Brooklyn Monk Article

[Tak]

Originally posted by blooming lotus
you sure you dont mean enlightening????

I would say that enlightenment and depression are not mutually exclusive.

[GeneChing]

For most westerners, China has a huge culture shock factor. That really weighs in on everything, makes your really vulnerable, and is why neophytes should always travel with seasoned travellers. But that doesn't mean you should try to tackle Shaolin on your own. John, for example, after we had lunch, I knew he's was going to be alright. He told me of a few of his other trips and he really savored a somewhat exotic lunch that Mr. Wang took us both out to, so I knew he was 'seasoned' - what's more, I could tell he was open to the new experience. A lot of people react defensively to culture shock - they cling to their own culture - tresuring stuff like Coca cola, things they recognize. They there are the rest of us, who can't wait to try a can of Jackie Chan cola, and go out of our way to avoid stuff like western Coke. To each their own, I suppose.

Songshan, you'll get there, I daresay. And you'll have a fantastic time.

[richard sloan]

an interesting question that was posed- do you need to suffer the hardships to train Shaolin?

perhaps I am muddling the concept, but that seemed to me what someone was postulating. And to a certain degree, I would say yes most definitely. Sure you can learn Shaolin anywhere, as Gene suggested, but to have the real flavor, that knowing look that gets passed from people who know to people who know when they meet, people who have 'it,' and don't be confused- I'm not talking about ego stroking here- I'm talking about the essence of Shaolin, that which gives flavor to all the movements both physical and mental, yeah I think you need to come through the trials. You need to be hardened by eating bitter. There's a difference. By being always cold, by facing hardships and training anyway. Suffering basically. One thing that blew my mind in Shaolin was every morning thousands of kids would get up and train in concrete rubble. I know precious few people who would do that.

a comparison I fancy is it's like lifting free weights compared to universals.

I see it all the time in Negril. People go down there and get upset with a lizard in their room. I'm like, man...if you only knew...

I kind of like that sort of thing- it strips away all the bullsh!t we've layered on to living and makes life visceral. I once worked layering on that bullsh!t so to me it is easy to see, but if you lack that perspective you think you're not living an illusion as someone's revenue stream.

"animals..."

I don't think so. I think you have to look at what they were protecting. You see, this guy was leaving. He had that option, whereas they have only that life, which he has imagery of that portrayed it as sh!t. And what he didn't get is, their lives don't end once he's gone. So he stuck to his principals, bully for him...but who knows what those actions have made manifest now and who can define what worth really lies in his sticking to principals.

I just think there are a lot of different ways to play this and it's not easy to judge it so quickly.

[GeneChing]

We just posted John Greenhow's part two. Some people have commented that they think Antonio wrote his piece too quickly - John worte his on the road in China and although it concludes with him leaving Shaolin, he went back. Where are you now, John?

You'll also find a piece by Former monk Zhang Lipeng. MOre grist for the mill.

Anyway to address the 'do you have to go to Shaolin to train Shaolin? issue, you don't have to go, but it helps. I do think there is a point of safety where you're training in a stripmall school and going home to your nice cosy home, your hot meal and shower, a point where you might be too, shall I say suburbanized? It's not enough. It's worlds away from the Shaolin Temple experience. So I suppose that there are places of comfort where you might not be able to train Shaolin. Sort of like an icchantika in Chan - I could envision a state of such sensual comfort that you cannot progress. Man, I'd love to reach that state. Just kidding. And I don't mean this as a dig on stripmall schools - I train in a stripmall school now, right in between Cost Plus and Aaron Bros Art Store. My point is that it's all relative, all grey, but at some point, the grey is dark enough to call it black. And I might add that my own personal experiences at Shaolin make me treasure my strip mall school, with it's clean toilets and carpeting, good lighting and heating. It deepened the value of my practice there, and occassionally reminds me what a slacker I've become when it comes to Shaolin.

[Brooklyn Monk]

I finally figured out how to join the discussion.

[Brooklyn Monk]

Apparently my article surprised and shocked a lot of people. I grew up practicing martial arts since age 11. I started with Kung Fu and boxing, but gravitated more toward fighting at an early age. I am now 37 years old, and I have had nearly 2,000 matches either kicking, boxing, or both, on four continents. I don't claim to be an expert martial artist. But I am an authority about fighting.

I also feel I can comment on foreign cultures with some authority. I have lived abroad most of my adult life. I work as a full ime adventure travel author, and a key word search on my name would reveal any number of other adventures I had in China and elsewhere.

