Shaolin

My journey and what I’ve learned

It all started 2019.

I was searching for an effective way to reduce my stress- and increase my energy level.

First I thought Qigong is like Yoga and therefore nothing for me, but than I found a Shaolin Qigong book from Shifu Yan Lei in mid of May and reading it I recognized that he offered online training video courses.

The next day I started what would become a more than 4 years journey of mind blowing experiences.

Since than I am training 6 days a week every week.

Why?

Because I dont want to miss the huge benefits anymore!

After doing several different trainings and a 40 days Shaolin challenge with Shifu Yan Lei and learning a lot about Kung Fu training and Qigong I searched for new knowledge and stumbled over a Qigong Youtube video with Sifu Leo from Shaolin Wahnam school in Vienna. Just before the Covid lockdown in 2020 I traveled there for four days of training and a bit of sightseeing and of course for munching a lot of Manner waffles and wrote a poem about that time. At the school I learned a lot about the absolutely genius Shaolin Wahnam Qigong and especially the exercise Lifting the sky that helped me a lot to calm my mind, learn to let go and refresh my energy.

But I was lacking new learnings about meditation. So I searched the web for it and found a course from Dandapani in January 2022. One had to do the course about focus before and that’s actually really good, because now I prefer the focus course and have done it twice.

In August 2022 I spent a night in the official Shaolin temple of Switzerland in Lucerne and meditated, trained and cooked with them. It was a really cool time. I’ve learned about a Qigong form that is also teached by Shi Xinggui, did some Tai Chi as before in Shaolin Wahnam in Vienna, zen sitting meditation and walking meditation and of course Kung Fu training.

October 2022 I started the online Kung Fu course from Shaolin Wahnam.

And in April 2023 to sommer of 2024 I switched to being an online apprenticeship of the official Shaolin temple in Yunnan (China).

But Shifu Yan Lei and Dandapani are right: One should stop learning and start practicing and keep it simple. Also Bruce Lee said: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”