Shi De Yang wushu guan

[mad4dos]

Oh, my aching ears. How do you turn the music off : (

you can shut it up ...

right click on the video (near the top left hand side ...
and click on play to stop it!

mad4dos

[bih]

Very political answer Doc. I see what you are saying and to tell you the truth I had something similar in mind. The only problem is, if I stay in deyang’s school I cant spend time with decheng as I am not paying him and vice versa.

Ok I will leave this thread open for further discussion on deyang’s wushu guan from people who know about it or have trained there. I am sure more up to date information we get will help a lot of people.

[doc]

You're going to learn just as well from either one of them. The problem is not their teaching abilities or their knowledge. The problem is access.

Both travel quite a bit. Both are busy with various things in their life, albeit Deyang tends to focus less on teaching and more on his various other responsibilities and pursuits. Actually getting time to spend with them is the issue.

Since they are both different individuals with different methods of teaching, and different focuses on teaching, I would suggest spending time with whichever one was most available during your potential stay in China. And, even better, try to split up your time between the two.

But regardless of where you end up training, it will be a worthwhile experience. Just do it.

[LFJ]

Now, if you read the credits at the end of that video, you may see my name.

i saw it, doc. good for you!

Well, I don't know how this story ends. I have not been to China since the Discovery Channel shoot.

i was there just after. master deyang was in good spirits and he was training. seemed very strong to me. but at that time there were only a couple foreign students. as i've been hearing from him this year, there has been more foreign students. even coming in groups and he has been training them. i will be back there in a couple weeks until the first week in july when he leaves china again. i can report back on the current situation, but it sounds like there has been an improvement despite funding difficulties. but healthwise, he seems 100%.

His skills and knowlege are tremendous, though he does not have the encyclopedic knowlege of gong fu that Decheng does.

what makes you say that? both of them seem like walking encyclopedias to me. and to be transcriber of the ancient texts you'd have to be.

but one thing i noticed was that decheng does his forms differently than deding, who he initially trained with before discipleship under suyun. then he does xiaohongquan differently than suyun too. but deyang kept pretty consistent through the years. from the old documentary videos of him doing xiaoluohanquan, or suyun going over xiaohongquan with him. thats how he still does them today- exactly.

but decheng's is different. i havent seen him do forms more than one way, but its different from his teachers- which always confused me because you said he's a traditionalist and always kept the forms exactly as suyun had taught them to him. i can post videos of them to illustrate.

You may never get an opportunity like this again.

not "may". its definite.

[bih]

Thanks for your timely reply doc (I am sure you were busy so it’s ok).

I do understand that DeYang is a busy guy and that most often I will be taught by his disciples (I was told, by his school, that all the coaches are DeYang’s actual disciples). I have no problem with this as, I am guessing, these guys have to be really good to be his disciples.
I was under the imprison that DeYang’s school is more traditionally but Doc seems to suggest otherwise. Since DeYang is a traditional guy I am sure his disciples are trained in traditional gung fu. On the other hand, if local students want to learn wushu so be it but if other request traditional forms only, I guess they will be though traditional forms (I was told that I can learn what I want and I don’t need to follow any strict curriculum. Maybe that’s what you had in mind when you said “You may not learn as much traditional gong fu as you think you might.”).
Still, I am interested in learning only traditional hand forms with proper application. The exact number of form I can learn is not relevant as I prefer quality over quantity. If I learn good gong fu with good understanding of applications I am not really interested in who teaches me as long as I learn it properly.

With this in mind, I want your honest opinion. Who would be a better match for me, DeYang or DeCheng?



PS. Try not to be prejudiced since DeCheng is you teacher but be brutally honest.

[blooming tianshi lotus]

What an amazing story!!

I was near to tears through a great deal of that, so thank you.

I think you'll remember that around the time of that national geo documentary that we didn't turn up for for other buddhist kosher reasons, that I personally did alOt of begging on behalf for ppl to support to Shi De Yang and his school financially if they had a few dollars they could spare. the winters are just so cold out there and at those hrs of day and night, and in that type of facility, where they may or may not even have warm bedding / water and power, at 5 -6 -8 x value for every western dollar, a little really does go a very long way between so so many students working so hard on so little..