The forms I saw people doing at Shaolin were super human. I have never seen that kind of skill, not in Hon Kong, not Taiwan, not in the USA. In my book I said it was like living with the X-Men.

But as for fightin, they are light years behind us. The main reason being Shaolin is not a place to study fighting. Shaolin Kung Fu has nothing at all to do with fighting. The emphasis is on Biao Uen, (demonstration) and Tou Lu (forms) and the main priorities now are: getting tourist dollars, making money off the road show, and preparing for the 2008 Olympics. None of that involves fighting. Neither does being in the movies.

People play up the movie gods like they are real fighters. Every day, all I heard was Lee Shao Long, Chun Long, and Lee Lien Jay. Well, these gusy aren't fighters either. they are superior martial artists, who, when they have a stunt crew and Matrix special effects could beat up anyone. But in reality, they have probably never been in the ring, even once. And, a man like Bas Ruten or Frank Shamrock would kill them in an NHB fight.

At Shaolin I fought (sparred) about thirty times with the San Da team (kick boxing). Only the two instructors were able to beat me. The students couldn't. They were faster and more limber than me. They could kick higher. these are shaolin skills. But, they had never been hit with a five punch combination. They had never had an opponent drag them to the gound and mount them, pounding them into submission.

They had been taught that Shaolin martial art was invincible. They believed that they could actually kill a man with a single punch. it doesn't work that way in real life. If it did, the heavyweight champion would be Chinese. Miao Hai once did a shaolin punch so hard on me that it knocked me across the room and into the wall. I couldn't do that to someone. But what he had never been taught was that the fight doesnt end there. i got up, and beat the tar out of him. It takes them several minutes of meditation to throw that single punch. In real fightig there is no time for this.

When I was at Shaolin I met John Greenhorn at the internet cafe in Deng Feng and we had almost this exact discussion. It is recorded, word for word, in my book. We agreed that in Thailand people fight for money from age eight. In China they don't fight at all. It is that simple.

I stay away from the general martial arts community because I have trouble believing the smoke and mirrors. In taiwan I was the first foreigner ever on the Kung Fu team in Kaohsiung, the second largest city. My teammates in taiwan can all break boards with their hands, but they punch like a girl. In shaolin they could break bricks with their head. and yet when I did a head butt in a fight, they had never seen that before.

We, all of us, myself included, grew up dreaming that the Shaolin Temple was this special, holly place. I had a somewhat utopian view of the temple before I moved to taiwan. But I lived in Taiwan, studying Kung Fu, for nearly two years before going to shaolin. In that time I learned that true buddhism is very different from what happens at shaolin. the truest buddhists in taiwan often practice Tai Chi. but there isn't as much mix of hard style kung fu with buddhism. in China, religion was banned until just a few years go. Even now it is state controled. so you have to ask how religious these monks could possibly be if they have only been practicing a few years. most of the students weren't devout Buddhists either. They just wanted to learn kung fu, so they went through the motions of buddhism to fullfill a requirement.

The temple today is a way of making money. It is one of the most visited tourist attractions for domestic toursim in China.

A professinal fighting gym in the States is also a money making enterprise. But they admit that fact. I think my anger at shaolin was because I felt they were lying. They said that they were holly and special. But they were corrupt.

As for flithiness and dishonesty, this is well documented elsewhere. Henan is a sesspool. There was no running water and no showers. I have lived and worked in Guangdong and have written stoies in injiang. And, by far, Henan is the most pimitive place I have ever been. While I was at shaolin they demolished the village around the temple and installed the first flush toilets at the temple, they were even heated. But this was only in the tourist areas.

One reason why the shaolin myth is so hard to break is because there is a lot of faulty information out there. There aren't that many accounts, written by Westerners, of the actual temple. John is close enough that he is seeing the life in Deng Feng. so he has a good handle on things. But other, more positive accounts I have read were from people at Northern Shaolin Temple. Northern Shaolin Temple has nothing to do with Shaolin Temple. It is seveal hundred miles away. It is an artificial temple, opened about five years ago, and only caters to foreign students. It is owned by the chinese government, as a money making enterise, to bring in tourist dollars. yesterday i saw an account of someone claiming to be at shaolin. This person was actualy in the capitol of Henan, some four hours by bus, away from Shaolin.

People ask me if I would do it again. I say, without esitation, absolutely. It was an incredibel experience. Would I recommend it to others? I leave that up to others. As with most things, you will just have to go there, and see for yourself. I am going back to China in April. And will probably be sudying at another Temple in summer or fall of 2004. Now, I am off to Thailand, to live in a Muay Thai temple, and compare the eperiences of Taiwan, China, and Thailand.

