How is shaolin traning?

Answer 1

If they are willing to reveal it publicly, for an official curriculum, you are going to have to contact the Shaolin Corporation. Yeah, you read right; they are incorporated. The reason the Shaolin temple incorporated, was because too many people were claiming to disseminate knowledge of Shaolin Kung Fu that wasn't authentic. If you try it now, you can get sued or slapped with a cease and desist court order. Perfectly justified because the practice of teaching a "martial art" that isn't authentic is dangerous.

I am not sure though, if they will be willing to disclose training information, as there is still a degree of secrecy. This is what I mean; the Shaolin temple is no longer prejudiced against non-Chinese the way it used to be, it is willing to teach anyone willing to learn Kung Fu. HOWEVER, if you want to know exactly how they train, I think you need to be an actual student.

Where most people in the western world scoff at the idea of learning Martial Arts from a book, in the Shaolin temple, it is no laughing matter. In days past, on rare ocassions thieves managed to steal temple scrolls, they used them to teach themselves Kung Fu, and caused no end of problems against people who did not know how to fight. The Shaolin temple would then have to send a monk, and hunt the man down. The convention in the western and Chinese world of martial arts is "you can't learn martial arts from a book," HOWEVER, most Shaolin monks do not scoff at the idea, and take it very seriously if someone were to seriously study a martial arts text. Why is this? Because, in the temple's past, that is how techniques got stolen. In fact, most Shaolin monks frown on all the martial arts manuals out there; you don't know who will get their hands on those books. The dangers are

1) first and most common, they won't learn the martial art very well, and be an embarassment to the world of Kung Fu.

2) the second less common danger is that they will learn it TOO well, and be a danger both to themselves and others.

If I were you I would just contact the temple in China. However, far as how they arrange their day, I am not sure they are willing to disseminate that information. While they may not reveal techniques, a Shaolin schedule COULD for example, be used as a training method by a criminal, possibly a Triad or a Yakuza. Revealing a training schedule doesn't reveal techniques, but that doesn't mean that training PRINCIPLES won't be leaked that way, and in martial arts, the principles of training, matter more than the techniques.

Think about it; anything involving physical work out there has some sort of philosophy or pattern of thinking. If you were to reveal when you work out, what time of the day, a rival athlete COULD arrange their own training method using your schedule ideas. There is no danger of knowledge being stolen, but there is still a danger of someone misusing the discipline. Again, to a point, the modern temple is still highly secretive; they are more open to who gets to study there, but a lot of techniques, even the training schedule itself, is revealed only to students, far as I know.