There are no authentic Shaolin monks left. What you see now is just for the benefit of the tourists. The guy in the third clip is Hai-deng. He was a legit. traditional martial artist from Sichuan with skill in "one-finger chan." He was basically hired by the PRC to come be their first new "Abbot of Shaolin," playing as if he had been a Shaolin monk all his life. The PRC had to do this, because the reality is by the time they decided they wanted Shaolin monks to exist again, they couldn't find any. Hai Deng's martial skills were actually learned in Sichuan from lay martial artists. I heard by the end of his life he was disgusted with the whole thing, probably because at the new "Shaolin Temple," no one was doing any serious martial arts. I read he was also ashamed that while he was once able to do the one-finger handstand legitimately, the PRC apparently had him keep performing the skill by means of a hidden wire even after he had become too old to do so.
I went to the Nan Tien Buddhist temple in Wollongong (Aus) today. They were not Shaolin, but they do study martial arts (tai chi) and looked pretty good. I'd be curious to know which martial arts other non shaolin buddhist monks were studying.
There is no real martial arts left in China as it used to be before the DAMN CULTURAL REVOLUTION. All those days of glory and real skill are gone. :cry: There are still some masters left but outside China.
Not exactly right. There are a few good masters left in China, but they are mostly old, dying and upset that their students are lazy.
real skill what do you mean real skill? does it mean they can beat a mixed martial artist? the last kung fu person that tried that failed miserably. *coughs* jason delucia [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN6PvPCrStI"]Royce Gracie v.s. Jason Delucia - YouTube[/ame]
Losing a demonstration fight is not equal to failing at demonstrating fighting skill. In case you're just too ignorant, Jason Delucia became a pretty sucessful fighter in MMA circuits.
calm down. maybe he was good in stand up striking i don't know because i don't watch the organization he competed in.but from that video i can say his grappling skills were bad. maybe he crossed train in other styles when he was competing in mma? that could explain him being as you would say "pretty successful".
Don't worry about telling me to calm down, I'm perfectly calm. On the other hand, I tired of answering trolls. Here; check his Sherdog record: link He did crosstrain; everyone enjoying sucess in MMA circles needs to. Doesn't change the fact that your blind and ignorant kung fu bashing is simply baseless.
i'm not a troll. i was just curious if there were other kung fu martial artist competing with other styles. and about the link i think he might have cross train because the only chinese ma i can think of that has grappling is shuai jiao.
It's a common misconception that CMAs are just "striking styles." In fact, most if not all CMAs, especially Northern styles like Longfist and Taiji, have quite a lot of grappling. For ground grappling you may need to go to BJJ/Sambo, but for standup there's actually quite a lot.
I've heard some of these so called "monks" can use invectives and womanize with the best of them. Of course, you can't believe everything you hear. Master Po, where are you? We need guys like you. If all this is true, we might as well romanticize roughnecks with tire irons.
Yes, the Shui Hu Zhuan is full of references to lecherous, heavy drinking monks. However, that book was written about 600 years ago Don't mistakenly believe that the "meat eating buddhist" is by any means a new phenemenon.
The reason for "fighting monks" is that historically, if you joined a monastery, shaved your head and took on a Buddhist name, then the criminal justice system would not pursue you. So if you were a wanted bandit or a general on the losing side you could join a monastery and be pretty safe. This resulted in people with serious fighting experience and sometimes of questionable background joining monasteries. With all the free time they had as monks it's not surprising some of them used that time to practice martial arts. From what I've read of the historical Shaolin (i.e. not the new one built for tourists), whether or not to practice martial arts was completely optional. The most important thing was Chan/Zen Buddhism.
I'm getting mixed messages from many different forum posts. Some say "you don't want to fight a Shaolin monk...they destroy their opponents." Some say that Shaolin monks can't fight at all and that they are only performance wushu practicioners. My question is about a specific monk - Sif Shi Yan Ming. He teaches in New York and I am considering taking classes with him (www.usashaolintemple.com). I have heard from his students that he does not teach fighting and they do not do sparring, but that Sifu Yan Ming can fight and seriously injure an opponent. He also teaches Chi Kung classes and if you look at some of his videos, you can see that he has the Chi to bend spears on his neck, break concrete, etc. My question is- what do you think I can gain from the classes besides flexibility, stamina, etc?
I would say that if he does not teach you how to fight, personally I would look elsewhere for classes. What good is it if he has amazing fighting skills but is unwilling or unable to teach them?
