Shaolin Shows in SF Bay Area

[GeneChing]

See CPAA's website. The ticket price is interesting: tax deductible, plus two free classes in Shaolin kung fu, taichi or Ch'an (meditation). I suspect this is connected to Shaolin Kung Fu Chan, which I discussed in Shaolin Third Wave in our recent Shaolin special since they have a longstanding relationship with CPAA. I know we have at least one student of that organization here. Care to chime in?

[hasayfu]

I'm not a student of Shaolin Kung Fu Chan but my kids are. No one there (and I have not checked everyone) knows about teaching for the CPAA show. CPAA does have it's own KF program so maybe it's out of that group.

As it turns out, we did a lion dance show for CPAA a few weeks ago and met the monks from this show. They did a mini version of the show they will do in SJ. Seem like a good group of folks. Coincidently, they were at the grand opening celebration for All Star Kung Fu in Mountain View http://www.allstarkungfu.com/ Just visiting as did many KF sifus from the Bay Area.

There are so many people from Shaolin Temple in the Bay Area. When we did a show for California Senetor Leland Yee, we met the Shaolin triplets. (I forget their names)

I am impressed that everyone seems to know each other and gets along. I hope the "third wave" idea keeps up. It really is setting up a Wu Lin that hasn't been seen in the SF Bay Area in a long time.

[GeneChing]

This new group is totally distinct from Shaolin Kung Fu Chan? That's nuts. Anne Woo, who heads CPAA, has always worked intimately with Xinglie and Chen Fei for her Shaolin connection, so it really surprises me that the new group is not connected. That's just what we need here - another Shaolin group. Do you know how long they are here for?

Leland Yee's connection is another really strange one. And the Shaolin triplets are very interesting too. Shaolin has really taken hold of the S.F. Bay Area, but it's in this semi-underground, major guanxi-related way that makes it really hard to see the big picture.

Hasayfu, are you going to go? It's right before Berkeley, so I doubt I'll have the time...

[hasayfu]

Hi Gene,

I most likely won’t be going to the CPAA show. It’s hard with all my kids activities.
Same with Berkeley. I’d like to go but probably won’t.

You aren’t kidding with GuanXi. Seems like everywhere I go I see a new set of people from Shaolin. There doesn’t seem to be a big picture. It’s still a bunch of separate groups working their connections. The Shaolin Kung fu Chan group has 4 (and soon to be 6) affiliate schools but they are all independent. Then there’s this latest group from Shaolin, the triplets, the guys in SF, Ben’s Shaolin and even the guys at O-mei. I also hear that there are more on the way and that’s just the ones I’ve heard about. That’s a lot of Shaolin representation in the area.

CPAA and SLKFC still have strong ties. They just did a big show with them last week and they will be with them at the Cupertino Unity parade:
http://www.cupertino.org/cupertino_l...LNUP/index.asp

SLKFC will also be doing lion dance at the “Hsin Chu sister city" 新竹 booth at 12:00pm and Lion Dance and Kung Fu performance at 2:15pm on the secondary stage.

[GeneChing]

Alonzo King's LINES Ballet
in Collaboration with the Shaolin Monks

April 13 - 15, 18 - 22, 2007
Shaolin World Premier with Program

With utter calm and fierce precision, the dancers of
LINES Ballet and the Shaolin monks of China create
an unprecedented synthesis of Eastern and Western
classical forms. This collaboration represents both a
blending of distinct cultural traditions – ballet and martial
arts – and a recognition that these arts of movement are
convergent and intertwined.

Friday, April 13 8pm
Saturday, April 14 8pm
Sunday, April 15 7pm
Wednesday, April 18 8pm *
Thursday, April 19 8pm **
Friday, April 20 8pm
Saturday, April 21 8pm
Sunday, April 22 3pm

*Post performance Q&A with Alonzo King
**Pre-curtain discussion with collaborating artists at 7:00 pm
Ticket Prices: $65, $50, $35, $20

Order tickets through
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts:
Box office: 415-978-2787
Box office hours: 11am - 5pm

This is Shaolin monks Guosong, Yongyao, Changqiang, Changjun and the Shaolin triplets.

[Pk_StyLeZ]

the website has video
are the shaolin triplet lil kids?
cuz i see a picture of three lil shaolin monks is that them>?

[GeneChing]

Maybe you remember Guosong from the 2005 incident?

