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Way of the Shaolin Temple As my car left the main road it was almost as if I was leaving the 21st Century entirely. The track narrowed and wound its way into the heart of rural England and I found myself surrounded by lush green fields and grazing livestock. As I drove further away from the hustle and bustle of daily life I noted the apt nature of the setting for Shaolin monk, Shifu Shi Yanzi’s residential weekend workshop. The tranquillity and stunning natural beauty of the Woldingham school generated an atmosphere of quiet endeavour that instantly conjured images of monks and temple retreats, in short the perfect setting. |
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“It’s very well structured, extremely hard work, and it’s good for all levels. It’s an excellent weekend.” - Chris |
| The choice of location said a lot about
Shi Yanzi’s attitude to teaching his art. Everything has to be correct,
a striving for perfection that epitomises his teaching methods and
personal self discipline. The advertisements for the course stated
that the weekend “will follow the real lifestyle and training of the
monks of the Songshan Shaolin Temple” and like the advert for a certain
wood varnish-the course did exactly what it said on the label.
This was no weekend at Butlins, with evening entertainment, and heavy boozing, justified under the heading of “bonding”, after a hard day’s training, this was an introduction to another world altogether. |
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| “My advice is to anyone who wants to experience good training, then Shifu is the man. His courses are excellent.” - Shaian | |
| The training was certainly hard, the most arduous and prolonged I had seen in many a year, but alcohol and smoking was forbidden, with roll call at 6.15 am each morning. The course was less about “bonding” and more about personal discovery, although the sixty students attending the weekend were a friendly, close-knit bunch. The underlying principles were those of discipline and hard work, and the training schedules had to be strictly followed, the rewards more simple joys such as swimming or resting (collapsing!) and reflecting in the picture perfect grounds. | |
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“Very hard but I’ve found out a lot of things about myself that I didn’t know. He keeps you going until he’s got the best out of you and more” - Terry |
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Shi Yanzi was, in Western terms, a contradictory character during the course of the day. Training sessions saw stern faced concentration and firm commands, as the students were pushed to their limits, Shifu’s insistence as demanding as the exercises. Free time saw a much gentler man, attentive and inter-active, occasionally breaking into a broad smile and easily accessible to all his students. Having previously conducted an extensive interview with Shi Yanzi, it was reassuring to see that he had remained true to the hard training principles that he had initiated on his arrival in this country, as reinforced by the gruelling sessions on this weekend course, but many of the students were familiar faces to me from that initial interview, their perseverance tribute to his teaching methods and character. “It’s difficult but you get a lot of benefits from it. Shifu inspires you to be good because he’s so very good.” - Tom Given that the weekend was based around authentic Shaolin training, I cast my mind back to that original interview and the fact that Shi Yanzi’s description of daily life involved a regular routine of hard, basic exercise. This was also at the core of the weekend, which was a consistent regime of basics, worked and built upon through repetitious line work that saw everyone bathed in sweat. Occasionally Shifu would interrupt proceedings with an impromptu discussion of technique that would include universal truths, simply spoken, and laced with gentle humour, all the time reinforcing the fact that there were no short cuts- perseverance, consistency and hard work the only way to reap rewards. |
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| “Wicked! It gives you an idea of how hard you should be training.” - Ben |  |
| When I arrived at the school the students
were returning from a run up the side of a very scenic, but very steeply
graded hill, and this was just the beginning of the 10.30 session.
The students had done this all before, at 6.30 to be precise, in the
shortest session of the day, which had been one and a half hours in
duration. At the front was what looked like a Japanese tourist, dressed
in a blue tracksuit, topped by a baseball cap, but looks were to be
deceiving, as this “tourist” stripped down to training gear to reveal
the pocket powerhouse Shi Yan Lei, Shaolin Temple disciple, Shi Yanzi’s
Kung Fu brother, and a relentless taskmaster. Once training was over,
however, the cap went back on, and just like Shifu a warmer, amiable
man emerged.
