monks' physical fitness

[moondog]

i've seen several videos of shaolin monks doing forms and demos and although they do seem fit, they rarely have the physique that i've seen shi yan ming possess. didn't they all go through the same training? shouldn't they all be at least lean? i figure training 8 hours a day ought to burn something close to 3500 calories, no way can you gain weight training like that. just asking

[kungfudork]

if you look at one of the older shaolin books, you will see that shi yanming wasn't in the kind of shape he is now. his current physique is something he developed here in the US, where he has access to proper weight training apparatus. from what i remember when i was in shaolin , they only had one weight training station at the wushu quan and it was way outdated and rundown(i never saw anyone wasting their time on it). i must also add that physique isn't the most important part of shaolin training........being able to generate shaolin power isn't based in muscle mass. i hope this helps you out. definitley do not think that since they aren't as cut up as shi yanming that they don't posses amazing power and skill.

-kungfud0rk

[bhodi]

Yan Ming

Umm..... I don't think so KFD. Yan Ming has always been in amazing shape. I have looked at many many many older pictures of him and in none of him was his condition any less than what it is now. I also have never ever ever seen him lifting weights! Basically what you are saying is total nonsense. Yan Ming has always been in great shape and he still is and it has very little to do with proper weight training as i don't think he engages in much if he does at all.

He just trains ! Alot of them don't train the way he does! It is really just that simple. The ones who do are in great shape too.


PEace!

By the way I would love to see one of these pictures of Yan Ming that youa re talking about. Tell me the book and the page and I will check it out at the temple this weekend. If anything then coming to the US makes it easier for the monks to get out of shape not the other way around.

[kungfudork]

if you look at some of the pics in the book with him and goulin together he doesn't have as much mass as he does now. i never said he wasn't in great shape. he was in great shape before too. i didn't mean this in any disrespectful way. you can aslo see that yanming has a more defined physique now than he did in the video series he released years ago.........just look back at one of those.
you say alot of them don't train the way he does, some do some don't. my point was not to let moondog think that just because of yanming's physique that the monks he is seeing aren't skilled. i never meant to offend anyone.

i can't remember which book, all of mine are in texas and i'm outa state right now. it is the book with yanming doing snake pose, dog, i think a guandao pic, and a few pics of him and goulin together. check it out and compare those pics to some of the pics of yanming from his insided kungfu articles. i just feel he has more mass now........still in amazing shape like before, but more defined and bigger. i could be totally wrong, this is just my opinion. you act like saying he might lift weights is a bad thing....its not. in no way was i or am i trying to discredit yanming in anyway.........i get the feeling you took it that way, sorry.

respect to all,
kungfud0rk

[bhodi]

Misread

No problem KFD....I misread what you were saying a little bit. No offense taken. Peace!

[arhat]

pics can be deceiving...

...he's not really that massy...I think he weighs like 140lbs or so if I had to guess...but he's pretty ripped. I mean, he's got a twelve pack at least. When he is really tensed, like at the end of a punch, it's borderline ridiculous. I have some shots where I could swear you can trace a cut from his head right down to his waist...never saw anything like it really.

I don't know about the other monks too much, but it would appear to me most of them stop training as hard as they used to. Some of them are down right pudgy but I ain't mentioning any names, heh heh heh. As a point of interest, Wan Heng still trains- the other day he was in the back of the Vienna temple practicing caijiaos with the students there.

I know Sifu is always saying how nobody trains the way he did at Shaolin anymore. I guess standing around holding up giant 100lb jars on nail beds ain't the thing there...

Yan Ming trains every day. About 6 hours or more. I've never seen him lift weights. He does alot of stuff just on his own, head stand pushups, TONS of crunches and stuff like that.

I mean, check this pic out and look at the shit going on under his right arm. I never saw a cut like that.[IMG]http://[/IMG]

[arhat]

right pec

some strange stuff going on there.

In the pic at full rez you can see all the fibre striations...I mean it's weird...

[Shaolin Punchbag]

Does anybody know what the monks do for personal training in their spare time? At STUK we never see the monks training for themselves, but between them Yan Zi and Yan Lei are in better shape than pretty much anybody I've ever seen in my life. Especially Yan Lei, who seems to have a penchant for teaching classes wearing not much more than shorts. I swear that guy's body is 100% muscle.

http://www.shifuyanlei.co.uk/Pictures.htm

And there's practically no weightlifting equipment to be seen anywhere around the temple. I guess it just comes from training for something like 8 hours a day (although Yan Zi says he doesn't get in as much training these days as he used to in China, what with teaching, administrative work & all that)

[tetsumaru]

just lifting weights and working out isn't going to give you defined muscles. You have to have the right diet. Besides big muscles are just bigger targets!