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If any of you find their training workouts too hard and are affraid of overtraining then please read the following. It's an old article I saved on my computer a while ago:

Training in Shaolin



Now to the most interesting contribution, because nobody knows what will be waiting, if he/she decides training Shaolin Kung Fu in Shaolin. In order to say it briefly: PAIN! You will torture yourself.



The Chinese begin training at a very early age. At the age of 4 - 10 years parents give their children to one of the numerous Kung Fu schools. The children's education lasts about 3 years in Shaolin. You must consider that the children see their parents only during official holidays (1 month every year). They have to be very independent at a very young age. The coaches "take care of" the kids every time and function as a mother replacement. But why are parents doing this to their own children?



Value of Shaolin Kung Fu training in China

This is question is quite simple to answer because in China there is a high unemployment ratio too. Learning Shaolin Kung Fu represents one of the highest and sounded education in China. The pupil who finishes successfully the final examinations in a Shaolin Kung Fu school, possesses the possibility to start a carreer in the south (rich) China as a policeman, in the army or is able to work as a bodygard (in every Mc Donalds there is at least one police officer) or sing and dance at the famous Beijing opera. Shaolin Kung Fu has a higher value than studying at an university.


The carrot and the stick!

Daily training starts at 05:30 o'clock in the morning, normally with a penetrating all over-sounding military siren. Minutes later a chaos on the courses of the school follows. Thousands of pupils urge to the training surfaces without having washed themselves. But why should they? In the toilets hundreds of pupils fight for a bit of gutter because nobody dares to appear too late to instruction lesson.



Each delay (and may it be only a minute) will be punished by the coaches mercilessly, i.e. stick blows, press-ups, etc. The coach possesses the absolute authority and has full freedom of action. Only he has the might whether (and how) pupils are punished or not. We do not know any coach who did not strike "his" children (Please consider that the kids begin shaolin wushu with 4 years!). However there are some coaches who exaggerate. We saw a coach - he was called "butcher" by the foreigners - who hit the kids with a huge stick until it broke (and I tell you, those sticks are very flexible). A special punishment consisted of forcing the pupils do the crab. A rice bowl was placed on their heads and if the bowl fell down they got some more hits and beats. On average the crab had to be accomplished half an hour (!!!!). For foreigners it is very hard watching helplessly crying small children each day, seeing their fearful eyes filled with tears. But nevertheless the punishment will be forgotten after the training and the coach is like mommy again. The entire training can be compared with military, i.e. the beginning of training with line and member up, speech of the coach and marching.



Morning

At the morning training from 05:45 o'clock to 07:30 o'clock mainly condition and high-speed strength are trained. First the musculature is warmed up by running. It is already an overwhelming picture if 15,000 pupils run in military formations through Shaolin. With a lot of middle sprints the high-speed strength is trained. While the foreigners run as fast as they can (and I can ensure you that we ran (like hell) on 100 m under 12 s!), but the coach runs with a long stick at your side smiling and spurs you on running much more faster and hitting your back too, if ones moves are too slowy (according to his opinion). A popular goal are the stairs to the Bodhidharma Cave consisting of 1000 stairs!!



The Shaolin monks run this distance each morning and their condition is gigantic. But only few stages are necessary to get the pupils sweating. Short sprints over 10 m stairs, limping on the left, right and both legs absolutely hard. Downwards every pupil must make press-ups, so the arms are trained too. After 1 3/4 h the training is over. The musculature is tired, arms and legs very heavy.



Breakfast

Now it is breakfast time and a lot of restaurants invite you for eating breakfast. This consists usually of Dou Fu Noir (Soybean), Ba Bao Jou (8 precious objects soup) and Yao Tiao (deep-fry paste). Also noodles and rice are eaten at breakfast. It is likely that the Chinese sip their soup and noodles and you have to do the same.


After breakfast: training

After short recovery the next training begins at 09:00 o'clock with a loose jogging, warming up and the high-speed strength training. But now primarily the stretching is being trained.



In contrast to German training the stretch is being trained not until pain arises, but far beyond pain. A popular exercise is the doing the split. The pupil is lying on his back and 2 other students hold his arms and legs and the coaches pushes with his whole body, in order to press the student doing the split (I could hardly move the next several days). According to this, there are a lot of such exercises. Another exercise consists of a student sitting down, pressing his sole in front of him together. A lot of people have some problems therefore another person stands on his knees and presses those down to the ground by his body weight. Everyone of us had to makeo the crab. This is very painful for untrained persons but in Shaolin the coach lifts you up and shakes your body... every pupil will have to cry out louldy and some days later you will have enormous back pain (but it seems to work). Arms, legs and all other muscles (which you did not know before) are stretched. Afterwards the basic elements of the Shaolin Kung Fu are taught: Leg movements, blocking, striking, stands. This part differs not too much from our well-known training, however the repetition rate is much higher. Because the students repeat the same techniques again and again and again and so highest perfection is obtained. Training ends at 11:30 o'clock.