I think we've all taken the biiigest blow to our healths of our lives ( over and over again) in living for this in recent years. it's been a quickening's pace.
I dont think most ppl understand just how rare of an opportunity it really is to study with somebody with like that and what the difference truly is , until they get there... some of us have lived thereabouts like that for yrs and not just a few weeks visit here and there. I highly recommend the long course. .
and while I dont neccessarily agree that there aren't ppl around who are ready to assume the same type of precepts in and in interaction with the world, I do whole heartedly acknowledge that it is not an experience that most ppl are likely to find anywhere else.


I'm not sure what else to say, but if you can go there , do! and if you can't, any and all donations will be appreciated and well distributed to keep our art and heritage alive and can be sent via wang yu min @ Deng Feng CITS, email : wangyumin88@hotmail.com


amitoufo.

Blooming tianshi lotus.

[doc]

I have been refraining from answering this question for one reason.

I did not want to undo what I may have done.

OK, that doesn't make any sense. Let's look at some Shi De Yang history. Maybe you'll understand what I'm saying, after knowing the history.


I first met him back in 1997, back when he was, shall we say, one of the leading competitors for the abbocy of Shaolin. There were basically two camps in Shaolin back then, a small one that supported Yongxin, and a larger one that supported Deyang. What caused that, and what happened thereafter, I've discussed to some degree elsewhere in this site.

Deyang started a relatively successful school right behind Shaolin towards the end of the 1990's. He had many domestic students, and the occasional foreign one. At that time, he did, from time to time, train foreign students personally. His focus however, was more towards being headmaster, and, in some regards, a spiritual leader of sorts in Shaolin. He did not teach foreigners as extensively as, let's say, Decheng. Deyang had a different focus on things, and his responsibilities to the temple itself were taking a lot of his time, as did his travels throughout China to other temples.

The Yongxin ascension brought a lot of changes in Deyang's life. He was framed in this bullshit explosives deal by Yongxin; it was an apparent attempt to discredit Deyang so that Yongxin could take over the abbocy unimpeded. I had met Deyang right after he was released from prison; again, a story that I've written about years ago, in this site. I won't get into it here again. Deyang's school had been demolished, and his students were gone. Another thing he had lost, was his health. Xinghong's group of students in Hungary had welcomed him like a patron saint from time to time, but Deyang's student base had dwindled. He started spending more and more time traveling to other temples. He even considered leaving Shaolin, to start a new life in another country. I had offered him the opportunity to come to America with me, but he had declined, as I think, deep down, his heart was with Shaolin. The tension between him and Yongxin was considerable, and Deyang's existance at Shaolin was in ever present danger.

He eventually opened a new school, in an old run down factory, on the outskirts of Dengfeng. Initially, his school was a success with domestic Chinese kids to some degree, but financially, it really did not do as well as he needed it to. The school facility itself was basically in ruins; I shuddered to go there. And, Deyang's health was also not good. He had some issues with his heart, something which I had noticed on my frequent journeys to Shaolin. I had always visited with him on my trips, though we had never trained together (I always trained with Decheng).

It was a few years back, I can't remember the dates exactly, but I had been contacted by National Geographic magazine to help the world famous photographer, Steve McCurry, with a photo shoot in Shaollin. Nat Geo was doing a large December issue (2004?) on Shaolin, and they needed help organizing it. The author of the article had found me somehow, and had become fascinated with my interaction with Shaolin, especialy with respect to Decheng. Upon meeting all of us, he decided to focus his article, and his book, partly on Decheng's and my relationship. During those two weeks, I made the effort to introduce the Nat Geo team to Deyang, and convinced McCurry to shoot a photo session with Deyang. I thought that the exposure would help him in some way.

It was a bit of a disaster. It had all worked out well with respect to Decheng and I, and the photo shoot was a success, as was the article and subsequent book. (Thousands of photos were taken; ironically only one photo was used in the Spanish edition of Nat Geo that month, and it was the photo that I shot of McCurry with Heng Jun and Decheng at Da Fa Wen Si, one of the places I had organized for McCurry). The photo shoot of Deyang did not go well. His balance was off, and he was visibly ill. He had been sick for a few years, and he had still not fully recovered. His school, basically, was a shambles, both physically and student base wise. He had a few domestic Chinese, and the occasional foreigner.

