Shaolin Kung-fu Martial Arts and Tai Chi History as taught in Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert, Arizona

Martial arts legend has it... that it all began 1500 years ago in a small part of Honan province in China at a temple known as Shaolin Ssu, the Young Forest Temple. Nestled at the foot of Sung Shan (Sung Mountain), monks, plagued by bandits, began practicing additional martial arts techniques for self defense as well as continued health and longevity. Finding a focus in their kung-fu training, these monks learned and grew, collecting and developing different forms and styles of martial fighting arts and, thus was born the legend of the Shaolin Fighting Monks.

It was in the sixth century that Ta Mo, known as Bodhidharma in India, crossed the Himalayas and taught the Shaolin monks the 49 postures of the I Chin Ching, the Muscle Change Classic. Throughout the next centuries the Shaolin monks added to and perfected their kung fu, and spread to other temples. The monks of the Fukien, Shantung, Omei, Kwangtung, Wutang, and Hua Mountain Temples focused their attentions on various aspects of their martial art, among them Northern and Southern Fist, Shantung Black Tiger, Fist of Hua Mountain, Iron Bone Training, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, and a large variety of kung fu weapons.

Shaolin kung-fu exists to this day and is taught at the Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi Martial Arts Center in Tempe, Arizona. Ta Mo's 49 postures of the I Chin Ching and much of the subsequent material has survived. The Shaolin Art has prevailed despite various attempts to erradicate this devastating and effective system of martial arts. The Shaolin Ssu itself can be visited today, as can the cave where Ta Mo is said to have meditated for nine years. The Chinese Shaolin Centers and Chinese Shaolin Kung Fu, under the guidance of Grandmaster Sin Kwang Thé and Elder Masters Sharon and David Soard, continue to teach this ancient martial art to students in the United States and abroad. They continue to lead student trips to China to visit and honor the sites and traditions that have been handed down from these temples.

The Ch'ing dynasty, the last to rule China, was Manchurian. The Manchu often feared the resentment and possible revolution of the Chinese people under their rule... Historically, the warriors of the Shaolin temple provided the greatest threat, so in 1677 Manchurian troops looted and burned the original temple in Honan. While Imperial attention remained there, other Shaolin temples continued to practice and advance their martial arts in secret.

In 1875, the army of the Manchu Government marched on the Shaolin Temple in Fukien with orders to steal the treasures contained within and destroy it. Rather than let the temple fall into the Emperor's hands, the temple warriors decided to burn down the temple themselves.

One man emerged from the flames to carry on the tradition of the Shaolin Temple. This man was known as the Grandmaster.

In accordance with tradition, only one person can carry this title. Since that time, only three have. Each an ultimate practitioner of the art. (Taken from http://www.shaolingrandmaster.com/biography)

Known throughout China as "the Hairy Master", was a martial artist of extraordinary ability. He was born with a rare condition causing him to be covered with hair from head to toe. Believing him to be a demon, his parents abandoned him as a baby in a forest near the Southern Shaolin Temple. A passing Shaolin disciple discovered him there, and he was taken back to the temple and raised by the monks. From childhood on, Grandmaster Su pursued his martial arts education with a rare diligence, leading the Fujian masters to stray from the traditional method of teaching with his instruction: normally students were assigned to a single master to learn one specific branch of Shaolin kung-fu. Instead, Grandmaster Su studied with the full range of Masters at the Southern Shaolin Temple, so that by the time he was appointed Grandmaster he had learned and mastered the whole of the Shaolin repertoire! This was an unparalleled historical achievement that would eventually lead to the survival of the art as we know it today.

Grandmaster was admitted to the Fujian temple as a young boy, and like Grandmaster Su poured all of his time and energy into his martial arts training, studying under Grandmaster Su both at the Southern Shaolin Temple and in the Fujianese mountains following the burning of the temple early in the 20th century. One evening while Grandmaster Ie was traveling through the countryside he decided to take a shortcut through an apparently abandoned military encampment, only to be accosted by a pair of sentries. Eventually the group of soldiers surrounding Grandmaster Ie grew to 11, and the situation escalated into a fight. After defeating his 11 attackers, Grandmaster Ie was forced to flee mainland China. He ended up in Indonesia, where he lived and taught Shaolin kung fu until his passing in 1976.

In 1943 a boy named was born in Bandung who would one day become the third Grandmaster of our lineage. His family had several Shaolin ancestors and young Sin was drawn to the martial arts... His father, however, had been injured during martial arts training when he was a young man and opposed his son's wishes. Nonetheless, Sin Kwang's mother secretly let him out at 4 am each morning, so that he could study the martial arts. He began with sand burn training. Sand burn training is a crude form of toughening the hands by thrusting them into buckets of hot sand.

After 6 months, the sand burn man stopped teaching. Sin Kwang heard about Grandmaster Ie's school and went to watch. Grandmaster Ie had 80 students practicing empty hand forms, weapons forms and sparring. The 7 year old Sin Kwang asked to join the school, but he was put off with polite excuses. One evening, Grandmaster Ie spilled a bowl of uncooked rice on the training hall floor. He asked Sin Kwang to pick up the rice, grain by grain, and to blow the dust of each grain. He was to find all of the 855 grains that had been in the bowl. It was late at night, and the Shaolin students had all gone home, by the time Sin Kwang was through dusting and counting the rice.

The rice counting was only the first of many tests of determination and character Sin Kwang passed. For the final test, Ie spilled hot tea on the boy and took hold of him, looking deep into his eyes. He saw no anger, only surprise. Sin Kwan Thé was finally accepted as a Shaolin student and began his kung fu training.

Five years later at the age of 13, Sin Kwang Thé tested to Black Belt. For his test, he had to spar 7 other students while blindfolded. He also had to do forms blindfolded. At different times during the forms, boards were held in his path. Since he didn't know when there would be a board, every strike in every form had to be true.

In 1964, Master Sin was preparing to go to Germany to study engineering and physics. He had added German to the multitude of languages that he could speak. Yet the Berlin crisis altered his plans. By chance, however, he met a couple from Lexington, Kentucky who were able to arrange a scholarship in the US for him. Master Sin Kwang Thé came to the United States.

Master Sin studied academic subjects with the same dedication that he gave to the Shaolin art. As often as he could, he returned to Indonesia, for the time had finally come for him to learn the Golden Snake Style.

In 1968 Master Sin's training was complete. Grandmaster Ie awarded him the 10th Degree and the Grandmaster's Red Belt. Sin Kwang Thé had become the youngest Grandmaster in the history of the Shaolin art at age 25.

Grandmaster Thé continued his education and was on the verge of completing his Master's Degree when Ie Chang Ming died at the age of 96. Grandmaster Thé realized that while there were many engineers and scientists, he was the only Shaolin Grandmaster. He dropped his studies in order to devote all his time to teaching the Shaolin art.

Shaolin Grandmaster Sin Kwang Thé could have returned to Indonesia to resume teaching the art. Instead he chose to stay in the U.S. This was a bold break in tradition, for in the past only full blooded Chinese had been permitted to learn the Art. Yet when American men and women from all walks of life were able to learn what was once taught to a handful of Chinese monks, it was clear that martial arts excellence dependence on time and effort (kung fu) and not race.