Displaying the shaven head and orange robes of a Shaolin monk, representative of Shaolin Martial Arts with a hip gray hoodie tossed on top, Shi Yan Ming cuts a disconcerting image. That’s especially true when his hands start flashing mock gang signs as he crosses his arms, strikes a street-savvy hip-hop pose and pronounces, “Yo, yo, baby, check it out! Respect!”
Standing in his USA Shaolin Temple headquarters, located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and holding discourse on kung fu, Buddhism and life, Yan Ming is the ultimate juxtaposition of East and West, old and new, playful and profound — a yin-yang conundrum made flesh.
“The world is changing,” he says. “We’re in modern times.”
Although he’s a Chan Buddhist monk, Yan Ming doesn’t consider what he teaches to be Buddhist philosophy. Instead, he proclaims, “I teach global philosophy.”
Regional or global, it’s a philosophy that has roots in China’s Shaolin Temple, which Yan Ming, under his birth name Duan Gen Shan, entered in the late 1960s at age 5.
“I was very sick as a child,” he says. “My parents were Buddhists and believed the monks could save my life, so they brought me to the temple.”
TOUGH TIMES
That happened at the height of China’s Cultural Revolution, a time when the Red Guards, paramilitary troops loyal to Mao Zedong, ran roughshod across the country, doing their best to stamp out any remnants of pre-communist China — including Buddhism. Shaolin paid a heavy price.
Yan Ming recalls that it was a terrifying era when monks frequently had to abandon the temple to take temporary refuge outside because the Red Guards were passing through. The boy was accepted into the Buddhist community and given the name Shi Yan Ming. The relocation was an improvement in that he avoided the chaos of the countryside, but his new home was anything but a sanctuary.
Fleeing the temple for reasons of personal safety was not a new thing at Shaolin. Frequently in the past, monks were forced to leave the compound and live in nearby communities as laypeople. Often they would continue to practice kung fu and sometimes even teach it to locals. Most monks were quick to return to the temple once it was re-established.
It was from two such monks who had to take up residence in a nearby village that Yan Ming began learning kung fu. With few responsibilities other than studying Buddhism and performing daily chores, the youngster grew healthy — not a surprise when you learn that he was moving his body nine to 10 hours a day. It was a harsh lifestyle but one befitting a novice monk.
BOYS WILL BE BOYS
Yan Ming was one of the few children at Shaolin Temple at the time, a fact that forced him to find ways to entertain himself. The youth often resorted to playing pranks on other monks, including his kung fu teachers. “I’d do things like dig a hole in the ground and watch them fall into it,” he recalls with a touch of glee.
Despite the responses to his flights of whimsy — which included corporal punishment and being forced to hold a horse stance for hours — Yan Ming remembers these as good times. In fact, his recollections are so positive that he occasionally wishes he could revisit his childhood.
Life at Shaolin began to change, he says, in the early 1980s when a young wushu champ and budding movie star named Jet Li arrived to make the eponymous film The Shaolin Temple. Released in 1982, the movie was a seminal event in the history of the Chinese martial arts. Suddenly, young people from across the nation began making their way to the facility in hopes of becoming Shaolin monks.
Foreigners, too, rediscovered Shaolin and started planning pilgrimages.
The Chinese government was quick to take note. They rebuilt the temple so it could handle the increasing visitation. The Chinese arts in general and Shaolin Temple in particular became prime examples of cultural “soft power,” a way to present Chinese society in a positive light so the rest of the world could see.
By the early 1990s, the government of China had designated a group of Shaolin monks to serve as a demonstration team, then sent them overseas to display their kung fu to Western audiences. As part of that team, Yan Ming visited California in 1992 where, on the last leg of the tour, he decided to defect.
He now says he was motivated by a desire to introduce the Shaolin way, along with all the benefits it can bring, to the citizens of the West. But he also admits that he felt constricted by the many rules monks were expected to live by. Despite the fact that he’s wearing the robes of a full-fledged monk, that child who laughed when his elders would fall into holes is still there, yearning to be free.