[GeneChing]

I expect more to come on this, which is why I say 'first'....

Ballet and kung fu well-matched dance partners in Lines premiere
Rachel Howard, Special to The Chronicle
Monday, April 16, 2007

For those who don't know, it's worth stating plainly: Alonzo King is the real deal as a choreographer, one of the few bona fide visionaries in the ballet world today, and we are fortunate to have him and his Lines Ballet in San Francisco.

It's especially worth stating lest the deeper wonders of his latest project, which opened Friday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, be overshadowed by sheer novelty. For this 25th anniversary spring season, King has engaged seven Buddhist monks from China's Shaolin Temple. Renowned for their martial arts, they have lived in San Francisco since 2004 under the auspices of their monastery, and they are spectacular. The older monks flow through Wushu lunges with feline grace, then throw their legs into the air with explosive power; the youngest -- two of three 10-year-old triplets -- toss themselves into backflips that land them on their heads. In another move, they kick their shins to their eyeballs in full splits and then the twins drop -- whap! -- to the floor, like a plank.

Amazing feats, to be sure, but perhaps only King could have merged them with ballet in such a way that illuminates the honor and dignity of both forms, instead of engaging in cheap pageantry. He can do this because he's spent more than two decades stripping ballet of aristocratic veneer and presentational haughtiness, twisting its elemental geometries into a strangely recognizable, strangely alien language that converses with any culture -- and speaks earnest, sometimes overly earnest, truths about the human heart.

King is best known for his collaborations with world musicians, but he's attempted movement fusions in the past, too. Six years ago, he brought a tribe of Pygmies from the central African rain forest to share the stage with his long, sleek dancers; that matchup was a sight to see, but "Long River High Sky," his title for this monk project, has a more substantive synergy. It isn't just that the kinetic parallels between a kung fu lunge and a deep plie are more apparent than those between a Pygmy's flat-footed stamp and a ballerina en pointe. It's that these monks and these dancers find such a common ground in their intense dedication to their arts that "Long River High Sky" becomes a meditation on physical discipline as an act of faith.

Every encounter is charged with curiosity and respect. Brett Conway and Shi ChangQiang sit beneath the single, low-hanging lamp of Axel Morgenthaler's stunning lighting, "talking" to each other -- face to face and eye to eye -- in the separate tongues of their movement languages. Soon, the full Lines company is flowing past Master Shi YongYao as though figures in his imagination. In other early sections, the monks partner the Lines ballerinas, Laurel Keen pairing with Shi ChangQiang, he testingly picking up her pointed foot with his flexed one, then promenading her; she all baroque curvatures, he in his wide warrior stance.

Sometimes the Lines dancers try out the monk's movements -- deep bends in turned-in knees, arms ready to jab -- and sometimes the monks try out the dancers'. The music oscillates between brittle industrial sounds and hard beats by Miguel Frasconi and lush traditional Chinese melodies delivered from the pit by the ensemble Melody of China, under director and arranger Hong Wang. Robert Rosenwasser and Colleen Quen's costumes keep the monks in their simple tunics but give the Lines women gorgeous short dresses in white silk.

It's all so beautiful that you feel guilty when, throughout the second act, your attention wanders -- but this is the pitfall of King's longer works. They tend to be a collage of sections, each arresting but rarely fitting together with a sure sense of trajectory, and such is the case here. We feel uncertain, after the intermission, how what we've come back for is going to take us anywhere different than what we've just seen; the last half hour gets wearying and this is a shame, as it contains some of King's most allegorically rich work. In the most rewarding section, Aesha Ash tries to break up a pas de deux with John Michael Schert and Laurel Keen, then comes to harmonize and flow through their partnerings. She will always be an outsider, though, or perhaps more like an invisible spiritual force -- when the three gather in a line, arms upraised, Schert holds Keen's hand, but not Ash's.

The nine Lines dancers, incidentally, are tremendous throughout, physical virtuosos with a meditative presence to match the monks'. Watching these two groups together, kung fu begins to look more like art for its own sake, and ballet like self-defense, and you begin to wonder if perhaps both are fighting forms after all -- fighting for a life of truth and beauty that all humans crave.
Long River High Sky: Lines Ballet collaboration with Shaolin monks. Continues Wednesday through Sunday. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard St., San Francisco. Tickets: $20-$65. Call (415) 978-2787 or go to www.ybca.org.

There's video too.

