The shaolin workout : 28 days to transforming your body and soul the warrior's way

337 Pages·2006·11.79 MB·English

by  Ming

To my parents, who gave me life
and still watch my every step from above and
whose love I feel at every moment.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Kung Fu, the Way of the Warrior
Chapter 2: The Warrior’s Workout
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
Chapter 3: Train Farther!
Index
New Temple, New Life

Acknowledgments
This book came together as a result of the efforts of many people, to whom I
would like to send thanks: To Laurie Liss, agent extraordinaire, whose vision
this book was from the start, who is my kind of person because she just does it.
A superb practitioner of action meditation and a great friend as well.
To John Strausbaugh, my coauthor, who worked tirelessly and captured my
voice in a way that none other has and who went way, way, way above and
beyond the call of duty.
To Sophia Chang, the ultimate partner: in love, in life, in parenthood, in my
temple and life journey. The temple would not be what it is without her.
To my remarkable children, Jin Long and Jian Hong, who are my heart and
make life even more beautiful 8 days a week, 366 days a year.
To the RZA, my brother in this and many lifetimes, whose support,
friendship, and loyalty have helped bring me and the U.S.A. Shaolin Temple to
where we are today.
To Zachary Schisgal at Rodale, without whose belief in me this book would
not be what it is. To his team, Ellen Nygaard, Andrew Gelman, and Courtney
Conroy, whose dedication to this project is evident on every page.
To Heng Ching and Heng Zhong for making me look even more handsome!
Thousands and thousands of times over!
To my stellar U.S.A. Shaolin Temple demo team, who always makes me
look good.
To Heng Ji, Heng Suo, Heng Nai, Heng Zhi, Heng Xu, Heng De, Heng Fa,
Heng Yi, Heng Zhou, Xiao Tian, and everyone else who gave their time and
love to read through this book sentence by sentence, word by word.
To the Shaolin Temple in China and all my masters and brothers who helped
push me to this place.
To Buddha, for everything.
A special thanks to Jim Jarmusch, John Leguizamo, and the city we call
home, New York.

1. Kung Fu, the Way of the Warrior
Before I was born who was I?
After I am born who am I?
Respect yourself, everybody will respect you.
Understand yourself, everybody will understand you.
There are mirrors all around you, strive to see and understand yourself.
Strive to have the heart of a Buddha.
Stop doing bad things, only do good.
Do whatever you can to help others.
In these ways you help yourself.
Help yourself, and you help the world. Amituofo!
—Sifu Shi Yan Ming
In a typical loft space in Manhattan’s hip Greenwich Village, a not-so-typical
New Yorker is warming up. He is Sifu Shi Yan Ming, a 34th-generation warrior
monk hailing from China’s Shaolin Temple, birthplace of Chan Buddhism 1,500
years ago and mecca of all martial arts. Although he is not tall by American
standards, his almost impossibly trim body gives an impression of awesome
physical power even when he is simply tying the laces of his white training
sneakers. With his shaved head and his sternly chiseled good looks, he is the
very ideal of the legendary kung fu warrior.
As he begins to move, the impression is more than confirmed. When he
stretches his spine, bending forward from the hips and lowering his torso until he
can grip his ankles and touch the ground with the top of his head, he makes
folding himself in half like a wallet look effortless. Then he executes a series of
dazzling kicks, his feet flashing as though he’s about to kick a hole in the antique
tin ceiling 8 feet above his head. When he punches the air, his fists explode out
and back with blinding speed and what one imagines would be devastating force.
Then he leaps, and his entire body corkscrews in midair, as though he had ball
bearings in place of a lower spine.
bearings in place of a lower spine.
It’s an amazing display of strength, precision, lightning speed, and incredible
agility. He might even go on to break a stack of bricks with his head, slice a
stack of boards with his hand, or lean into the points of three spears with his
throat—his throat!—and bend the spears rather than be impaled.
Sifu is a world-renowned master of the martial arts. International action
movie stars like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, and Michelle Yeoh respectfully
address him as “Sifu”—typically translated into English as “Master.” So have
the thousands of students who have come to this loft space, the U.S.A. Shaolin
Temple, to train under him.
A young woman, one of his students, enters the space. Sifu pauses, his body
impeccably poised in front of a snarling-dragon mural on the Chinese-red wall.
There isn’t a dot of perspiration on him. He’s not even breathing heavily.
“Amituofo, Sifu!” she calls out.
“Amituofo!” he replies energetically.
Pronounced ah-mee-toh-foh, it is the name of one of the three Paradise
Buddhas, Amituo (“fo” signifies Buddha in Chinese). Saying his name is an
international greeting for Buddhists. It is said to show respect, and as a blessing
and a prayer. Buddhists chant it as an aid to meditation and often use it as a
replacement for common utterances like hello and good-bye, excuse me, and
thank you, as a way to stay always mindful of their spiritual lives.
“Merry Christmas!” Sifu then adds—even though it’s late spring.
The student smiles. “Happy New Year!” she replies.
The student smiles. “Happy New Year!” she replies.
It’s something else Sifu and his students say often, all year round. Even the
letter carrier responds with a laughing “Happy New Year!” when he drops off
the day’s mail. It’s one of Sifu’s ways of reminding everyone around him that
life is a beautiful gift, and we should celebrate it not just on a few special
holidays like Christmas and New Year’s, but every day, every hour, every
minute—“8 days a week,” he likes to say, “and 366 days a year.”
More students begin to gather in the space, piling out of the small elevator in
the front, or bounding up the three flights of narrow stairs in the back. The
temple lights up with smiles and laughter, with ringing cries of “Amituofo!” and
“Happy New Year!” as they hurry into their training uniforms. Twenty, 30, 40
students appear for this particular class.
They are male and female, of all sizes, shapes, ages, and ethnicities. They
come from all over New York City, from the Bronx to Brooklyn and Queens, or
travel in from Long Island and New Jersey. Like Sifu, some of them have come
to New York from other countries—Switzerland, India, Germany, Brazil, Korea,
Italy, Canada, and Austria, among others. Sifu’s students include college
students and professors, blue-collar and office workers, movie stars and rap
stars, business executives and retail salespeople, yoga instructors, a cop, a
doorman, a young Italian apprentice chef, an orchestral composer. Children from
as young as 3 to 14 also train at the temple, in their own afternoon classes.
For all their diverse backgrounds, Sifu’s students act nothing like strangers
who have dragged themselves to the typical gym for a routine class. Everyone
greets everyone else by name or nickname, and Sifu knows them all. Everyone is
happy and excited to be here. It feels like a large family gathering on a holiday,
with Sifu as its patriarch. “He’s like a father to us,” you often hear students say,