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However, Dechan and Degeng, two masters of Shao Lin Temple, propped the temple up with their brilliant leechcrafts and exquisite gests. They were really boundless beneficence for keeping and saying kindling for today's Shao Lin. During those years, as a temporary arrangement, some wise person invited Master Degeng to teach in the Song and Dance Ensemble of Henan Province at that time for the sake of Shao Lin Kung-fu. Master Degeng choreograph ethical dance, which syncretizes the fist positions of Shao Lin and the swordsman-ship of Dharma. Anyhow, Master Degeng got a job and salary and managed continuing his life at last. Before long, Master Degeng was transferred back to the Gym Commitment of Denfeng county and responsible for teaching Shao Lin Kung-fu in primary and secondary school, keeping Shao Lin Kung-fu from encountering its drowning disaster. This farsighted leader actually did a lot for Shao Lin. It may be said that he did a peerless work being famous and important indeed in history.
After the Cultural Revolution begun, following my teacher, I practiced Kung-fu with him all around the clock. I studied and reviewed the Buddhist scriptures at midnight in that period as well. The master was deeply impressed and touched by my sincerity and good faith, so that he taught me all the incomparable skills of the Shao Lin Kung-fu and heartily told me to keep those Kung-fu as the most precious treasure of Shao Lin forever~ Complied my teacher's wish, I kept practicing for tens of years never wasting any time or stopping the research of Kung-fu. I invested all my money, time and energy on training the new generation of Shao Lin, swearing handing down
Shao Lin Kung-fu to our offspring to repay my teacher. Recalling those years, although I was only a teenager quite young at that time, I was still being the senior among those apprentices in Shao Lin Temple. My Kung-fu was not bad, and I had already been a Kung-fu instructor of forty apprentices, as their eldest brother under the same instruction and the direct guidance of the teacher. At first sight, my teacher was quite common. He was thin, wearing coarse clothes and his appearance was ordinary too. I was confused, "This is master of Shao Lin?" Unbelievable! But I was shocked as soon as I saw the deft and flexible skills shown in his practice. Once when my teacher started moving and doing Shao Lin Kung-fu, I was terribly astonished at his moves of Wo Xin Zhang. He waved his arms and hands so quickly, moved his legs and feet so fast, looking like strong wind blowing hard. But his body and style changes look so light and various, looking like smoke running following the strong wind. I walked around teacher Degeng, wondering what kind of structure it was, when and where the legs would move on. I was failed to understand and imitate no matter how hard I tried.
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My teacher was absolutely still like being sitting on a chair when he was doing a horse style, "thwack" stamping his foot, his left foot was shoot out as fast as a flying arrow, straightly pressed on the ground. I was puzzled, "How can the foot move like that?" My teacher smiled when he saw my expression and told me that Pu Bu (a fall forward step) was not just a style but a Di Tan Tui (a kind of techinique called low shoot foot) of Shao Lin, a kind of usage that I should learn at the very beginning. I parted with my fraters loathly and concentrated on studying Kung-fu. Following my teacher's instruction, I was starting from the most basic Tan Tui (shoot foot).
My teacher taught me the twenty-four Lu (round) Tan Tui that wasn't taught to others. He taught me the importance of the ways of using legs and asked me to practice them every day, until my skills of stretching feet were satisfied, and then he would talk about leaming something more advanced. Shao Lin Tan Tui is different from any other kinds of Tan Tui. It has the character of Shao Lin Quan, a required course of Shao Lin Kung-fu. Two sayings in the Kung-fu world are: "It is a sad sack who practice Kung-fu of fist without practicing kicking feet" or "Two hands should be moved like two panels of a firm door, and two feet will be striking hard and strongly"..Shao Lin Tan Tui consists of twenty-four groups of attack movements and the flip and kicking skills of feet. When kicking outwards, the foot should not be lower than knee; while moving back, the higher position of the foot should be as high as chest. One kicking outwards and one kicking back make a Lu (round). My teacher asked me to practice each round for twenty times, low and high, go and back, so there are forty movements, multiply twenty-four rounds, which makes nine hundred and sixty movements. Plus the changes of hands movements, i.e. one hand hitting continuously and fast for three times, both hands hitting alternately, continuously and fast for three times, that' s nine hundred and sixty groups of movements. Then we have to do the Kung-fu of Chan Shou, Tan Tui, Er Lu Pan Zhou, i.e. Chong Quan Pan Zhou, Gai Da. It is a group of successional movements, flipping and kicking mixed, making each Lu of Tan Tui including each kicking mixed with hitting. It takes more than twenty minutes to finishing practicing the twenty-four Lu Tan Tui entirely, and it has to be with a certain physical strength. When finishing the practicing ten rounds Tan Tui, one is already sweltering profusely. Some even cried for not being able to finish the practice completely. Teaching Kungfu for nearly forty years, I have never seen a person who can finish practicing twenty rounds successfully in one breath except one of my Shidi (male formally apprenticed after another to a master worker to learn a skill). My Shidi was dripping with perspiration from practicing twenty rounds Kung-fu, all of his clothes was soaked with sweat. Clothes off, his sweat was splashing down. We could imagine that the demands of Shao Lin basic skills are so strict and the quantity of Shao Lin movements is so big. Either drills or attack arts is impossible without a good basic skills foundation.
