Wang Bo, Shaolin Temple Torrance

[GeneChing]

Cute story. Anyone know their Shaolin names?

Monk Brings Chinese Temple Practices to Studio (http://palosverdes.patch.com/articles/xxx-59119318)
A nearby Kung Fu and Tai Chi studio is operated by a monk who trained at China's Shaolin Temple.
By Lorenza Munoz
6:00 am

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As young boys, Wang Bo and his brother Yuan Jing learned to live the life of monks, waking at 5:30 a.m. to the same routine of meditation, training and discipline. They did not have toys, new clothing, computers or movie nights. But they were among the fortunate ones. Born in an impoverished village in China’s Shandong Province, the brothers were chosen at the ages of eight and ten to live in the famous Shaolin Temple, high in the Shaoshi Mountain in China’s central Henan Province, to become masters in Kung Fu.

“Our parents wanted us to be confident and to step out with a happy step,” said Wang Bo. “We learned Kung Fu to protect ourselves from fear.”

This sense of fearlessness drove the brothers to leave the sheltered life of the temple and find a new life in the United States. They settled near Palos Verdes, recently opening a center for Kung Fu and Tai Chi on Rolling Hills Road called Shaolin Temple.

Their Kung Fu abilities took them around the world. By the time they were teenagers, the Wang brothers were chosen to travel in the Wheel of Life performances, a pageantry of Kung Fu, drama and Tai Chi performed by the monks in the Temple. In 2001, Wang Bo was invited to perform at Queen Elizabeth’s birthday in the United Kingdom and in 2007 he went to Russia to meet Vladimir Putin. He got a taste of the world and wanted more.

So, a year later, Wang Bo left China to see if he could live out the principles and challenges he was taught all his life in seclusion on the mountain.

“I wanted to test myself,” the 22-year-old said. “Could I survive? I lived in the temple for so many years. I wanted to see if the stuff I learned in the temple really worked.”

The first year in America was tough. Wang Bo barely spoke English and did not know how to drive. He was lonely and confused. He could barely make ends meet teaching Kung Fu in Venice and Santa Monica.

“I had a lot of stress all of the time,” he said. “I had no peace in my heart.”

And then a happy accident changed his fortune. He walked into the Sacred Stone Gallery in Redondo Beach and the owner, Gustave Schindler, asked him if he was a monk. Wearing his telltale flowing yellow robes, Wang Bo said yes and that he wanted to start teaching Kung Fu and Tai Chi to pay for his living. Within a few weeks, Wang Bo was leading a small group in Tai Chi organized by Schindler at Veteran’s Park.

“He wanted to do everything on his own and he realized it is not that easy,” said Schindler, who said he felt like they had been “old friends from a past life.” “He grew up in a sheltered environment where he was taken care of. So here, everyone loved and supported him at his early stages. It became like a family. I am glad the monk is here and now he is plugged in.”

Last August, after a few months renting out space in other studios, Wang Bo opened the Shaolin Temple on Rolling Hills Road. Today he has six employees and about 85 students, some from Palos Verdes, learning Kung Fu and Tai Chi. In June, he performed at the Norris Center for the Performing Arts.

His spacious studio is painted a bright orange and yellow in honor of the Shaolin Temple’s colors. He transformed an office into a tea garden where he sits before class to meditate and drink jasmine tea. Before beginning a Kung Fu routine he is calm and serene, but then his face contorts, his body tightens into a flurry of well choreographed kicks and punches that Kung Fu aficionados recognize as authentic.

“He is one of the ambassadors of the temple who has the direct lineage to the teachings,” said Jerry Erickson, who has studied Kung Fu for 45 years and is the owner of Erickson’s Fitness in Torrance. Erickson is now learning from Wang Bo and hopes to eventually visit the Temple. “He is a true Zen monk. Instead of going to Shaolin, Shaolin came here.”

Living without his parents since the age of eight and such a life of deprivation, Wang Bo, said he understands what it’s like to have a hard childhood. He sees a lot of parents here pushing their children too hard.

“Patience and compassion are hard to practice,” he said. “Parents don’t need to push too much. If things are meant to happen, they will happen.”

One of Wang Bo’s goals is to teach students how to live their life, enjoying moment by moment and appreciating what they have. After all, he says, nothing lasts forever.

“Everything we have, will go away one day,” he said. “It is all temporary. Once you realize that, it becomes very powerful.”

[ShaolinDiva]

Isn't it all the same cute story? Wang Bo was part of Shi Yan Xu's peeps ... buddhist names... me no remember .