MONK IN MANHATTAN
All that might seem odd, given that Yan Ming not only came to America, the epitome of consumerism, but also went on to open his own commercial temple in New York. To him, though, it’s just another example of a yin- yang duality, one he believes is necessary to embrace if a person wishes to live successfully in the modern world.
“When I left the Shaolin Temple, they had 250 rules for monks,” Yan Ming says. “Buddhist nuns had even more. But this is the 21st century — we have to be modern.”
The key to maintaining a balance between the old and the new, between the ideal and the practical, he says, is being honest with yourself and others, something that’s not always easy to do in the traditional martial arts. He says he’s had people come to him to learn kung fu with the expectation that it will enable them to fly through the air.
“I tell them, ‘You can do that, but you need a wire like they have in the movies,” he says.
IN DEMAND IN THE WEST
He may not be able to fly, but Yan Ming is still an authentic Shaolin monk capable of performing some impressive physical feats, which has led to his becoming something of a minor celebrity in America. He’s been featured in national television shows, and his reputation has attracted a number of famous students, from movie star Wesley Snipes to the kung fu aficionados who make up the Wu-Tang Clan. Quite comfort- able crossing over between genres, Yan Ming has even appeared in a short film/music video titled Shaolin Quest, from Wu-Tang’s RZA.
It’s from his association with the likes of RZA and fellow Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah that Yan Ming has acquired his unique Chinese-inflected, urban-jive patois: “Yo! Wu-Tang in da house. Peace!” Coming from a Shaolin monk, such utterances can’t help but bring a smile to the face of any listener.
“I learn from my students, just like they learn from me,” he says. “You can learn from anyone. Just be honest with yourself.”
Although schooled in the classical Chinese martial arts, Yan Ming is honest to a fault when he talks about what kung fu can and cannot do. He cites a recent incident of a tai chi practitioner proclaiming he could defeat a Chinese MMA fighter before being summarily grounded and pounded in a challenge match. The video of the fight, widely circulated on the internet, caused something of an existential crisis in traditional Chinese martial arts circles. However, Yan Ming sees it as a perfect example of the need for more candor in kung fu.
“Don’t lie to yourself,” he says. “Martial artists always act like there’s a secret, but real life is not like that.”
Sounding as if he’s taken a page from Bruce Lee’s book, he adds, “There are no styles in a fight. If you defend yourself, that’s your style. In a fight, don’t think about what style you do or what technique you use. Just hit him!”
ROOTS IN RELIGION
Yan Ming’s philosophy of fighting actually comes from schooling in his Chan, which is better-known in the West by its Japanese name Zen. It boils down to advising students to take action without unnecessary thought or analysis.
Although he offers a weekly Chan Buddhism class in addition to the standard kung fu training at his New York temple, Yan Ming says the stereotypical sitting meditation found in most Zen sects is not essential. Instead, he recommends what he calls “action meditation.”
“Mindfulness” has become a buzzword in pop-psychology circles in recent years, advocating a simple awareness, the notion of “being in the moment,” of focusing on whatever task is at hand rather than let- ting your concentration obsess on a myriad of distracting thoughts. Essentially, this would seem to be the core of action meditation: Be in the moment and completely focus on what you’re doing, whether that’s practicing kung fu or mowing the lawn.
“Everything is meditation,” Yan Ming says. “Chan means life.”
He also says that kung fu can be just as much a reflection of life as Buddhism and that people must extend themselves in kung fu just as in life. To emphasize his point about extending, he uses a hand to pull his leg straight up until his toes are over his head.
As he holds his foot aloft with perfect ease, Yan Ming points to the school slogan emblazoned on the side of his customized kung fu slippers. The words emphasize what he claims is the real — and the only — secret to success in martial arts: Train harder!
Shi Yan Ming’s website is usashaolintemple.com.