With time, he rebuilt hsi strength, and with that, his school rebuilt. He started traveling more to Italy and other European countries, and occasionally visited Deru in the US. He had a small but significant foreign student base in some parts of Europe; not as much as Decheng, but still, a small loyal following. It was not enough to support his school in China, which was slowly starting to recover, domestic Chinese student wise.

Come 2007, a production team for the Discovery Channel contacted me. Well, they had contacted Matt Polly initially, who told them to contact Gene Ching, who basically told them to contact me. I spent the next month discussing the production with the team by phone in February, and in March, met them at Shaolin for a period of about ten days. Their initial plan was to go to the Shaolin area with a list of schools that they had found on the internet. They were going to "walk into" these schools, find someone that spoke English, and try to set up some sort of photo shoot. I knew that wouldn't work, so I set things up for them. I convinced Decheng and Deyang to help out; both had been a little hesitant, considering some bad experiences that they had had with videotaping and other productions in the past. I set up the locations, engaging Deyang's help to get the famed, off limits, Da Fa Wen Si temple. I knew what this production team wanted; a contrast between two different types of teachers in two different types of locations. Putting one of the Fight Quest kids with amiable Decheng in his city location school, and the other with the more stern and tough Deyang up at Da Fa Wen Si, would be a perfect contrast. I even found the Chinese kid that did the English speaking announcements during the shoot. I set it all up for them, got everything arranged, made my suggestions, and left. They returned two months later, shot the thing as it was set up, and ended up creating a masterpiece. It was one of their best Fight Quest shows.

Now, if you read the credits at the end of that video, you may see my name. It's right underneath the more prominent "Gene Ching, Associate Producer..." and "Matthew Polly". If you don't read fast enough, you won't see it. Ah, such are the benefits of helping television production people.... I did get a recurrence of a H. Pylori infection during my stay in China, which plagued me for about nine months, triggering thousands of dollars in hospital bills and which caused a lot of undue concern. Oh, and a t shirt, I got a t shirt. But it was fun, and I thought it had accomplished my main goal. I had wanted to make sure the Discovery Channel got its successful show. But, I was also more interested in making sure that Decheng and Deyang were "taken care of". Both were struggling financially with their schools. Both had international recognition which helped support their financially insecure domestic programs. But neither were really moving forward all that well. I knew that exposing them to the forty million plus Fight Quest viewers on television just might change that.


Well, I don't know how this story ends. I have not been to China since the Discovery Channel shoot. As I've said, I've been ill. I've been busy. And finding time to train at Shaolin, has been difficult. I know that Decheng is doing well, but I have not been in touch with Deyang. I hope that he finds the success that he deserves.I hope that he has gotten a boost from this television exposure, which brings him more foreign students, more foreign money, and therefore, more finances to improve the quality of his school. Improving the quality of his school will bring more students, which then starts a self feeding cycle. Deyang needed a boost; I hope the Fight Quest show did if for him.

As for training with him, my opinions are based on everything I know about him and his school before the Discovery Channel epic. His skills and knowlege are tremendous, though he does not have the encyclopedic knowlege of gong fu that Decheng does. He is a much more difficult teacher to deal with at times, because he can be a tougher cookie. He also does not spend as much time "one on one" as some of the other guys, teaching foreigners. Let's face it, he's a busy man, between his new responsibilities at Shaolin (he and Yongxin have an improved relationship), his responsibilities with other temples, and the occasional overseas teaching trip. If you go to his school, more than likely you will not spend much time, if any, training directly with him. I am sure that his coaches, who you would spend time with, are more than competent, and would do a great job of teaching you modern gong fu.

Be forewarned. A few years back, when his school was doing well with the domestic Chinese, he had some television footage show made with his school. They also put on a performance for me, which I videotaped, and put on this site (now where is it...). The focus was on modern wushu, and not traditional gong fu. In my mind, it was a significant change, but, the schools have to do what they have to do to survive in this new competitive environment of China. You may not learn as much traditional gong fu as you think you might.

Also, as of March 2007, the school facility itself was a disaster. It's an old factory, that, because of limited to no funds, is filthy, old, and fairly uninhabitable. Don't expect a great place to live. But, then again, you're going to train, not enjoy. Just be aware that it's not the nicest facility to live in. Hopefully, with an increase of students and influx of money, they'll be able to improve the quality of the place, if they have not already.



