Health and Fitness

I am passionate about Shaolin not only as a martial art but also as a powerful tool to help people live longer, be happier, fitter, healthier. I am always looking for ways to help people master the Shaolin Arts and get closer so they can experience the real Shaolin. My aim is to take away any obstacles that may get in the way. This is why I make  books and DVDs. I hope that wherever you are in the world, you feel as if you are training in the temple alongside me.   When I first came to study at the Shaolin Temple I was confused by the different forms and training. I studied a myriad of different forms before I found the true jewels of the training. My training and experience means your time is not wasted. When you train with me you are being handed my twenty-five years of experience. I only teach what is relevant. Time is precious. I don't want to waste your time in learning something that isn't. This would be a waste of my time too. In accordance with the Temple of Zen, I aim...

Working Out The Mind & Body Before I came to the West I only knew what was taught in the four walls of the Shaolin Temple. I knew there were other martial arts outside of Kung Fu and Qigong but I had never seen them before. When I came to the London I was curious and went to many classes to study. I wasn't so much interested in the different techniques. I was interested in how the mind worked. Would the mind of a Muay Thai fighter work differently to a Sanda fighter? But the most important mind that we need to get to know is our own. It saddens me to think of the many people who workout without using their mind. At the temple, our training is always seen as a meditation. The mind and body work in a unique way and by using our workout as a meditation we infuse our self with a deep sense of spaciousness and peace. So next time you are running, swimming, weight lifting, practicing Qigong or doing a kung fu class either through a DVD or in a class, use my   seven laws to help you...

The world of Western traditional physical exercise is beginning to catch up with what  martial artists have known for thousands of years. Fitness is not just about burning calories and sweating. It’s about being healthy from the inside out and using breath and movement as a way to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves.  Research is revealing that this mind-body fitness not only keeps us healthy but also greatly helps to banish stress and is aids longevity. Planting the seed As martial artists, we trust that our final goal of conquering ourselves will be reached effortlessly. The goal is the seed. Through being in the moment and turning up for our martial art’s training sessions we carefully nurture that seed. When we are ready this seed becomes the goal we planted all of those years ago without us having to tinker with it or turn our thoughts to it. It’s almost like something we put away in a drawer and forgot about.  But training is not possible without some basic lev...

At the Shaolin Temple, once a disciple begins to study one of the seventy-two styles, they are given a specific Qigong and a specific recipe to make a body conditioning tincture. In the past, the monks used to lie in baths of these tinctures but today we apply this tincture to our body. After making up this tincture, the disciples then adapt it slightly and each disciple has his own recipe.   Mine is made from twenty-five natural herbs, roots and barks. Some of the herbs help the blood to flow, some help to strengthen the bones, others help the muscles to relax. This medicine can also be used for injuries, bruising, and some people say that it can be effective for repetitive strain injury though I have no experience of this so I don’t know if this is true. My own experience is in body conditioning. I used it when I was learning Shaolin Steel Jacket and I could never have endured this hard training without the aid of this special medicine. The first thing we do when we do body co...

Powerful strategies for optimzing your body and mind I believe that practicing martial arts or going through your life without practicing Qigong is like driving a car and never topping up the air in the tyres. The air is our Qi, it gets us places. Take the air out of the tyre and the car will go nowhere, take the air out of our bodies and we die. It is as simple as that. On a basic level Qi is breath, it flows where the blood flows, but on a deeper level it is the energy matrix of the body and when we do Shaolin Training we optimize it on daily basis to get the most out of ourselves. This is what the Shaolin Temple mean when they emphasise the importance of internal and external. The external is the kung fu , the things we can see, the internal is what is going on inside of us, and to optimize our energy we mix internal and external together. Shaolin Steel Jacket A good example of this is Shaolin Steel Jacket. In order for me to be able to do this, I have to have good stamina but I al...

“Bodhidharma travelled to the East to teach these two Yi Jin and Xi Sui classics. A bird like the crane is able to live long, an animal like the fox can be immortal, a human who cannot learn from these classics is worse than the birds and animals.” The Mind and Body of a Buddha Ee Jin Jing makes your muscles and tendons strong, flexible, fast and powerful while building up the health of your internal organs. Xi means wash and Sui means bone marrow.  Xi Sui  means clean your bone marrow. The aim of Xi Sui Gong is to detoxify the body and cleanse the unhealthy aspects of the mind. The highest aim is to help us reach enlightenment and give us the mind and body of a Buddha. But even if we can’t gain enlightenment in this lifetime, the least this Qi Gong can do is give us a long, healthy, and peaceful life. Connecting With Our True Nature  It is vitally important that we use our heart to train, not just our body. We can train as regularly and as hard as we like but if our hear...

The most famous Qigong forms that come from the Shaolin Temple in China are called Xi Sui Jing and Ee Jin Gong. Ee Jin purifies the muscles and tendons and Xi Sui purifies the bone marrow. Shaolin monks have trained in these two forms for thousands of years and they continue to train in these forms because they know that this Qigong enables them to be their best at kung fu. Two wings of a bird I am always emphasising how important it is to train in both Qigong and kung fu. Or internal and external. Even if you are not a martial artist, for good health and longevity you should train in Qigong. It is like the two wings of a bird. Qigong helps you to stretch better, kick better and punch better. Not only does it increase your speed, power, and stamina but it also increases your concentration and balances your mind and body. It gives you the strength and foundation to practice intense physical training without the fear of burn out. Qigong insures our internal organs work properly, only whe...

The Shaolin Temple have thirty-six internal techniques and thirty-six external techniques making a total of seventy-two different styles. When we talk about internal we don’t mean 100% internal, but a combination of internal and external with the focus more on the internal. It’s the same with the external techniques, the focus is more on external but internal still has its part to play. In this article I focus on Iron Leg.   This article is for information only and must not be used as a substitute for being taught by a qualified master. All of the Shaolin body conditioning techniques can damage a person’s body, they can not be learnt from a book or a DVD, and they must be approached with wisdom and caution. The Paradoxical Qualities of Iron Leg Iron Leg is one of the thirty-six external styles. Iron Leg needs to have flexibility, speed, power, and it also needs to be hard as well as soft. But how can a leg be soft and hard at the same time? This paradox is at the heart of every sin...

Extraordinary techniques for unleashing the power of the body and mind When we practice martial arts it’s vitally important that we train our minds as much as we train our bodies. We believe we are the boss of our minds but when our mind says it wants chocolate, even though we know we shouldn’t, the next thing we know we are eating a bar of chocolate. So who is in charge? We can’t blame it on the bar of chocolate can we? More than two thousand five hundred years ago, The Lord Buddha said, “It is our mind which makes the world.”         A positive mind has a positive impact on ourselves and in turn our family and friends and this trickles out to the world at large. I don’t know if there was chocolate in the Buddha’s time but I can guarantee that our mind was the same then as it is now. At the Shaolin Temple we use powerful techniques that have been passed to us directly from the Buddha to aid us in our martial art’s training. This doesn’t mean that...