[blooming lotus]

Originally posted by Brooklyn Monk
I finally figured out how to join the discussion.

LOL

DUDE i TOTALLY DISAGGREE ON SO MANY POINTS HERE BUT NOW HAVE NO TIME. i WILL WRITE SOMETHING OUT AND GET BACVK TO YOU. BY THE WAY, IF THEY SUCKED SO SERIOUSLY AND YOU WERE HONOURABLE TO SHAOLIN, WHY DIDNT YOU USE THAT "ENLIGHTMENT" TO TEACH THEM YOUR FORMS? yOUU DO HAVE IT OVER THEM IN YEARS OF EXPERIENCE.....BUT YOU CANT DENY THESE CRAZY FEATS...ITS BEEN OFFICIALLY DOCUMENTED AND ITS WHAT PERPETUATES SHAOLIN AND HAS FOR A LONG TIME.

[Scythefall]

I'm not sure what to make of the article. My Sifu has said that the Shaolin Temple is a wushu school and has all but abandoned traditional training. The temple exercises and such taught to the monks by DaMo, from Antonio and John's accounts, appear to be non-existant. Where is the internal?

Antonio's take on their fighting has to be taken with a grain of salt, because Antonio is 37 and quite seasoned. No doubt he is facing young opponents and that makes a difference. The ability to think through a fight only comes with age and experience. When and if these students escape the confines of the temple and wushu teams, they can no doubt spread their wings.

To give hope, I do like the Shaolin Overseas Temple in New York as well as other monks and former monks that have taken up roots in the US. Like I've mentioned before, the recent Shaolin special issue was invaluable to a Shaolin student because so much basic understanding was set across. By not having the ulterior motive of breeding students to sell to a Wushu team or whatever, they bring back the traditional curriculum. I see them teaching the Muscle-Tendon Change and internal arts in their curriculums and that's something special. These are the things my Sifu tells us to look for in a kung fu school, so I wonder if, in fact, the Shaolin utopia isn't right here in the US. We just need the focus and the courage to endure it. Time and money would certainly help so as not to be jobless and homeless.

[Brooklyn Monk]

You've all brought out good points. please don't misuderstand me. One: I was extremely impressed with their wu su. they really could jump and twsit and do crazy stuff I could never do.

the internal is not there, however. and this i can say because i speak chinese and i was asking questions and looking. but it wasn't there. or, it wasn't theer for many. there was a very cool guy from mexico that had been studying budhism in the temple for years.

so, the buddhism is there. you can find it. but you have to look. it is separate from the kung fu. and in the temple hierarchy the kung fu monks are much more powerful than the buddhist monks. this is because kung fu brings in more money.

as for the fighting. you are right. i am much, much older than they were so i had more experience. but what they learn in the temple is only wu su. the closest they came to fighting training was kicking pads. but they didn't learn any ring craft, or strategy.

[Tak]

Originally posted by GeneChing
Anyway to address the 'do you have to go to Shaolin to train Shaolin? issue, you don't have to go, but it helps. I do think there is a point of safety where you're training in a stripmall school and going home to your nice cosy home, your hot meal and shower, a point where you might be too, shall I say suburbanized? It's not enough. It's worlds away from the Shaolin Temple experience. So I suppose that there are places of comfort where you might not be able to train Shaolin. Sort of like an icchantika in Chan - I could envision a state of such sensual comfort that you cannot progress. Man, I'd love to reach that state. Just kidding. And I don't mean this as a dig on stripmall schools - I train in a stripmall school now, right in between Cost Plus and Aaron Bros Art Store. My point is that it's all relative, all grey, but at some point, the grey is dark enough to call it black. And I might add that my own personal experiences at Shaolin make me treasure my strip mall school, with it's clean toilets and carpeting, good lighting and heating. It deepened the value of my practice there, and occassionally reminds me what a slacker I've become when it comes to Shaolin. [/B]

It's nice to have the opportunity to escape the strip mall for a while. It will be several years before I could afford to visit China, assuming I will ever be able to do so. (And assuming I learn more mandarin than yi er san si, ko bu, bai bu, ...)

[rik]

Hi Brooklyn Monk,
Interesting post.

