Mt. Song Martial Arts Academy

[Mantis9700]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anybody here has heard of or had a chance to train at Mt. Song Martial Arts Academy in Tampa Fl. If so, what was your experience, would you recommend it?

[GeneChing]

...but I was near Ft. Lauderdale, not Tampa.

I know nothing of this school. This is the one, right?

[Mantis9700]

Hi Gene


Yes Sir...that is the one. Shifu Salazar supposedly trained under Shi De Yang in China. (Please note I only say supposedly because I havent seen anything prving that claim). It would be interesting hearing peoples first hand accounts with this teacher

[sha0lin1]

His website says he is of the 32nd generation, which would be right if he was Deyang's disciple. LFJ would know for sure, he is a disciple of Deyang and I asume he would know all of Dayang's students in the U.S.

[Mantis9700]

Thanks for the replies everyone. LFJ...you out there?! Have you heard of this Shifu training under Shi De Yang?

[GeneChing]

Talk about going to the source.

[LFJ]

LFJ...you out there?! Have you heard of this Shifu training under Shi De Yang?

No wonder I missed this thread, I was still in China with Shi Deyang at the time of your posting.

I can tell you this, Shi Deyang took his first foreign disciples in 2008, and at this point only has seven. Five of them were just this year- none of them from the U.S..

About the teacher in question, I have never met him or heard of him training at Shi Deyang's school, much less directly with him, unless it was many many years ago.

However, I did see a video of him on youtube years back performing Dahongquan (Shi Deyang's specialty) with a caption saying he learned it from Shi Deyang.

I noted that the version was not the way Shi Deyang performs it, nor the way he teaches it. I learned it one-on-one with him, so I'm quite certain.

Shi Deyang has a ton of people claiming to be his disciples, both foreign and Chinese. He just laughs, because he either met them once or has no clue who they are.

[sms]

Hello I am Shifu Mario Salazar from Mt Song Martial Arts Academy. I've been training Martial arts for over 27 year and Shaolin Kung Fu for over 20 years. I stumbled on this post actually several years ago and to be honest I found it disappointing that people on this forum claiming to be Shaolin would find it so easy to speak so poorly about another martial artist, not to mention that this is also a waste of training time. It seems, however, that these days people just go on forum and ask questions about people they have never met or know about. But everyone thinks they are an expert and everyone has their two cents that they can put in and no one ever contacts the person that there speaking of to get information directly from the source.

But…I guess nowadays people really believe that they have all the information just at their fingertips. Maybe it's not the case for all here, but honestly it seems that sometimes people just want to talk about martial arts rather than actually doing the martial arts they speak of. Instead of using this valuable time toward training, people would rather sit at the computer for hours tearing down other martial artists that are in the real world working in their field and living their martial arts. It's not very aligned with Shaolin mindset.

When I was younger and training martial arts, the internet was still new and not such a huge distraction to everyone. Back then, a person would have to take a trip see the teacher, maybe take a class to see for yourself what he or she actually does, (some proud people might even try to challenge the teacher) then he or she could decide after this experience if they want to learn from them.

So I found it kind of sad that nobody ever tried to contact me and asked me for my credentials…and the person who started this post never came by the school or even tried a class as far as I know of...

I'm very busy I teach 7 days a week and still train every day. But I guess maybe I’m old- school, and people don’t want to actually visit a school or meet a teacher in person or try a class. So considering this is why I finally decided to take time out of my schedule that I very much do not have, in order to respond to these comments and put out the truth of my background to those who are apprehensive to take the first step and see for themselves.

I trained Shaolin kung fu under Master Shawn Liu, or many people call him by his Shaolin name now, Shi De Ru. Back then his school was the Liu Institute, later he changed the name to Shaolin Institute. He has 3 campuses now, back then it was only Mobile campus and New Orleans campus. Shi De Yang and De Ru are kung fu brothers and they are very close, you could say more like blood brothers… The first time I met De Yang was at one of De Ru tournaments in New Orleans in 1997. At the time I had several years of martial arts training in other style of kung fu. The more tournaments I competed in, the more I saw Shaolin gong fu, the more I fell in love with Shaolin and the more I wanted to learn true Shaolin.So not long after this 1997 tournament, I began to travel to find a teacher and 1999 I moved to Mobile, AL and started training with Shi De Ru at the Liu Institute.

