Crane Kung Fu Martial Arts

Kung Fu training in Shaolin Temple
Tom Carter

"Let's see your Tiger-Crane style match my Eagle claws!

Ah, the immortal words of dueling Shaolin warriors. Though dialog like this is mainly the stuff of low-budget Hong Kong movies, it is actually a place where such challenges are still out. No to death, of course, but between students at Shaolin If China's most famous Kung Fu temple.

Located atop the western edge of the sacred song Shan Mountain in northern Henan Province, Shaolin If 800 years has been destroyed and rebuilt time and again, weathering attacks by emperors, warlords , cultural revolutions, and now his most recurrent invaders - the modern tour group.

In fact, only the advent of the craze of the 1970s Kung Fu movie and the popular 1982 film "Shaolin Temple", has done a quantum leap annual tourism-like CGI from 200,000 to 2 million, prompting the Chinese government to list the temple as a protected heritage site.

But while the venerable temple gates see an almost endless stream of tourists who want a glimpse of a Shaolin monk from real life and a performance demonstration, a more permanent residence of Kung Fu enthusiasts exists in the hills nearby.

They are the son and daughters of Shaolin, young students who have abandoned the secular life to a strict regimen and forsaken conventional fitness programs. At Shaolin If the sword is really stronger than the pen.

Crouching Tigers

Kung Fu (Gungfu in Mandarin) was originally a Chan Buddhist practice with the dual purpose of purifying the soul and strength building through Zen spiritual doctrine and martial arts.

Shaolin priests complimented their monastic ways by harnessing their life force with meditation and releasing this energy, or Qi, through practical offense and defense maneuvers, traditionalists complain something has been diluted over the centuries for the thrill competition and the vanity of exhibition.

The opening to the outside of the temple began in the mid 16th century, when military officers of the Ming Dynasty court attended Shaolin monks to study the unique combat techniques. Resultingly, Kung Fu schools today have become big business.

The oldest and perhaps most visible school, the Wushu Institute at Tagou, is at the entrance of Shaolin If himself. A mountain may have more space for two tigers, says the old Chinese proverb, but the private management, Tagou has over ten thousand! The court is at a given moment a swarm of killer bees for students of all ages deftly demonstrating the fluid movement of forms, gravity-defying aerial attacks, an arsenal of weapons techniques and the brute force of striking and grappling .

Since it does not seem likely that the Republic will need for the future use of martial monks to defend the country against Raiders Wokou as in the old days, Kung Fu students of the new millennium will end common affairs (with a hell of a roundhouse), some will become police officers, and the percentile relegated to rent-a cop.

But in all eyes without fear their hope is that high juvenile, the desire to become the next Jet Li, China's "national treasure" who attended a training school of Kung Fu for 8 years and became a champion Wushu and five times the big screen sensation.

But that's life in a real Kung Fu school as glamorous as its on-screen personification?

Wudang Clan

A few miles from Shaolin cons If the calm waters of Song Shan reservoir, 11 years Shuiku martial arts school with only 200 students, may be small in size and reputation by its estimable red-su.