Though forty years passed, I still could move my hands and feet agilely and smoothly. My strength is sent out as my wish, somewhat as whatever I am pleased to. I owned it to the hard practice of the Tan Tui basic skills when I was a teenager.
Nowadays, there are lots of people knowing only a little Kungfu, dare to proclaim themselves disciples of masters. Actually, in my view, their Kung-fu is either a bare outline that's only good in looking but useless, or stiff and anserine that's both ugly and useless. I think they should put off their airs, learn and practice the basic skill of Tan Tui in earnest, otherwise everything they imagine is the castle in the air, and their results will be examples of a proverb of in the Kungfu field, "Practicing Kung-fu but without any real Kung-fu will be a entire dream till he becomes an aged."
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Winter goes and spring comes currently, I practiced Kung-fu hard day by day without feeling cold or hot in each winter or summer under the guidance and inspection of my teacher one more year again. He told me, "It' s the right time for you to practice the points of Kung-fu and to strengthen yourself." He started to make and strengthen the special instruction for me beginning with different standing styles. Including the horse standing, Ding standing and empty standing, The Shao Lin Double Feet standing Kung-fu I do is extremely hard to be practiced. The famous Feet Holes on the site ground in front of the biggest hall of Shao Lin Temple were actually made and remained by all the monks practicing their standing Kung-fu right there.
The frame of Shao Lin Quan is lower enough with huge up and down and accompanied by various turns and changes. Whenever the frame is high and open seems like a tiger and low and small seems like a rat. It is supposed that the smaller ones are more than other styles practiced by the monks of Shao Lin Temple. My teacher often said that each expanding or extending plus making the style low or small extremely show the moves and the Kung-fu great or bad. Making one style low or small is actually the strong protection for oneself, and extending or expanding of one's style is fighting and hitting others. Honestly saying, the smaller style of Shao Lin Quan always made one terribly tired. That is quite true. The daily practice always makes me terribly tired that I barely leave my bed at all. But in the view of my teacher, practicing Shao Lin Kung-fu standing so stable nearly like a big bell, I continued my daily practicing work with all the hardness indeed.
At the same time, while I was practicing my standing Kung-fu style, my teacher asked and modified me to practice a lot of various Kung-fu methods, such as so-called a cattle works with a plough in the field, Zhua Kun Ba (holding the air),Qing Long Tan Zhua (the blue dragon sticking out its claw), Ning Zhu Bang (wrenching at a bamboo rod) to strengthen my fingers and arms. The schedule was being tense. My teacher told me, "what I'm teaching you now is all the activities of Shao Lin, you have to do it actively". He taught me the boxing moves and fighting techniques that never being taught others living outside the Shao Lin temple. He taught me step by step without any reservation such as Dan Pi Zhang (single chopping palm), Shuang Feng You Gua(double blocking and hanging up), Shuai(throwing) Quan, Shao (carrying) Quan more and more. Seeing my sweat overflowing like streams, he smiled and said, "It' s great, you can do it well !"
"Hitting should be after being beaten" is a Chinese proverb. My teacher did keep practicing Kung-fu with me closely together in order to develop my ability to resist some hitting made by others. Through touching and knocking between both shoulders, backs and legs of us and changing positions each other freely and actively, my teacher practiced and do Kung-fu with me closely up and down. Mr. Degeng had got great Kung-fu skills and stepped fast and actively. He could hit me strongly and made me fallen down on the ground. After forty years up to now, I still remember what happened at that time as clear as yesterday. His great behavior of teaching his students practicing Kung-fu better and better made me remember him as a mirror forever.