[Pk_StyLeZ]

interesting
thx gene
saw the video also

[herb ox]

Whoa. It never fails to amaze me how much intrigue and politik still surround the temple and those who proclaim alliance with the temple. It's still obscure enough of a situation that the lay-person would have no idea whatsoever about who is who. Problem is, the actions of these performers could tarnish the image of Shaolin - the temple seems to have enough sticky situations to deal with on its own without the added strain of impostors.

Regardless, this melding of ballet and wushu still sounds pretty kewl. 'Tis a perfect opportunity to entice a date for some 'ballet' Maybe after the free Marley show in the 'park I'll check it out... but only if I can find someone to accompany me other than a certain Korean brother you know so well...

herb ox

[GeneChing]

I'm planning to meet my disciple brother, kungfu****, there. I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it looks like rain.

[Pk_StyLeZ]

I'm planning to meet my disciple brother, kungfu****, there. I'm looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it looks like rain.

let us knw how it goes gene =)
i plan to attend the shaolin *monk* performance that will be at www.ifest.org in two weeks too
wonder how that gonna turn out

[GeneChing]

I really enjoyed the LINES show. It was the most innovative, most abstract Shaolin show to date and will surely throw gasoline on the fire of Shaolin debates in the martial circles. It's modern ballet and if you've never been exposed to this sort of cultured art, it may be too abstract for you. I'll have a little more on it later (and there's more to come from this project, as I've alluded to earlier) but for now, here's Asian Week's take on it.

Gettin' Funky With the Monks
Angela Pang, Mar 23, 2007

Master Shi GuoSong and other Shaolin monks practice their martial arts, kicking and spinning in the air, while members of Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, gracefully and slowly extend their legs. Together the group is practicing for a unique cross-cultural collaboration, combining martial arts and ballet for a mesmerizing hour-and-a-half piece premiering in April.

Created by black American artistic director Alonzo King, the show will feature an original score of traditional Chinese and contemporary music and amazing choreography.

When King first learned about the group of Shaolin monks, living in San Francisco since 2004 under the auspices of the China Songshan Shaolin Temple Inc., he knew he wanted to work with them.

"The depth and skill of their concentration is amazing, they’re just brilliant," said King.

He arranged a meeting and practice session last spring with his international touring company and the Shaolin monks, for both to showcase their talents. King then developed a blended choreography for a full-length piece, weaving the monks’ dynamic power with the expressive lyricism of his ballet crew.

"Our ultimate goal is to share our history and culture with everyone and to educate them about martial arts," said Master GuoSong. "Working with the ballet company has been pleasant."

This is the first time that the LINES Ballet has engaged in a collaboration that integrates King’s choreography with a different classical form. Though both art forms may seem like polar opposites, the Shaolin monks and the ballet company contend they are more similar than people may think.

"Martial arts and ballet both involve body language that comes from the heart and is an expression of what is inside you," said Master GuoSong.

"In all cultures, there’s one instrument that we share in common in dance: the body," said King, who was recognized as one of 50 outstanding artists in America by the United States Artists organization. "At its heart, this project is an inter-cultural exploration between artists."

"Alonzo is so respectful and considerate when creating choreography," said the Shaolin monks’ translator Evelyn Wu. "He does not want to do anything that may be culturally offensive to them, so he always checks to make sure they’re comfortable."

Wu said the monks were "uptight" in the beginning since they have never tried ballet before, but over the months they’ve opened up and are even "absorbing" and appreciating the new moves.

"It’s a very new and good experience," said Master Shi YongYao.

The Shaolin monks featured range in age from 10 to 70. The youngest group is a set of 10-year-old triplets from China, who were accepted into the Shaolin Temple at the age of 5.

The Shaolin monks have performed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Asian Art Museum, the De Young Museum, the Masonic Auditorium and San Francisco City Hall.

While in the U.S., they hope to establish a Shaolin Cultural Center, to help preserve the 1,500-year-old tradition of Shaolin and to provide services and enrichment to the community.

"This project is encouraging the two sets of artists toward a kind of communion through movement, a language that they can speak together," said company manager Selby Schwartz. "I’ve never seen anything like this. This show will be fascinating to watch."

The only real bum out about last night's performance was that we only got twins, not the triplets. Not sure why. Perhaps one was sick.