[GeneChing]

2-years-O-B. How long after getting off the boat until they lose their freshness? ;)


Life of Zen: Shaolin Buddhist monk passes down ancient teachings (http://www.easyreadernews.com/69299/life-of-zen-shaolin-buddhist-monk-passes-down-ancient-teachings/)

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Shifu Wang Bo, 24, practices Shaolin-style Kung Fu at his martial arts studio. Photos by Esther Kang

Sitting with square shoulders inside the cozy tea garden in his Rolling Hills Estates martial arts studio, Shifu Wang Bo pauses to pour jasmine green tea into two cups, about two inches in diameter.

“If you see here,” explains the 24-year-old Shaolin Buddhist monk, dressed in a grayish-blue monastic robe, “this first cup of tea that I drink, I only have that cup of tea one time in my life, in that moment.”

This, he says, is called impermanence, or wuchang in Mandarin — one of the three marks of existence in Buddhism.

“Everything we do every day is changing and passing, getting old,” Wang explains.

By taking life moment by moment, he is able to relish each experience — old or new — with the same unfailing sense of novelty. And to fully realize and learn this concept of impermanence, one needs to master the art of discipline, a principle he became familiar with at the early age of three.

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Wang’s martial arts studio is located at 2927 Rolling Hills Road in Torrance.

Nearly two years ago, Wang, whose students call shifu or master, opened something of an embassy to China’s monumental Shaolin Monastery here in the South Bay. Tucked between an animal clinic and a small Japanese steakhouse, Wang’s Shaolin Temple is currently home to more than 90 martial arts students, ranging in age from 4 to 78, learning traditional Shaolin-style Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Zen meditation.

Born in a rural village in Shandong Province, China, he recalls his earliest memory, at age 3: practicing Kung Fu with his older brother Wang Hui and his father, who was his first teacher. For five hours a day before and after school, young Wang trained with dedication.

“In the winter it’d be very cold, but we still trained outside,” Wang remembers. “Sometimes my father cried because he didn’t want to train us that hard.”

When Wang turned 8, his father sent him and his brother to the Shaolin village on Mount Song in central Henan Province, a six-hour car ride from home. The Shaolin village is home to many martial arts schools. At the heart sits the historic Shaolin Temple, a world-famous Buddhist martial arts monastery built in 495 A.D.

Wang and his brother continued to train, and about a year and a half later, they were accepted into the Shaolin Temple. Wang was handpicked as a disciple by Shifu Shi Yongxin, who now is the abbot, or head, of the Shaolin Temple.

“You have to have certain skills and you have to pass certain tests,” Wang says, describing the extremely selective nature of the temple, “and most importantly, you have to have a special connection with Buddha.”

Thereafter began his 11-year residency in the monastery. “Life at the Shaolin Temple is very different from where we are today,” he begins, letting out his signature, close-lipped chuckle. “No matter what happens, what day, there is no special day because today is the most important day. Whatever’s the past is the past.”

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Shifu Wang Bo, 24, practices Shaolin-style Kung Fu at his martial arts studio in Rolling Hills Estates. Photos by esther Kang

For 11 years, he followed the same daily routine with several hundred other monks at the temple: wake up at 5:30 a.m., attend chanting for two hours, eat breakfast at 7:30 a.m., study break for 20 minutes, followed by a two-hour Kung Fu training session. Post lunch at 11 a.m. came an hour-long break, followed by a study session of the Diamond Sutra and another two-hour Kung Fu training session. Then after dinner at 5:30 p.m., Heart Sutra chanting for an hour, meditation and bedtime at 10 p.m.

“Discipline first,” he says, “then learn Buddhism. Then you understand what life is. Then you understand what impermanence is. If a person doesn’t have discipline they cannot do anything.”

Those five to six hours of daily Kung Fu training turned into 10 or more hours when Wang began training for competitions. Wang, who holds several first place and world champion titles, unexpectedly becomes sullen in tone when this topic comes up.

“I’ve been to many competitions. I won many times and lost many times,” he says matter-of-factly. He explains that competition was just a part of his experience in Kung Fu, a mere activity and nothing more. “It was not something that encouraged my life. Being in competition gave me a lot of ego at the time. I was not happy and was struggling.”

What did enrich his life was partaking in the world tour of “The Wheel of Life,” a series of Kung Fu, drama and Tai Chi performed by the Shaolin monks. For three years, Wang performed throughout Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States.