Here is a picture of me, my kung fu brother, at the tournament in 1997 with Shi De Yang and Shi Yang Ming:


With Master Liu (De Ru) I was training every day 10-12 hours a day, sometimes even more… as ridiculous as that sound, and I am not exaggerating. Kung fu was my life, everything I did revolved around training. I even lived at the kung fu school in Mobile back then so that I could focus on training. Master Liu at that time was the US Sanda Team coach, and so he started training me for Sanda fights in addition to my training and competing in forms. After doing some fights in the US, Master Liu took me and some other fighters over to China to fight Sanda. This was back in 2001.

2001 was also the first time I went to Shaolin to train at De Yang’s school. My teacher De Ru wanted me to train kung fu with his kung fu brother, so after some Sanda fights, he left me at Master De Yang’s school for about 7 weeks. This was De Yang’s original school behind the temple; back in 2001 though, it was a hard time for Shaolin because of politics. People who lived in the temple community (what was then known as Shaolin village), including the kung fu schools, were being forced out into surrounding area around the temple, eventually to Deng Feng. So yes, I was actually in Shaolin during this time; while I was there training at the school, I witnessed people were moving their homes out of the temple area literally brick by brick. I remember holding a video camera for my teacher as he was interviewing the people leaving homes they lived in their entire lives. Later that year, Master De Yang would move his school out of the temple area and into an old primary school building he bought in Deng Feng.

In 2003 I went back to China. I fought Sanda during the first week in Shang dong,then went back to Master De Yang’ school (in Deng Feng) for kung fu training…I stayed at the school first for 3 weeks and then suddenly had to leave because of the SARS outbreak. I had a dual entry visa, so later that year, after the SARS scare died down, I went back for another 5 weeks to train kung fu.

Here is a picture of me during this 2003 China trip with my Shifu, De Yang, and Grandmaster Su Xi:


There's a lot of talk about discipleship in the previous posts, but I never said I was a disciple of Master De Yang, just that I have had the honor to train under him in both the US and in China because of his close relationship with my teacher…I am a disciple of Shaolin under Shi De Ru, who has been my Shifu for the last 20 years, The Shaolin name given to me by my Shifu is Shi Xing Sa.

While I’m proud to say that I fought and trained kung fu in China, I think what’s more important and meaningful is the number of quality hours of kung fu training and my personal relationship with my Shifu. When I was training under Master Liu/De Ru and living at the Liu Institute, I was either practicing, training for a sanda fight, teaching classes, or doing some other work for my teacher every single day for 6 and a half years. For 6 and a half years I helped my Shifu with anything he needed for the kung fu school. In 2005, I moved back to Tampa to open my own school, following the recommendation and receiving the blessing of my Shifu.

There is also talk in this forum about De Yang’s videos that maybe I claim to be De yang disciple because I watched his videos. (Again, considering that no one here has actually tried to contact me or my Shifu, this comment is pretty rude….) But the funny thing is I'm actually in one of those videos. During one of my trips to train at Master De Yang’s school he was doing some filming for his school and wanted to include some footage of the foreign students that were training with him. So here is the link.

https://youtu.be/jy61HVI3Nm8

I'm performing Da Hong Quan in the vcd 1 minutes 45 seconds in the intro for about 7 sec and about the comment about Da Hong Quan…I actually learned Da Hong Quan both from Master De Ru and at De Yang’s school. But I do this form the way my Shifu Master De Ru does it in order to honor him.

I understand that people want to find a good school and quality martial arts. I also don’t like when people claim to be a Shaolin disciple when they haven't put the time in the training or the passion. These days, anyone can go to a school in Deng Feng, give a big donation to a Shaolin master and he will make them a disciple. Maybe show up to China every once in a while, do a couple private lessons... People that become disciples in this way are simply title seekers, just looking to add something to their resume and brag about it….

But being a disciple of Shaolin should be earned because it deserves to be something of great responsibility. I am a disciple, like I said of Shi De Ru and I don't take it lightly. I have put in thousands upon thousands of hours of training and so I understand it's a long-term commitment. I haven’t just learned a few forms like a lot of people do. If you know anything about my teacher, De Ru, you’ll know that he was one of china greatest fighters, so he makes sure his students also know how to use the martial arts they are taught. I’ve fought in the sanda ring dozens and dozens of times. I also understand and teach my students Shaolin combat applications of the form, punching, kicks, elbows, throws, and joint locks. If you come to my school you will know. I have worked hard to build up my school for the last 13 years in order to bring true Shaolin martial arts to my community. I continue training and teaching every day of my life in order to keep both the Shaolin martial arts and attitude alive that was taught to me from my Shifu.