Laced with humor and illuminated by cultural insight, this coming-of-age tale explores one young American's quest to become a kung fu master at China's legendary Shaolin Temple. 8-page photo insert.

Bill Bryson meets Bruce Lee in this raucously funny story of one scrawny American’s quest to become a kung fu master at China’s legendary Shaolin Temple. Growing up a ninety-pound weakling tormented by bullies in the schoolyards of Kansas, young Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become the toughest fighter in the world, like Caine in his favorite 1970s TV series, Kung Fu. While in college, Matthew decided the time had come to pursue this quixotic dream before it was too late. Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of Princeton to spend two years training with the legendary sect of monks who invented kung fu and Zen Buddhism. Expecting to find an isolated citadel populated by supernatural ascetics that he’d seen in countless badly dubbed chop-socky flicks, Matthew instead discovered a tacky tourist trap run by Communist party hacks. But the dedicated monks still trained in the rigorous age-old fighting forms—some even practicing the “iron kung fu” discipline, in which intensive training can make various body parts virtually indestructible (even the crotch). As Matthew grew in his knowledge of China and kung fu skill, he would come to represent the Temple in challenge matches and international competitions, and ultimately the monks would accept their new American initiate as close to one of their own as any Westerner had ever become. Laced with humor and illuminated by cultural insight, American Shaolin is an unforgettable coming-of-age tale of one young man’s journey into the ancient art of kung fu—and a funny and poignant portrait of a rapidly changing China.

The Power of Shaolin Kung Fu offers readers a comprehensive course in the fundamental movements that have been practiced and perfected by warrior monks for centuries. It includes instruction in the powerful striking techniques that so often lead to decisive victory in today's mixed martial arts bouts. The book includes 300 color photographs along with detailed textual instructions and training tips. Shaolin Kung Fu is an indispensable part of every martial artist's repertoire--a vital means to improve your movement, motion, and balance skills and the best way for a mixed martial arts fighter to improve and perfect striking skills. This informative kung fu book also shares the moral and ethical philosophies that underlie the Jow Ga system. Shaolin Jow Ga Kung Fu is a combination of southern and northern Shaolin techniques--making it by far the most effective in terms of combining blinding speed with devastatingly powerful strikes.

This meticulously researched and eminently readable study considers the economic, political, and religious factors that led Shaolin monks to disregard the Buddhist prohibition against violence and instead create fighting techniques that by the 21st century have spread throughout the world.

Part of the monastic lineage of fall and strike medicine. Presents hundreds of treatments for a wide variety of external or martial arts injuries.

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