[GeneChing]

The t***** path to enlightenment
Buddhists bringing ancient faith to U.S. at odds over role of martial arts in Shaolin -- former allies deeply divided on physical, spiritual aspects of the misunderstood culture
Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, Chronicle Religion Writer

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Stephen Ho dreamed that he'd be the one to introduce to America an authentic version of one of the world's most misunderstood religions.

He would build a San Francisco temple to be a branch of the legendary Shaolin Temple in China, where Zen was born and kung fu emerged as its most fabled expression.

The San Francisco businessman and longtime Buddhist went to China and asked the temple's abbot for his assent. In December 2004, the abbot sent Shi GuoSong, an experienced yet youthful Shaolin monk, to be a true and rare face of the ancient faith.

The culture portrayed by television and movies as exotic violence would be shown in its true form: a message of peace.

Ho established a nonprofit to represent Shaolin culture as a religion, sponsoring visas and shepherding believers such as GuoSong.

GuoSong, through Ho's connections, dutifully led troupes in performances of Shaolin kung fu at venues ranging from a Sacramento Kings game to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. They just finished a highly celebrated, weeklong collaboration with Alonzo King's Lines Ballet in San Francisco.

But more than two years after their journey began, Ho and GuoSong have become mired in a dispute over what Shaolin is and which one of them represents the authentic faith. They are at fundamental odds over an age-old question: To what extent can a martial art express religion?

Legend says that more than 1,500 years ago, an Indian monk named Bodhidharma sat meditating before a wall for nine years on Mount Songshan in northern China. When he finished, he began teaching at the Shaolin Temple that long periods of seated meditation would lead to enlightenment -- the essence of Chan Buddhism, popularly known as Zen.

But the extended meditations also atrophied the monks' bodies. So Bodhidharma developed a series of calisthenics that evolved into kung fu, a form of martial arts.

Shaolin believe meditation clears the mind, preparing it for purer action. But a weak or sick body hinders clarity of thought. Kung fu, by building the body, complements meditation.

Over the centuries, the Shaolin Temple in Henan province has been razed and resurrected several times. After the communist government's Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, many of the nation's religious institutions were purged or destroyed. Only a handful of Shaolin monks in the temple survived.

Then, in 1982, came the Jet Li movie "Shaolin Temple," inspiring a wave of tourism the Chinese government supported; it even helped rebuild the temple as a tourist destination. There are now about 60 schools associated with the main Shaolin Temple, and they teach an estimated 40,000 full-time martial artists. But those who've been accepted and taken vows as Shaolin monks are rare: There are fewer than 200 in the main temple.

From Bruce Lee's epic 1973 film "Enter the Dragon" to Jackie Chan movies to "The Matrix" and "Kill Bill," pop culture has long tried to represent elements of Shaolin practice or lore.

But that has skewed understanding of Shaolin culture, said Matthew Polly, the first American disciple of the Shaolin Temple.

"Westerners have this fantasy of what Shaolin is supposed to be -- David Carradine and (the 1970s television show) 'Kung Fu,' " said Polly, 35, of New York. "It's not what you wanted it to be or expected it to be. Shaolin has been, since 1982, trying to figure out what it is again, with a lot of competing pressures. Like China in general, Shaolin is still in the process of coming to terms with modernity."

Into this vortex came Ho. A retired IBM engineer who says he often travels in China on business, Ho said he studied Buddhism for 40 years in Hong Kong before coming to America.

In recent years, the main temple's abbot, Shi YongXin, has tried to copyright the Shaolin name. He's also been criticized for commercializing the faith. YongXin gave his approval to Ho's venture in San Francisco.

Ho, 60, had never trained at the temple. GuoSong, 34, has trained at the temple since he was 13.

There are roughly a dozen monks in the temple who, like GuoSong, are in their 30s and have trained for two decades, GuoSong and Ho estimate. Scores of other Shaolin monks have come to the United States and set up kung fu studios, but Ho's nonprofit is believed to be only the second attempt to establish an institution for Shaolin as an American religion. The first temple, run by a former Shaolin monk in Flushing, N.Y., is beset by its own struggles to establish itself. -- -- --

GuoSong came with a 53-year-old fellow monk and five disciples -- 10-year-old triplets and two men in their 20s. His disciples say GuoSong is a "father" to their "family." Since arriving in San Francisco in 2004, they've lived in a series of apartments and now stay in a ramshackle former rooming house near downtown Oakland, their fledgling Shaolin Temple.

