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Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!
The 7 hour coach from Xi'an dropped us off in Dengfeng, a small village on the outskirts of Shaolin. From there we were met by The Master. Once a monk at the Shaolin monastery, the master trained there until leaving to set up an orphanage and school. We were greeted by the kids and they performed a show of their various Kung Fu skills and the Master also participated using the heavy weapons he trains with. Our group was then taken to the training area where we were given a lesson in Kung Fu from The Master and his pupils. This was by far my favourite experience of the trip so far. The lesson started with stretching and it soon became apparent that we were no where near as flexible as the students. We were then taught various patterns, exercises and stances of Kung Fu which were difficult to remember but the students and Master were patient had a good laugh at our expense. We then moved on to using weapons starting with the short swords and then the rope dart which was my personal favourite and one that I excelled at using. The Kung Fu student that taught me and the master were quite impressed which was cool.
The guesthouse was much different to the hostels we stayed at in the past. It felt like staying in someone's home, we were the only people staying there at the time and there was a quaint little home cooked restaurant which cooks their own produce and lots of it!! We certainly weren't going hungry!
After eating on our first evening, we wandered back down towards the hostel and our guide Sasha pointed out that the local ladies were dancing in the street. We of course were keen to join in however after failing to copy their dance moves resorted to dancing the song of our people, The Macarena. After a while the local kids were keen to introduce themselves to us. We chased them round for a while with scary looking faces until Becky realised she had a tennis ball in her bag. A game of throw and catch followed which went on for a while and it the kids loved it. One of the smaller kids was cute. He couldn't catch and cried when any of the other kids got a go to throw the ball. We had to hand him the ball each time to throw, he'd then do a little happy dance but immediately start crying when he realised it wasn't his go again. We left them with the tennis ball which was probably squabbled over shortly after.
The following day we went to the Shaolin temple which was a short drive from the guesthouse. The temple is home to the Monks and Nuns of Shaolin and is a huge tourist attraction. We began by walking round the pagoda forest where the most highly regarded monks are buried. We then scaled the 1200 steps to the Dharma cave and Buddha statue that sits on top the holy mountain. It is said that Dharma meditated within the cave for 9 years, cut his eyelids off to stop him sleeping and that his silluhette was left on the cave wall from the sunlight. Probably worth a look on Wikipedia at Dharma if you have a few spare mins. There are many interesting stories about him.
We spent some time exploring the grounds of the temple and was shown how to pray using incense sticks in front of the Buddha statues, a very precise and complicated process. We then headed into the Shaolin monk performance which was incredible and was amazed by the skills and strength that they have built up over years of training and channelling their chi.
It was a great shame having to leave the Shaolin area and having only spent a couple of days there would like to return one day to continue with my rope dart training!
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