Lunch

In one of the numerous restaurants or in the school it is possible to eat. There are numerous dishes but no menu. Thus you go into the kitchen, show something you like and the cook prepares a tasty, warm meal. Rice and noodles are the most important (and most inexpensive) food. Meat is expensive and you can one only dream of a steak. Rather the meat is cut into small pieces and mixed to the vegetables. Preferably tomatoes, potatoes and different vegetables are used. By the way there is no chance to order coffee or chocolate.

After noon we have some time to recover the maltreated body. On one of the numerous stone banks we can watch a lot of Chinese, but there is no time for relaxing. You are mostly surrounded by a cluster of Chinese and they want to talk to you or take some pcitures. If you want to rest this is not the place. In the school, on the road, even in the mountains there are Chinese looking for contact with foreigners.


Afternoon training

At 2:00 pm in the afternoon training begins again. This training is the most interesting one because new forms and weapons will be taught now. But also this training begins with a warming up training, with stretching and with basic techniques. These basic techniques are absolute necessary. The first form (every student has to learn this) in Shaolin is the Wu Bu Quan. This form consists of five different basic stands and is relatively simple to learn. With each form new stands, techniques and also acrobatic elements are inserted. The advanced Shaolin student learns the somersault forwards and backwards, the flic flac, the jumped cartwheel and a lot of other jumped techniques. The jump strength of the Chinese is gigantic and somersault appears for the audience as very simple (but I tell you, it isn't acutally!).



Due to their bodies foreigners have bigger problems learning these techniques.



Usually weapon training starts with long stick (gun) and followed by sword (dao). The mobile weapons are more difficult to learn and therefore they are taught to the older students. Mobile weapons are the 9-section whip (jiu jie bian), the three-section-stick (san jie gun), the two-section-stick (liang jie gun) and the whip (bian). Those weapons combined with fantastic acrobatic elements constitute the fascination of the Shaolin Kung Fu. Training ends at 6:00 pm.



End of training

After a arduous day it is worth to wash oneself for the first time.



Most schools do not have their own showers and so once a week they visit an external wash and shower room. It sounds awful but after a short time it doesn't matter. The dinner is the same like lunch. At 9:30 pm most of the students fall tired into bed because next morning the siren will sound again at 05:30 am.


Penalty Training

Some Chinese take an extra training from 8:00 pm to 9:30 pm but occasionally the entire group is forced due to bad achievements to an extra training. In regular intervals the achievement of each group is examined by the school master. During bad achievement the coach is requested to train the group more harder (and to punish them).


Remarks of training

Training is accomplished on 6 days a week. Each school has another day off (otherwise 15,000 pupils would have free at one time). The time of training vary from school to school and is depending on season. Please consider that training (with exception of some Chinese and some foreigners) take place outside on a stone-hard ground.



There is no light and in winter you will be running in nearly absolute darkness!!! All acrobatic elements are trained on the stone-hard ground with exception of some thin mats. Accidents, verse dipping, etc. are daily but it is not permitted to pupils to be ill. Even absolutely weakened or hobbled, they must participate at training. 1 month in the year, mostly in January or February is a month off.



Foreigners in Training

A lot of foreigners do not get over this hard training. Within one week the body has strong cramps and it revolts. Sometimes the cramps are so strong that you have no chance rising the stairs. Each step means pain and the body recovers only slowly. After the first month the pain eases, but during the next training months pain will still remain a little bit. During learning new techniques and weapons "new" muscles are stressed. Also effusion of blood cannot be avoided.

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Posted by: JoninNH

Sounds like fun...

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Posted by: Wolfman

But do they have to climb over a 5 foot wall?

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Posted by: Irish Wampanoag

I went through them same training when I was young!

It was called the Hot Dog and Pepsi training.

I was skinny as a rail but could always woof down ice cream, cake, soda, pop rocks, tootsie rolls, kool aid and still never gain any weight. We would play baseball all day long until the street lights came on. When the ball would go over Mr. Smiths 8 foot fence we could always jump it eventhough we weighed 75lbs in fact we could hurl the fence with spikes on top and make it back over with in 12 seconds so cranky old Mr. Smith would not see us.

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Posted by: JoninNH

... but I bet the PAT really kicked your ass, huh? (only kidding of course)

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