't comment on why Martial Applications are not being taught along witht he Shaolin Forms.

are you serious?

it may be time to end our dialogue if you're not going to be reading my posts.

[ngokfei]

LFJ

and where did you answer the question about martial applications

"LFJ

Not sure if you still are veg, but try and get him to take you to his fav noodle shop, a muslim place with mutton soup, if you haven't gone already!

Ngokfei- I think you would agree that the way most people consider the "Temple" it is as a physical building- actually a compound of buildings? And people would then further go on to consider the monastery to be what we would perceive any kind of monastery to be. But this is not the full picture.

In some understandings this is where people would expect the 'buddhism' part to be, but in other senses the temple is actually a group or "family" of monks- sometimes multiple groups of monks and disciples with a lot of overlap- and this is where the actual transmission occurs, where the real buddhism is. The physical bricks of the compound are meaningless, who owns them and who politically is in control of them are also meaningless while the family style transmission is still intact, master to disciples. That is actually where the temple or the monastery is. While you can't deny the money machine aspect, it's not accurate to limit the term monastery per se to just that $$$ collecting apparatus while there are still active lines of transmission- like there always were, and probably always will be since the dharma is self evident."

A Buddhist Monastery like any other fixed organization is only functional if recognized by the Mainstream Group. Like a Cathoic Church has to recieve recognition. If its just a building not following the guiding rules and regualtions than it is not recognized by the Main Organization.

This is probably why the Shaolin Temple was without an "Official" abbott for so many years, even before the communist showed up.

om

[LFJ]

LFJ

and where did you answer the question about martial applications

thats what my whole post addressed to you and siu lum fighter was about! :)


A Buddhist Monastery like any other fixed organization is only functional if recognized by the Mainstream Group. Like a Cathoic Church has to recieve recognition. If its just a building not following the guiding rules and regualtions than it is not recognized by the Main Organization.

This is probably why the Shaolin Temple was without an "Official" abbott for so many years, even before the communist showed up.

om

in regards to shaolin temple and the history of buddhism in china, it appears you dont know the depths of which you speak. nor are you aware of the current situation of shaolin temple in relation to other temples across china. so frankly you're uttering nonsense... probably. ;)

[Shaolin87]

I feel that it really depends on where you go. If you go to the "main" Shaolin Temple pseudo museum giant tourist attraction, it will be more watered down/less buddhism and traditional training, and more accomidating to tourists and such(also a very hefty pricetag over 1000 of G's a month). I mean I dont hate the people that go for that, it kinda dissapoints me, but at least there learning about Shaolin and they can develop from there.

I mean come on the majority of people who go to train in china go to look cool, and have fun. Me on the other hand I'm a person who trains everyday for hours on forms, conditioning, basics, and working out. So I'd rather go for a place like Deyangs school, where I can push my limits even more, and still get the spirituality that comes with buddhism. :D