And, remember something. Deyang, and Decheng, are of a generation that will not be seen again. They learned from real Buddhist masters, and they actually grew up and lived in the temple proper. their "focus" was, and is, different. They are not anything near the current "peasants who become gong fu students who wear orange robes". The current batch know less of Buddhism than I, and that's not saying much. They grow up in various outlying schools to become performers, in an effort to escape a life of destitution. The days of "monks", in my opinion, have come and gone. Decheng and Deyang (Hengjun, etc) are of a breed which is disappearing; if you have the opportunity to spend time with them, you should.

You may never get an opportunity like this again.

[WusengHoubeidui]

It seems there are more interested people but we are still not getting any feedback from the more regular, more informed members. Can we get some wisdom here.

Hi bih:

To answer your original questions: Sure, Traditional Shaolin Wushu, Qigong, and Chan Buddhism will definitely be available. Extended periods are also possible. Information on the website: http://www.shaolindeyang.com

Each year Master Shi Deyang travels for some time teaching in Europe where he is well-known. So he has much experience teaching foreign students. Now we are welcoming more foreign students to our school in China!

He may be available to teach directly when he is in China. Otherwise classes are run by the coaches who are very competent personal disciples of Master Shi Deyang. They have trained for many years directly with him.

There is also video overview of the school in the Video / Library section of this site. Have a look.

Welcome any questions!

[WusengHoubeidui]

Seriously; how do you turn the music off?

Out of curiosity; does Shi De Yang have any foreign students who study mainly Buddhism through him?

Hi,

On the website you can right click the Shaolin Temple video and click 'play' which will stop it if it is playing.

Master Shi Deyang does have such students. The school courses are divided into disciplines of your choice. So it is up to you. There is Traditional Shaolin Wushu, Modern Wushu, Sanda, Qigong, and Chan Buddhism. You can study more than one at a time too.

Welcome to study all with us! Ask any questions!

http://www.shaolindeyang.com/

If you would like to train with us in Dengfeng, China, either individually or in a group contact me for assistance or use one of the e-mail addresses on the website. Thank you!

reserveteam(at)sohu(dot)com

[blooming tianshi lotus]

Seriously; how do you turn the music off?

Out of curiosity; does Shi De Yang have any foreign students who study mainly Buddhism through him?

See that little speaker looking thing in the bottom right hand corner, near where your msn sign in icon is???... you can click that, and manipulate the volume that comes out of your computer. I only just recently found it myself . It's a great button . .

Blooming tianshi lotus.

[dogchow108]

Seriously; how do you turn the music off?

Out of curiosity; does Shi De Yang have any foreign students who study mainly Buddhism through him?

[bih]

It seems there are more interested people but we are still not getting any feedback from the more regular, more informed members. Can we get some wisdom here.

[dogchow108]

Oh, my aching ears. How do you turn the music off : (

[WusengHoubeidui]

Hi bih,

I have just registered in hopes to find people like you. I was going to start a thread of my own to introduce the Master Shi Deyang's school. We are very much interested in bringing more foreign students to the school. If you are genuinely interested please contact me and I will assist your arrival, lodging and training!

Master Shi Deyang has much experience teaching foreign students. Each year he often spends time teaching in Europe. These few days Master Shi Deyang has been teaching a group that came to China from France.

Please have a look at our school's website at http://www.shaolindeyang.com/

If you have questions feel free to ask them here, in PM, or contact me directly at reserveteam(at)sohu(dot)com. There is also contact information on the website.

Thank you for your interest and I hope you will come train with us!

[bih]

Does anyone know anything about Shi De Yang’s wushu guan. How good is he with training foreigners. Perhaps Doc can give me some insider info since he is their man but other people with some knowledge can also contribute.
I have 4 years experience in kung fu and I was planning in staying there for one year (going there for a month to suss out the place is not an option). I want to learn only traditional kung fu, qi gong and Buddhism. All this being said my reason for going there is to get some new experience and to engage in some hard core kung fu training. The kung fu I was doing here was not bad but the sifu was more into money that teaching so I decided that it was time to end it. Reading the site I have noticed that the situation in shaolin is no different. That is why I am asking you guys, since you know the ropes better than me, given the current situation in shaolin would I be able to accomplish what I wanted in Shi De Yang’s school.