Here is my opinion.
Chinese Shaolin martial arts evolved over many centuries into a wholistic culture for dealing with violence and in of themselves are as much about combat as they are about health practice. This martial culture included traditional systems of preventive medicine and customs which are intimately bound to ethical and moral traditions. In spite what is being promoted, the present martial culture at Shaolin is not centuries old but less than two decades old. It is colored by the methodologies Mao’s vision over the past 50 years. . . and now also with the dark part of Western capitilism.


By putting the historical pieces together it is apparent that there has not been traditional training at Shaolin for close to a century.
Is Shaolin today traditional? Is it really about recovering and saving what little is left? Well it depends on what one calls tradition and even more on what one wants to believe. It reminds me of a story written in 1949, some of you might have read it, called "The Emperor's New Clothes." The PRC was one of the most bizarre, the largest, the best planned efforts to wipe out tradition in recorded history. In fact its a miracle that any traditional forms survived in China -which clearly some did. The traditional forms practiced at Shaolin were complied from research done during the past 15 odd years. The first efforts to reintroduce martial arts at Shaolin began sometime after 1982 and up to the late 80’s PRC Shaolin was largely made up of modern wushu. IMO the tradition there today is at best a collection of traditional martial arts forms from a variety of sources with a ‘best guess’ at what could have been traditional Shaolin. But that is where tradition stops at today’s Shaolin. The rest, including the recruiting, the massive schools, the shows, approach to training etc. etc. are all a modern experiment no different than The Great Leap Forward. The agenda is not just about money as some point out, it is very much about hegemony. We will wait and see what happens with this great-cultural-leap-forwards.

r.

[Scythefall]

Antonio,

Tell us a little more detail about the training you did while you were there? What were the exercises you did? What forms did you get to learn? I'm really curious about more than just the overall conditions you trained in. Give us some details when you get a chance.

Thanks,
Paul

[crazymaddrunk]

By putting the historical pieces together it is apparent that there has not been traditional training at Shaolin for close to a century.

I agree 100% with the above post (by rik).

That's why if you want to learn Shaolin kung fu and KNOW how to fight with it, you go with Shaolin-do....

[rik]

crazymaddrunk I think you misunderstand me. I think there is traditional martial arts at Shaolin. However with all the material that is written
about Shaolin little is done on the training methodologies, history and background of the individual schools. It would be useful to
have something more than "there are fraudulent schools" and there are "really traditional"
schools. I think a bit more transparency
would go a long way.

[Songshan]

It was nice to see that you posted to back up your Shaolin experience despite it's like getting thrown to the wolves who are going to flame you and your story. So it's nice to have you on board. With that being said lets get down to business

Since you gave a background on yourself let me give you a little of mine so you can have a little insight about me. I am and have been a police officer for 8 years. All 8 years were on street patrol (what we call a tire biter) and thats where I am currently. 8 years is not a lot compared to the average 10-15 year veteran but what I am trying to say is that I have been around the block a few times. As a police officer I too can be considered a "expert witness" when it comes to various things. This can include crimes, drugs, weapons, even possibly fighting. Yes, I had a martial arts background before I started studying Shaolin. I studied Karate for most of my teenage years. I was a martial arts enthusiast. I must say that throughout the years of studying martial arts I bounced from school to school mainly because I wasn't satisfied with the instructor and what I was learning. All this changed when I read an article in Gene's magazine about two Shaolin monks (Shi Xing Hao and Shi De Shan) who immigrated to Houston and opened a Shaolin School here. I dropped everything I was doing and drove to the school with the magazine in hand. The rest is history. Shi De Shan is very good in San Da so you may want to look him up if you ever come to Houston.

This is where I disagree with you. I have been studying with Shi Xing Hao for almost 4 years now. In my years of studying, Yes I learned the 18 basic postures, some wushu, some traditional forms even some wushu forms but most important of all I learned fighting techqniques. Shi Xing Hao in turn has taught me how to fight and educated me about Shaolin. Sifu has showed me a lot and given me a lot. It's one of my reasons for wanting to become a disciple to give something back (but thats another story). So I disagree with you that Shaolin is all wushu and demos. I have personally seen and experienced this. I didn't want to learn how to fight just to learn. To be quite honest with you I don't really like to fight. For me learning how to fight decided whether or not I am going home at the end of my shift at times. In my line of work learning how to fight decides if you live or die.

You have some points in your post, but I feel you just scratched the surface of Shaolin. It takes lots of practice and dedication
to truly reap the rewards and to understand what it's all about.
In just six months of training how much did you really intend to learn? Shaolin isn't for everybody but it is all that you make it out to be. What you put into it is what you get out of it. I am sorry but you sound like someone who went to Shaolin as a skeptic in the first place.