Serving as a spiritual ambassador for both China and the Shaolin Temple, Wang has met his share of prominent political figures, including Queen Elizabeth, for whom he performed in 2011, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he shared lunch in 2007.

“It’s not really political — it’s a cultural exchange,” Wang explains. “Culture has no boundaries, especially if it’s something positive. No one will refuse love. You bring something positive; whether they take it or not, that’s their choice.”

It’s the same reason why he is here today. In 2008, Wang moved to Huntington Beach, where some friends lived, and began teaching classes in community centers, parks and schools. A dedicated following emerged, which prompted Wang to open his Shaolin Temple in the summer of 2011. In addition to teaching five hour-long classes a day, Wang trains his three instructors and manages the studio as its sole owner.

Damon Webber, a longtime Kung Fu practitioner who teaches beginning Tai Chi classes, explains that Wang’s wealth of knowledge and wisdom, in addition to his jaw-dropping prowess in Kung Fu, makes him invaluable. “He’s what we’ve been waiting for, in a sense,” he says, “for a teacher to come down from Shaolin.”

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Wang meditates during a Kung Fu routine.

Wang has yet to visit the temple grounds back in China since opening his studio. He adds with a chuckle that he’ll return as soon as he’s not too busy.

“The temple is a place of purity, a pure land,” Wang explains. “What we learn in the temple is the heart. You move the heart to another place. You come to a busy place and still keep a peaceful heart. That’s what Buddhism is. You learn, then you pass that knowledge to more people.”

[GeneChing]

I clipped the Wang Bo posts from the FOB monks thread (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57156-FOB-monks). This is oddly novel and earned him his own thread.

Be Here Now – The art of Shaolin monk Wang Bo (http://www.easyreadernews.com/78622/now-art-shaolin-monk-wang-bo/)

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Wang Bo, in the forest. Photo by Gloria Plascencia

It’s not that the room is small, it’s that the spider is large. Even now it’s crouching low, facing the door, ready to surprise anyone who walks in.

Assembled from various lengths of rough-hewn wood, tied with cord, the abstract sculpture was originally going to be a dragon but there wasn’t enough space, and dragons need space. No matter, it’s an impressive creation, one of the visual highlights in “The Art of the Monk,” the first-ever exhibition of artwork by Wang Bo, the Shaolin monk who owns and operates Shaolin Temple Torrance.

Most of the articles about Wang Bo, including Esther Kang’s insightful piece earlier this year in Peninsula People, focus on the young man’s early years of study at the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song in central Henan province, China, the Buddhist martial arts monastery that dates back to 495 A.D. At the encouragement of his father, Wang Bo began his martial arts training when he was three or four, but after the Shaolin Temple accepted him as a student, when he was eight, an 11-year residency ensued and immersed him in an austere routine and discipline that ultimately led him to master the art and the grace of kung fu, tai chi, and Zen meditation.

We don’t normally think of monks getting out and about and seeing the world, but Wang Bo did just that, touring with “The Wheel of Life,” which promoted the martial arts philosophy of the Shaolin monks. This is how Wang Bo came to perform in front of notable world figures such as Queen Elizabeth and Vladimir Putin.

Five years ago, in 2008, Wang Bo came to Southern California to visit a friend. He wasn’t intending to stay, but as we all know life takes us on some strange journeys and often sets us down in places we’d never imagined. Wang Bo stayed. He taught martial arts in the park, on the beach, and with enough confidence and presumably enough of a client base he opened his studio two years ago in the Ralphs shopping center at the corner of Rolling Hills Road and Crenshaw, in Torrance, a stone’s throw from Palos Verdes and Wang Bo’s current residence.

That’s quite an accomplishment, but now back to his art.

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Shaolin monk Wang Bo, in touch with the world within and without. Photo by Gloria Plascencia

Beatific

To get a better sense of the wooden spider, one needs to view it from a very low vantage point and from right in front of it. And yet, looked at from the side, as Wang Bo points out, it resembles a forest, and perhaps it evokes the groves of trees where monks entered to practice their kung fu. A forest can symbolize what we need to find our way out of, but I imagine that there are some who seek the labyrinthine depths precisely in order to get lost and only then to use their wits and their intuition to find their way back. There is, after all, a pleasure in the self-imposed challenge met and overcome. As Chet Baker once advised, “Let’s get lost.”