Their kung fu performances have been sporadic, generally coming every few weeks. But the Shaolin lifestyle consumes their days in small details. In addition to many explicitly religious rites, the monks wear simple clothing made from rough material and have an array of rituals, including one to ensure the right flavor and temperature for green tea.

A simple morning practice at the Oakland temple illuminates how Shaolin strengthen their bodies, the role of the natural energy force known as qi -- or chi -- and how physical work can be meditative.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Shi ChangQiang, 22, repeatedly slapped a canvas sack packed with dried beans he'd put on top of a 3-foot-high stump in the backyard of the Oakland temple. In one minute, he hit it 38 times with his right hand. His pace gradually increased as he hit the bag of beans with his palm, the back of his hand and both sides.

Seated meditations like the 45-minute session every morning are part of the group's daily routine. But GuoSong can be found meditating in many places, such as in a parked car. The meditations and ChangQiang's painful ritual are intended to lead to the same mental state -- clearing the mind of all thoughts.

"The most important thing is that you must keep your mind quiet without any disturbances," Shi YongYao, the other monk with GuoSong, said in Mandarin as he explained the sack-smacking.

Despite the ferocity of ChangQiang's slaps, Shaolin belief holds that breathing with intention to circulate one's qi prevents pain. It's a practice called Qigong, and it can be used to toughen many parts of the body.

ChangQiang is working on his hand. YongYao, a Qigong master, is a specialist in the "iron crotch."

Sometimes at exhibitions, YongYao invites people to kick him repeatedly in the groin. He doesn't flinch. At a performance at a Tenderloin community center in October, YongYao broke steel bars over his head that this reporter could not bend. At the Sacramento Kings game, a Shaolin trainee took a sledgehammer to YongYao's arm as it lay across roughly a dozen steel bars, according to a video of the event. The bars broke. His arm was fine.

Qi enters the body just above the belly button, YongYao said. Through Qigong, practitioners learn to move it throughout the body.

"If some part of your body hurts, the qi has not gotten through yet," YongYao said. "Once the qi gets through, you don't feel pain there."

YongYao believes Qigong can help cure heart disease, cancer or diabetes, which he has, but he says it doesn't work "miracles." The group uses Western medicine, too.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Continued on the next post...

[GeneChing]

continued...

ChangQiang stopped hitting the bag of beans after 14 minutes.

Two hours later, ChangQiang inspected his calloused right hand. It was dry, raw and cracked. "It hurts," he said in English. -- -- --

Ho sees little that's religious in these actions. He's come to believe that GuoSong is more kung fu than Buddhist -- possessing rare physical skills but lacking equivalent spiritual depth.

Ho justifies his view by saying GuoSong and his disciples don't do enough of what Ho thinks defines a Buddhist monk of any sect: seated meditation, study of Buddhist texts and philosophical discussions about Chan.

"They're really good martial artists, but how much they know about Buddhism, I don't know," Ho said.

GuoSong believes there are many equal ways to practice Chan. Walking, sitting or eating can be Chan practices.

"In everything you do, you always have the chance to seek the truth" and free the mind of disturbances, GuoSong said.

But audiences rarely hear GuoSong speak because he speaks only Mandarin. The result is that they are left to interpret through the monks' bodies a scripture that's expressed solely through movement. One scene in the recent Lines Ballet performances revealed the challenges.

ChangQiang and Shi ChangJun, 23, acted out a series of punches, sidekicks and a head butt. One kick sent ChangQiang flat onto his chest.

Shaolin monks believe you can never fight to attack, only to defend. But it's not hard to see why their kung fu has been glorified as violence made beautiful.

GuoSong said it's reasonable to be drawn to Shaolin for the techniques of combat -- as he was at age 13 -- and not for any spiritual reason. But he hopes a few people see deeper -- and pursue Chan.

"The audience should not pay attention to one or several criteria, but the dialectic of everything," he said. "If you just pay attention to the speed -- you say 'fast is good' -- that would be wrong. If you say 'strong is good,' that is wrong. ... The right way to appreciate is the dialectic, the tension between fast and slow, the tension between strong and soft, the tension between agility and stiffness."

Plus, he said, the fight is fake. Every move is answered with a block. Either of the performers could maim with a real kick or punch. Sparring "is just a way to train their reflexes." A strong mind, built through Chan meditation, requires a strong body, he said.

