Shaolin Soul

On Wednesday night Yaning and I went to The Shanghai Lyceum Theater to see a Gung Fu show called Shaolin Soul, apparently by Shaolin monks but Yaning seemed to think it was by students from schools in the region the Shaolin Temple is situated, as she said the actual Shaolin Temple has put in place rules preventing the monks from doing performances in order to peserve the reputation of the Shaolin Temple, after all they are buddhists and are supposed to be above all this sensationalism and pride etc.

A similar show has made trips to the UK a couple of times with great success. From what I could tell, this show was smaller, due to the size of the venue probably, but had a bit more in the way of Gung Fu and Qigong (pronounced chi-gong).



I bought a DVD of the second trip to the UK a few months ago and much of what was on it was in Wednesday's show, although on Wednesday there were explanations of the weapons used and the basic principles and reasons why the Shaolin practice certain styles of Gung Fu and methods of Qigong that weren't on the DVD.

The show ran for a couple of weeks and by all accounts wasn't very successful so we had no problem buying tickets from the touts outside. Yaning, with her wonderful bargaining powers, managed to get us two VIP tickets for the price of one (280 Yuan in all, about £20).


All of the members of the group performing were in their teens and early twenties, with the obvious inclusion of a few kids for entertainment value. The shots below are of one of the kids displaying stomach strength by sucking a bowl to his body with his abdomen and being lifted by the bowl.

I did enjoy the show but would have liked to see some older members of the Shaolin schools, or even the Shaolin Temple, on the stage and perhaps more technical or specialised sequences performed, but then I guess I'm more of a Wushu and Qigong freak than the average member of the audience...lol

These images are of certain feats using the power of chi energy directed to different parts of the body to protect it from harm by the spears, and the one on the right displays the use of chi to project a needle through a piece of glass to burst a balloon without shattering the glass, only leaving a small hole where it passed through.