Along one wall in the serene, green-painted room there are several sculptural works, largely comprised of found objects on wooden pillars that create a quiet dialogue among themselves. “My art is a combination between old and new,” Wang Bo says. It also explores timeless concepts, the relentless cycles of nature, for example, or the assumed permanence of love. The latter is represented by a pencil drawing on a slab of stone of two skeletons. They look fossilized, the skeletons still yearning for that final embrace. “Even if you die, you still love each other,” Wang Bo says. Or maybe one of you still loves the other. I’m reminded of Esmeralda and Quasimodo at the end of Victor Hugo’s novel of old Paris.

When we meet him in person, Wang Bo makes a good impression. He’s the embodiment of his years of study, reflection, and practice. His beatific smile is engaging, and one can sense immediately that he is a young man (24, actually) of gentleness and yet great strength. Not surprisingly, then, one learns that the workout program he has created, which he terms Hungrymonk yoga, marries the flexibility characteristic of yoga with the intensity and concentration of the martial arts.

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Artwork by Wang Bo. Photo by Gloria Plascencia

Action, not words

Wang Bo’s art is seemingly just another extension of his personality and character. “I’ve always wanted to make something, since I was very young,” he says. However, he doesn’t have the kind of ego that many Western artists carry around with them: “I don’t really know what art is. I never studied art; I never [went to] school for art.”

He’s modest about his photographic skills as well, even though the pictures he shows us are nicely composed and suggest more than what meets the eye. “I only took one workshop, from a friend, and actually I don’t even know how to use my camera that well. But I constantly go take pictures.”

As one might expect, there’s more to this.

“What I’m trying to show is [that] it’s not that complicated to make something. It is important to do it. That’s the Zen philosophy that I have learned. Just like in kung fu. When people attack you, you can’t think, you have to react right away. When people come swiftly, you have to jump.”

If the rabbit sees the fox it doesn’t thumb through a long list of options or wonder which running shoes to put on. The moment to act is now, or there may be no other moment, ever.

That’s pretty much how Wang Bo approaches his art, going with that flash of insight or intuition. If what he creates turns out well, so be it; and if it doesn’t, well, that’s fine too. What matter more is being attuned to the creative spirit and not trying to force it into something that it’s not.

Later on, in the quiet of his studio, Wang Bo elaborates and brings together his ideas about art and the philosophy he has studied and acquired over the years.

“What I really want to say is, art is a positive way to make your mind busy instead of [over-thinking] too much and you get stressed out. Art is a way to release and keep your mind running…

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Drawing by Wang Bo. Photo by Gloria Plascencia

“When you start making something you actually see the beauty of it,” he continues. Engaging in art temporarily removes us from pressing concerns about our jobs or our families or our dwindling bank accounts. For Wang Bo, the primary way to surmount our anxieties and fears is through the combination of yoga, martial arts and meditation that he practices and teaches. “But making art is a very good way to bring your emotions out of your body. It makes you feel better, makes you feel expressed, and also you can share your art with many people.”

He emphasizes the “tremendous happiness and joy” that comes from creating art, and also the fact that, simply put, it opens our eyes to the world around us. In this, he echoes the painter Alejandro Obregón, who said, “Everything we look at always hides something, keeps it in shadow. That’s what you have to get to, what you have to illuminate, discover, decipher. Nothing can remain hidden.”

To paraphrase Wang Bo, there are beautiful things all around us that we miss out on seeing every day – and this is where his art comes from, from the beauty of the natural world. There’s a simple purity in his work that is refreshing and that flows as freely as a mountain brook or the clouds in the sky. In itself, it’s a rare beauty.

Wang Bo will open his studio for this Sunday, Dec. 22, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for an exclusive viewing of his photography and sculpture. He will talk about the inspiration for his art, and his experience in becoming a monk, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Tea, made during a traditional tea ceremony, will be served, and attendees can receive two free classes of Hungrymonk yoga. Suggested fee, $15. Shaolin Temple is located at 2927 Rolling Hills Road, Torrance. More at shaolintemplekf.com/.

[wenshu]

Hungrymonk yoga.

Genius branding. "QiGong" seems too arcane to market successfully to the Whole Foods yoga mat crowd.

His english is getting pretty good. Talented artist as well, I wonder if he picked that up in the States?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2AScrw2rg

[breeze]

Why Wangbo was not participating with his school at the North American Shaolin Cultural Festival ?????????

[ShaolinDiva]

Isn't there always a Shaolin secret somewhere? Even in Torrance, CA! but seriously, the name "hungrymonk" yoga should give it away . I do give him credit for being quite esthetically creative in his Shaolin endeavors.