"Each movement will make you work your body, from top to bottom, from hand to foot," he said. "The motivation for practicing is to be flexible, quick on your feet, strong. And your body will be naturally healthy."

Audiences see many messages in their performances. Their speed and strength inspire awe. Some men wince at displays testing YongYao's "iron crotch." Others laugh.

Alonzo King, the ballet choreographer, said believers of any faith interpret religious texts in myriad ways. Movement should be no different, and just as valid as any written scripture or spoken sermon.

"The principle expression of life is movement," he wrote in an e-mail. "Dancing and martial arts are movement. When it is well done, it is about poise, control, governance, majesty, power and grace. ... These qualities are teaching us how to behave."

Gerard Hoatam, 25, watched the Tenderloin performance but had no idea that it was an expression of faith.

"If your purpose is to go out into the community and tell people about your religion, it's a lot better than Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door," said Hoatam of Sunnyvale.

Others have come to share Ho's opinion of GuoSong and his group.

Many of the monks' performances, including the Lines Ballet series, have been initiated or coordinated by Bernadine Lim, Mayor Gavin Newsom's liaison to the Chinese American community. She said Ho knows more about Buddhism than GuoSong, who she said barely practices essential elements of the faith.

"I've never seen them meditate," she said, adding that the ballet "has nothing to do with religion."

But Polly, the former Shaolin Temple disciple who wrote the memoir "American Shaolin," said Lim and Ho have created a false dichotomy. There's no distinction, Polly said, between sitting meditation and what can happen while doing kung fu -- a meditation through dynamic movement, like yoga.

"If you're practicing Shaolin kung fu properly, it is a form of meditation," he said. "It's just fast and hard meditation, instead of slow or sitting. And that's why many of those moves seem so strange -- because they're actually moves that were developed for meditation purposes as well as self-defense and not purely self-defense purposes."

Gene Ching, associate publisher of Fremont-based Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine, which has reported on Shaolin practitioners and beliefs for 15 years, believes GuoSong is authentic. Ching was stunned that directors of a Shaolin nonprofit would not understand that kung fu is an expression of Chan, or Zen. For non-Shaolin to define the faith is troubling, he said.

"It's disturbing in a way," Ching said. "It's corporate religion." -- -- --

GuoSong declined to discuss Ho, and Ho is an elusive man. But some facts are plain.

More than two years after GuoSong and his disciples arrived, Ho has made little headway on a temple.

GuoSong is a elite teacher of Shaolin kung fu -- his martial arts training videos are sold on Chinese Web sites. But in San Francisco, GuoSong had only a handful of students through Ho's networks.

Instead of living in a monastery dedicated to a life of faith, GuoSong's group of Shaolin -- including young triplets Shi LongHu, Shi HuHu and Shi BaoHu -- were crammed into apartments.

Ho said he will sever his sponsorship of GuoSong, a move that would make him an illegal immigrant.

If ChangQiang, ChangJun and YongYao choose to follow GuoSong, Ho said they will "be on their own."

Ho said he planned to bring 30 more Shaolin to the Bay Area in the future. He said he would interview them himself to make sure they're more spiritual than GuoSong.

GuoSong, without referring to Ho, said he's long been aware that others might criticize him. But that's not the point.

"If you take this mission personally, you can never achieve it," he said. "Shaolin Buddhism -- Shaolin culture -- does not belong to any particular person. ... Even if I come back empty-handed, maybe there will be other people who will come in the future to continue to promote Shaolin Buddhism."

If people disparage him, GuoSong said, "the words may affect my career here. However, the words will not affect the goal."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chan: The Chinese word for what became known as Zen in Japan. This school of Buddhism teaches that the path to enlightenment is cultivated through long periods of seated meditation.
kung fu: A Shaolin martial art intended to develop the body and mind as one in an expression of Chan.

Qi: A natural energy or force that fills the universe. Also known as chi.

Qigong: An umbrella term for many types of qi-based practices that use breathing with intention. They can use movement, as the Shaolin do.

Shi: A name used by these Shaolin to identify as Buddhists.

Shaolin Temple: Built in 495 on Mount Songshan in Henan, a northern Chinese province. Bodhidharma -- whom the Chinese call "Damo" -- arrived three decades later and taught Zen for the first time at the temple. Legend says that he meditated before a wall for nine years.

There's video there too, but SF Gate seems to be somewhat bogged down at the moment, perhaps due to our recent inferno...