Ming - The shaolin workout : 28 days to transforming your body and soul the warriors way

Acknowledgments

This book came together as a result of the efforts of many people, to whom I would like to send thanks:

To Laurie Liss, agent extraordinaire, whose vision this book was from the start, who is my kind of person because she just does it. A superb practitioner of action meditation and a great friend as well.

To John Strausbaugh, my coauthor, who worked tirelessly and captured my voice in a way that none other has and who went way, way, way above and beyond the call of duty.

To Sophia Chang, the ultimate partner: in love, in life, in parenthood, in my temple and life journey. The temple would not be what it is without her.

To my remarkable children, Jin Long and Jian Hong, who are my heart and make life even more beautiful 8 days a week, 366 days a year.

To the RZA, my brother in this and many lifetimes, whose support, friendship, and loyalty have helped bring me and the U.S.A. Shaolin Temple to where we are today.

To Zachary Schisgal at Rodale, without whose belief in me this book would not be what it is. To his team, Ellen Nygaard, Andrew Gelman, and Courtney Conroy, whose dedication to this project is evident on every page.

To Heng Ching and Heng Zhong for making me look even more handsome! Thousands and thousands of times over!

To my stellar U.S.A. Shaolin Temple demo team, who always makes me look good.

To Heng Ji, Heng Suo, Heng Nai, Heng Zhi, Heng Xu, Heng De, Heng Fa, Heng Yi, Heng Zhou, Xiao Tian, and everyone else who gave their time and love to read through this book sentence by sentence, word by word.

To the Shaolin Temple in China and all my masters and brothers who helped push me to this place.

To Buddha, for everything.

A special thanks to Jim Jarmusch, John Leguizamo, and the city we call home, New York.

Before I was born who was I?

After I am born who am I?

Respect yourself, everybody will respect you.

Understand yourself, everybody will understand you.

There are mirrors all around you, strive to see and understand yourself.

Strive to have the heart of a Buddha.

Stop doing bad things, only do good.

Do whatever you can to help others.

In these ways you help yourself.

Help yourself, and you help the world. Amituofo!

Sifu Shi Yan Ming

In a typical loft space in Manhattans hip Greenwich Village, a not-so-typical New Yorker is warming up. He is Sifu Shi Yan Ming, a 34th-generation warrior monk hailing from Chinas Shaolin Temple, birthplace of Chan Buddhism 1,500 years ago and mecca of all martial arts. Although he is not tall by American standards, his almost impossibly trim body gives an impression of awesome physical power even when he is simply tying the laces of his white training sneakers. With his shaved head and his sternly chiseled good looks, he is the very ideal of the legendary kung fu warrior.

As he begins to move, the impression is more than confirmed. When he stretches his spine, bending forward from the hips and lowering his torso until he can grip his ankles and touch the ground with the top of his head, he makes folding himself in half like a wallet look effortless. Then he executes a series of dazzling kicks, his feet flashing as though hes about to kick a hole in the antique tin ceiling 8 feet above his head. When he punches the air, his fists explode out and back with blinding speed and what one imagines would be devastating force. Then he leaps, and his entire body corkscrews in midair, as though he had ball bearings in place of a lower spine.

Its an amazing display of strength, precision, lightning speed, and incredible agility. He might even go on to break a stack of bricks with his head, slice a stack of boards with his hand, or lean into the points of three spears with his throathis throat!and bend the spears rather than be impaled.

Sifu is a world-renowned master of the martial arts. International action movie stars like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, and Michelle Yeoh respectfully address him as Sifutypically translated into English as Master. So have the thousands of students who have come to this loft space, the U.S.A. Shaolin Temple, to train under him.

A young woman, one of his students, enters the space. Sifu pauses, his body impeccably poised in front of a snarling-dragon mural on the Chinese-red wall. There isnt a dot of perspiration on him. Hes not even breathing heavily.

Amituofo, Sifu! she calls out.

Amituofo! he replies energetically.

Pronounced ah-mee-toh-foh, it is the name of one of the three Paradise Buddhas, Amituo (fo signifies Buddha in Chinese). Saying his name is an international greeting for Buddhists. It is said to show respect, and as a blessing and a prayer. Buddhists chant it as an aid to meditation and often use it as a replacement for common utterances like hello and good-bye,excuse me, and thank you, as a way to stay always mindful of their spiritual lives.

Merry Christmas! Sifu then addseven though its late spring.

The student smiles. Happy New Year! she replies.

Its something else Sifu and his students say often, all year round. Even the letter carrier responds with a laughing Happy New Year! when he drops off the days mail. Its one of Sifus ways of reminding everyone around him that life is a beautiful gift, and we should celebrate it not just on a few special holidays like Christmas and New Years, but every day, every hour, every minute8 days a week, he likes to say, and 366 days a year.

More students begin to gather in the space, piling out of the small elevator in the front, or bounding up the three flights of narrow stairs in the back. The temple lights up with smiles and laughter, with ringing cries of Amituofo! and Happy New Year! as they hurry into their training uniforms. Twenty, 30, 40 students appear for this particular class.

They are male and female, of all sizes, shapes, ages, and ethnicities. They come from all over New York City, from the Bronx to Brooklyn and Queens, or travel in from Long Island and New Jersey. Like Sifu, some of them have come to New York from other countriesSwitzerland, India, Germany, Brazil, Korea, Italy, Canada, and Austria, among others. Sifus students include college students and professors, blue-collar and office workers, movie stars and rap stars, business executives and retail salespeople, yoga instructors, a cop, a doorman, a young Italian apprentice chef, an orchestral composer. Children from as young as 3 to 14 also train at the temple, in their own afternoon classes.

For all their diverse backgrounds, Sifus students act nothing like strangers who have dragged themselves to the typical gym for a routine class. Everyone greets everyone else by name or nickname, and Sifu knows them all. Everyone is happy and excited to be here. It feels like a large family gathering on a holiday, with Sifu as its patriarch. Hes like a father to us, you often hear students say, even though some of them are older than he is.