“It’s very unique, a great chance to practice with a monk because it’s very difficult to find teachers of his level. He has amazing ability.” - Frank The run was immediately followed by shuttle sprints and twenty minutes of rendai (stretching), before the class headed for one of the first class sports halls. Here the group was split into two according to ability, preparation students, or foundation and rooster. The rest of the session was devoted to basic San Shou training with continuous line and drill work, the complexity directly related to experience. The drills were very demanding and punctuated with deep and controlled squatting movements, stamina the key here. It was a full forty minutes before they started partner work, which came as a relief to many sweat drenched bodies, and this incorporated throws, punch and parry drills, and hand and feet drills. Finally the mats were brought out to allow techniques to be done at pace and to completion. The training could best be described with a bodybuilding analogy, namely that there are two types of bodybuilders. There are the cosmetic bodybuilders that train in a nice leisure centre with all the up to date machines and air conditioning, and then there’s the hard-core grunts, lifting free weights in a sparse house of pain, determined to be the best. Well Shifu Shi Yanzi’s training regime is most definitely hardcore and in keeping with the workshop aims-”to understand what would be required for them to participate in a future visit to the Songshan Shaolin Temple”. |
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| “I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s been fantastic and I’d come again.” - Karen |
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| During the course of the lesson Shi Yan
Lei barks out commands “quick, quick”, or “higher, higher” and is
such a tough taskmaster that at one point I genuinely wondered why
there are so many students on the weekend, but my question is answered
by the general standards. All clubs have some students that can’t
get as low stretching or as high kicking, and others that seem to
be naturally better at everything, but with Shi Yanzi’s students the
divide between the worst and best is a lot narrower, with virtually
everyone of a consistent standard. Again, the moment the lesson is
over, Shi Yan Lei is laughing and joking with the students as they
head off to shower before a welcome lunch break and it becomes clear
that Shi Yanzi has cultivated a loyal following through his own consistency
of approach.
The afternoon session followed the same arduous pattern; repetition of mind frame and action once more, and tiredness became a major factor, as the afternoon became early evening. The drills were relentless, punctuated with the commands “arms straight!” “Guard, guard!” but the lesson also proved the highlight of the day as Shi Yan Lei demonstrated his iron shirt kung fu for the class. Stripped to the waist, he displayed a superb physique that he systematically began to abuse with a very real and very heavy house-brick. He followed this with a wooden club and just when we felt his body couldn’t possibly take any more, a senior student was invited to come up and kick him, an invitation that was eagerly taken up. Throughout it all Shi Yan Lei does not so much as flinch and he received an ecstatic standing ovation. |
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“They take a long time building up the basics but it’s all about getting it right.” - Jude |
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Shi Yanzi was quick to use the demonstration as a learning tool, and to address the questions he gets asked most regularly by his students, namely “when can I learn this” or “when can I move on to that”. He pointed out that Shi Yan Lei’s iron shirt demonstration emphasised the dedication and determination necessary to develop. He explained that the syllabus was not to be treated as a hobby but as a serious endeavour and again took the opportunity to reinforce the character and patience necessary to one day perform similar feats to those displayed by his disciple. To emphasise his words the lesson continued, reinforcing and building on the lunchtime session, the basics still very much at the heart of the lesson plan. As I returned to the real world that evening I tried to put the day into perspective and felt that Shi Yanzi’s weekend had admirably reflected his principles and the work ethic of the Shaolin temple. The sessions were certainly hard, but the atmosphere cultivated by this extraordinary man, aided by the beautiful setting, was conducive to self-examination and reflection and Shi Yanzi’s non-compromising attitude is reaping dividends with a growing group of dedicated students, grateful to have authentic Shaolin culture brought into their life. With nightly video showings of the classic series “The Water Margin” as an added bonus, what more could you ask for from a working weekend? |
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