How To Join The Shaolin Monks in China

hey man just saw your video about Shaolin in fact I'm a martial artist too I too want to train with the Shaolin monks so where's Charlotte temple and how do I join it I get messages like this every day from all sorts of people and where I used to have time to answer some of them I'm a bit busier nowadays many people are interested in doing this but they have no real starting point just getting your foot in the door may seem like an impossible task and the amount of information online can be overwhelming so this video is my attempt to give you guys an idea of what is required and expected of you to be able to train with the Shaolin warrior monks in the Shaolin Temple in China cause it's possible it's check it out there is a very short and easy answer to your question on the Shaolin Temple has an official website this is it shoot them a mail and off you go you can totally go in blind during my three years there I met tons of people who just decided to go for it without much preparation and they most definitely got a memorable adventure out of that but not always a positive one many will disappoint it because they expected they can just go to the temple join the monks train with them easy peasy lemon squeezy wrong none of them ever got anywhere close to the monks or effectively learn shaolin kung fu' I even believe a lot of them got scammed out of their money if you really want to be a part of their lives and have more than just a cool story to tell for your friends you have to properly prepare yourself so first of all very obvious your level of kung-fu there is some confusion around this issue you will not be able to get anyone's attention in the temple without a certain minimum level of skill and that minimum level is very high if you are a beginner or advanced they won't have you trained with the monks at least not regularly even if you think you're the best in your class look at videos of the monks online look how good they are are you on that level if not you can train with them you would be wasting their time so they most likely would put you in a group with other foreigners which is fine but just be aware of that but I want to take this opportunity to finally clear something up you do not have to go to the Shaolin Temple to learn shaolin kung fu I cannot believe how many people out there still believe this in fact most of the warrior monks are students from other schools and there are so many of them all around the temple around dong Fong and around China at large the Beijing wushu me is the top the top of the pop now I want to move on to an aspect that's a bit more complicated big brain time I'm talking about isolation spirituality and the monk lifestyle so to speak the Shaolin Temple is isolated but also totally not isolated it's kind of a paradox especially during summer time it's sprawling with tourists you will never ever have a quite second I promise and although there are many areas of the temple where tourists aren't permitted they constantly trespass and it's incredibly annoying but do not fall into the trap of visiting in the winter sure it'll be more peaceful and quiet so it's great to go if you're just a photographer but are you sure you can go into splits at minus 20 degrees early in the morning more importantly the temple is dead around Chinese New Year the vast majority of the warrior monks go home to visit their families they don't perform they don't train and they definitely don't want to teach you I met a guy from Germany who visited in February for one month and he saw his master maybe a total of four times during this time they just want to stay in their rooms all day watch League of Legends tournaments and drink tea which is cool I'm not hating is better than dota so I had to take over the role of teacher for him which I definitely was not ready for at that stage next up meditation now this is a huge reality check for a lot of people who visit the temple you will not get to meditate you will not be invited to meditation you will not find monks meditating meditation will probably not even be mentioned you can meditate in your room or out in the nature no one's stopping you of course but if you expect any sort of guidance or direction from the monks think again I'm very sorry to burst your bubble here but meditation is not part of the warrior monk daily schedule by the way everything I'm saying here just counts for if you go by yourself if you're part of like a group of a snackie school group where a former monk is your master and he brings you to the temple and you have like a 1 month long schedule they might include some meditation in there as like your program but if you as an individual go forget it on the other hand what might happen is that you can take part in Buddhist ceremonies chanting mantras along side the monks although I cherish these memories and I feel honored to be able to have taken part in them do you really understand what they're singing most Chinese people don't even understand trust but back to meditation you have to understand that the part of the temple that's open to foreigners is the martial arts part you won't have much contact with ful monks meditation does happen but only in very small groups of monks and they're pretty much like how you'd imagine it'd be like very secluded you can ask to join them absolutely I did and it was amazing but they have their own traditions and they're not particularly fond of Outsiders barging into their space just because they want to have like a cool little experience these are dedicated people please don't disturb them they won't instruct you they won't give you beginners classes they might not even look at you they meditate for hours on end every day in a closed room if you change your mind in the middle of a session and you just get up and leave that would be extremely disrespectful and you forget about joining them ever again bottom line meditation is difficult please don't ask to join them if you can't already do it four hours in a row now I'm sorry I have to do this but I have to you have to learn Mandarin there is no way around it I'm sorry if you don't like it you don't have to be fluent but every second you spend practicing Chinese decreases the likelihood of you being taken advantage of in China and I guarantee you you will be millions of people come to China to seek real martial arts and Chinese people have turned that desire into a flourishing business and I'm not just talking about negotiating prices because you will be charged triple or quadruple what Chinese people pay but I'm just talking about you having a relationship with your master and your fellow students you know honestly this is a big mystery to me people send me the m's like I'm ready to leave everything behind and join the monks okay do you speak Chinese no how do you expect to ever be a part of the Shaolin Temple if you can't even talk to them never ever going to happen if you cannot communicate with them how are you going to be integrated into their community additionally your masters will share so much wisdom and knowledge with you and if you have to rely on other students to do the translating for you you're missing out big time and I know I was in that position of translating for other students for long time although my Chinese was fairly decent towards the end of my stay there was still so much I couldn't translate and to be fair after a while it got annoying for me so I just gave the students like a tldr you don't want that listen even if you're not interested in becoming involved in the temple beyond the kung-fu part even if you just want to go to Chinese kung-fu school you need to be able to talk to your master for proper instructions you're putting an enormous roadblock in your way if you have a middleman between you and him this may also lead to your master not bothering with you to them you will be just another tourist people like you come and go every day and who's going to hold them accountable for not teaching you properly you can't because you can't even talk to them last but not least I want to talk about politics but not in the way you may think I'm talking temple politics relationships Quincy you can rewind this video everything I have said is negotiable as an outsider coming to the temple you have a lot of disadvantages but also certain advantages no rule is set in stone in a funny way even the monks in the temple they're all just hustlers their day to day hustlers there is a surprising amount of freedom and lack of control there so much you wouldn't believe it sometimes I say the Shaolin Temple is like Fight Club you decide over your own level of involvement for example if they tell you you have five hours of training every day you don't have to stick to that schedule of course you have to show up but if that's not enough just make friends meet with them in the afternoon in the evening to train some more it's all about connecting with the right people and networking that's how opportunities arise I get that this may sound exactly what you're trying to get away from the trials and tribulations of human interactions daily live and so you want to leave all that behind just like I did when I came there but I'm sorry we're humans our human interactions and relationships are present and they're important especially in China so please learn about the culture learn about the customs learn about what you can talk about and what you should avoid learn how to small talk in Chinese all of these things are important and with that being said now you know everything yes that's it I hope you enjoyed this video um follow me on Instagram and Twitter please that's cool alright see you guys next time bye bye Antoni out [Music]

Channel: Ranton

Views: 723,096

Rating: 4.9731665 out of 5

Keywords: Ranton, Comedy, Shaolin, How Do You Join The Shaolin Monks, Shaolin Temple, Shaolin Monks, Shaolin Kung Fu, Join The Shaolin Temple, China Martial Arts, China Kung Fu

Id: lPtnHQxUWWY

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Fri May 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/curvaceous-triangle]

The guy used in the thumbnail looks like he’s taking a shaolin shit lol

[u/Josuke4BestJoJo]

One of my favourite shaolin videos until now. Love you rantoni

[u/S_K_R_]

The thumbnail looks like it's a Ad for Shaolin temple

[u/sualp12]

Not sold mate. Let me DM you to make sure.