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In the 60s, all of us probably lived quite hard and bleak, my teacher always took a pipestem made of copper in his hand. For economic reason, he would never buy a cigarette but tobacco leaves.
Sometimes I bought him a package of cigarettes with the trademark of Golden Leaf at the price of 0.25 Yuan, he always kindly told me, "You shouldn't waste money. It's OK for me to take tobacco leaves with the pipestem."
Sometimes I saw my teacher practicing Kung-fu with me till midnight without having any food, I brought a steamed bread for him. While he got it, he always divided the bread into two arts and gave me one of the two. We two, an aged and a youth, sat together in the light of an oil lamp, drinking pure water and eat that dry bread. At that same time, we talked about some kinds of Kung-fu and boxing moves and activities concerned, we extremely enjoyed the talk and living like that.
It was terribly cold in the winter in 60s, my teacher taught me Kung-fu outside the house. The coldness made him frostbitten on his feet, I did my best buying a pair of shoes made of leather and filled with cotton. My teacher said to and fro, "You, you, boy, why did you do so, ah." I knew that my teacher was favoring me and afraid of my payment at difficulty. I had to do it at that time in order to let my teacher avoid any frostbite.
Maybe what I did made my teacher moved or we were cooperating each other well, my teacher told me in one night, "You should study higher standard Kung-fu. I am teaching you Shao Lin Chui Ba (a kind of Kung-fu) which I have never taught anybody else. Even in Shao Lin Temple, according to the traditional rule, only one monk had been taught for each generation to hold its secret. I am teaching you it now, you should study and practice it well, but never teach others at ease without confidence." Since I was so young at that time and doing things straightly enough, I did get what my teacher thought exactly, I asked him: "Is it true that you really didn't teach others this kind of Kung-fu? Nobody did study and get what I am practicing now?" Master Degen said with a deep sign: "You will understand later on." Over forty years until now, while I remember what I said innocently to my teacher hurting him so much, I always regret doing it that way.
From that day on, my teacher taught me the Luo Han Quan step by step. He told me each action from its name to it advantage, from hands to feet carefully and clearly. He taught me both by model actions and words in detail. He explained to me why the foot toe should be stepped close inside, why the hand should be moved that way, why the hands and feet should be moved at the same time, and what are the reasons and ways of Shao Lin Quan stepping forward lower and backward higher. He felt satisfied and confident only when I had already understood each action of the Shao Lin Quan well including its practical exercise and usage.
My teacher explained the difference between Shao Lin Luo Han Quan and other moves in detail. He showed all the actions of that Luo Han Quan by waving his body and moving his arms, turning his back and moving his hip, his whole body turned and moved as if his bones were all vanished. Sometimes he speeded up and sometimes he slowed down, making others dizzy and disturbed as well. He looked at me and said, "These moves had never been taught others or performed extremely to the public, maybe some actions had been showed separately to a few people. LuoHan Quan, Xin Yi Ba and Rou Quan are the special Kung-fu of the best Shao Lin Quan mentioned above. Those who said that Shao Lin Kung-fu are only hard Kung and external exercise Kung-fu hadn't seen these, they actually made a big mistake as they didn't know that Shao Lin Quan is a special kind of Kung-fu which includes both hard and soft characters joined together as blood and meat. While one of the moves being soft as cotton, hard as iron, light as a leather, heavy as Taishan mountain, it is constructed and practiced through one's skin, bone and internal chi Kung-fu, to create one's sprit and body jointly, to make internal and external exercises and Kung-fu plus one's inside chi together closely, to construct all the moves and Buddhist allegory and tenets as a whole."
My teacher made himself exciting more and more while he was talking to me, he made some actions, such as: Lan Yao Shuang Jue(blocking the waist and lifting the opponent up by two arms), Xiao Ti Xie(kicking one foot as if lifting the shoe up), Kan Shou(chopping one hand), Pan Zhou(circling the arms), Ying Mian Da(hitting towards the opponent' s face), each action was made evidently clear either hitting or protecting. Then he stopped and said, "This is Shao Lin Quan, being curvy but also straight, being straight and also rolling out and back, moving hands as a circle producing protection, straight extending makes hitting. Since you didn't get the point, you should practice the Kung-fu as a whole and exercise each move separately more and more. While you get them, you will use them well in the future." Then he taught me how to practically use each move or action of the Ruo Han Quan and others with his model action or move, he instructed me how to use the action and
