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Friday, June 09, 2006

How To Be Shaolin Monk In 24 hours moreorless - Martial Arts Lesson

How to Be a Shaolin Monk In 24 hours MoreOrLess.

Most folks know that you have to start training at the age of 5-7 years old to start on the path of Grasshopper. What you don't know is what you have to do to shed your grasshopperness and become a full fledged Shaolin Priest. For SuperHuman Power Digg It!

Paraphrased, but copied directly from the Shaolin.com website, here is your answer...

The priests are adept in all of the following: medicine, music, art, weapons-making, religions, animal husbandry, cartography, languages, history, and of course, kung fu. The priest had to be more than a fighting machine, he had to know how, where and why to enter a fight, and even of greater importance, how to avoid conflict. Only with "unbeatable" ability, the priest was he secure enough not to fight.

There was a ranking system used - beginner, disciple, and master. The beginner (student level), was a menial servant. Only crude rudiments of kung fu were his domain. Disciples were almost priests, still having to master themselves, but of the mettle to carry and secrets of the Shaolin. The pinnacle of master was reached by few; it was the achievement of a lifetime.

Final Shaolin Test Cheat Sheet
The obstacle that a disciple had to pass to attain the priesthood was the test for master rank. After a series of oral and practical exams, they faced the test of the tunnel. The candidate was lead to a corridor linked with the outside world. In the corridor were booby-traps, all lethal, all unpredictable. The disciple had to pass all these, for there was no going back, no way out but success. Most never began the journey; few ever finished it. The adept who passed the traps faced one last obstacle; a several hundred pound urn filled with burning iron filings. On each side of the urn is an emblem, different for each temple, usually of a dragon and a tiger. The urn must be moved with the bare forearms to unblock the exit. In so doing, the now priest was forever branded as a Sil Lum monk.

So to become a Sil Lum or Shaolin Monk, just do the last paragraph and cut out all that menial grunt work. You'll be saving yourself decades. For SuperHuman Power - Digg It!

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