



Correct Shi Bu Stance

I first met Shifu Shi Yanzi in February 1998 when he accompanied the Abbot of the Shaolin Temple (Shi Yongxin) to visit the kung fu school in Angel, London, where I was training at the time.

I'd heard all the stories about Shaolin Monks from those at the kung fu class and also through school friends. I personally at this point, had never seen the Shaolin demonstrations but I was hearing all kinds of magical stories like they could almost fly across log columns and sprint up walls. I honestly didn't know what to expect, but I knew this was a big deal.

I honestly didn't know what to expect, but I knew this was a big deal





Shifu Shi Yanzi was actually due to be staying in London with our school and we'd been waiting for many months. When he was finally due to come, he had to delay his visit, as the Shaolin Temple had received an invite from the Thailand President to send someone to come and test his personal bodyguards. Shifu Yanzi is the man that was sent.

When he finally did arrive in London a few weeks later, he made our training hall full of hundreds, sit and wait for 45 mins / 1 hour. We didn't realise at the time, but Shifu Yanzi was stalling. Nobody knew that the Abbot was on his way to personally bless the school, but he was delayed.

Once the Abbot had arrived and made his surprise appearance, the ceremony proceeded followed by demonstrations by Shifu Yanzi. He started by performing a Shaolin form.













There are two types of martial artist. There are those who practice primarily to perform, with lots of jumping, acrobatics and backflips. Then there are those who train with the focus on fighting application, like Shifu Yanzi. I'd never seen such power before. Even though he was just hitting air, you could feel the power in his strikes. The floor would vibrate when he stamped and the crowd were in awe.





There are two types of martial artist





He followed this up by asking the most senior student (who was also a teacher - Shifu Tony Clements) to come up and start striking him to the body to demonstrate his steel jacket technique, following this up by breaking bricks on his temples, which is a very dangerous technique used to show high level steel jacket.

Unfortunately, when you watch something like this on TV, you lose the sense of power. I remember going to do some filming for a sky TV show and half way through Shifu Yanzi's demonstration, another producer came into the studio to ask him to keep it down as the other studios were shaking and the noise was disturbing filming. Bear in mind, each studio is sound proofed to stop this happening!





He just looked at us, bowed and walked away





After the ceremony and demonstrations had finished, me and a friend headed outside during a break. We saw Shifu Yanzi standing there so we approached him, said hello and held out our hands to shake his. He just looked at us, bowed and walked away leaving us standing there with our hands outstretched like idiots. We quickly bowed as he walked away. This is typical Shifu Yanzi. He is as hard as nails in every way and the only way to 'truly converse' with him is to train harder than everyone else.

This very quickly became my plan...





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