Intense study of Shaolin Kung Fu and Chinese culture contribute to the unique experiences students have training at our school in Qufu. To support this the school offers various free optional cultural classes in the evening for students to benefit from deepening their knowledge and understanding of Traditional Chinese Culture. These enable students to gain insight into the philosophies, culture and language underlying their interrelated study of the Chinese language, culture, and Shaolin Martial Arts. The classes are popular with students as they are able to combine their learning and stay with gaining skills such as Chinese Mandarin, Calligraphy, or the main principles of acupuncture massage.

Chinese mandarin class
From Monday to Wednesday, three times a week. you can learn Mandarin with the Chinese teacher through speaking, reading and writing. It is possible for you to acquire academic Mandarin classes at the University in Qufu including HSK testing with the assistance of the school, however, whatever it costs will have to be covered by the student.


Calligraphy
Our Tai Chi master, Shifu Liu is happy to share with you once a week this ancient Chinese art.

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Massage and TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine)
We invite the experienced doctor of our community to our school to give Tui Na Massage and TCM knowledge to help you release your pain you might have from training, and give daily health care TCM theories to students. Fire cupping, Acupunture Scraping and Moxibustion are all included in this section.

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Theory class
The school masters will take turns to share with students, their understanding on Kung Fu, their training and teaching experience every week to help you get to understand more about Kung Fu, mmake your training easier. 


All these lessons above are of basic level to help you get to know a bit of it and experience it. If you want professional learning on any of these subjects, please be aware it is not included in the above schedule, but our school can help you arrange additional class in Qufu for an extra cost.

In order to give student a rich cultural experience we will keep wprking on develop more interested class for our students.

After the 10th anniversary July 2018, we are planning to have more cultural classes regularly:

Tea ceremony
China is the birthplace of Tea Culture. It is said Chinese people started to drink tea from 4700 years ago in the Shennong period. Now it is a part of the Chinese custom. Shaolin Chan style tea ceremony is a unique style of tea preparation.

Archery classes

We are honnored to invite a locaer bow maker to come to our school to teach this art once a week.

Class plan for 2019

Confucius Experiencing Class
Confucius Temple is the most famous Temple in China. You can earn a free chance to visit it if you can recite 20 of the Analects. We can train our students for that in our school. The will be once a month. In this class, you can also have a chance to experience Confucianisms Six Arts:” Li (propriety), Le (Music), She (archery), Yu (riding), Shu (writing) Shu ( arithematic)”.

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Musical instrument Appropriation class of Pipa, Guzheng ang Guqin

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Extension Reading on Chinese Philosophies:

The main relgious beliefs in China: Buddhism Taoism Confucianism.

As a Shaolin school, we list Buddhism as the first optional class for students. As it is the theory that ShaolinKung Fu is based on. Here are some basic questions on this topic.

Taoism

The native belief of China, which is the origin of Chinese moral standard are built on Taoism (pronounced and also spelled Daoism; Chinese: 道教 or 道家; pinyin: dàojiào or dàojiā). Taoism is a philosophy and religious tradition that emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (Chinese: 道; pinyin: dào). The term Tao (or Dao, depending on the romanization system used) originally means "way", "path" or "principle", and can be found in many Chinese philosophies and religions. In Taoism, however, it denotes an obscure metaphysical force which is ultimately ineffable: "The Tao that can be named is not the absolute Tao." According to Taoists, the Tao is the source and essence of everything that exists.
Taoist propriety and ethics may vary depending on the particular school, but in general tends to emphasize wu wei (action through non-action), simplicity, spontaneity, harmony between the individual and the cosmos (天人相应), and the Three Treasures: Compassion, Moderation, and Humility.

Taoism has had profound influence on Chinese culture in course of the centuries, and clerics of institutionalised Taoism (Chinese: 道士; pinyin: dàoshi) usually take care to note distinction between their ritual tradition and the customs and practices found in Chinese folk religion as these distinctions sometimes appear blurred. Chinese alchemy (especially neidan), Chinese astrology, Zen Buddhism, several martial arts, Traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui, and many styles of qigong have been intertwined with Taoism throughout history. Beyond China, Taoism also had influence on surrounding societies in Asia.

Confucianism:

Confucianism ?is the most important ruling philosophy that the Chinese Emperor applied in his time. It plays a very important rule in Chinese traditional Culture.
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius (Kǒng Fūzǐ, or K'ung-fu-tzu, lit. "Master Kong", 551–478 BC). Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han Dynasty. Following the abandonment of Legalism in China after the Qin Dynasty, Confucianism became the official state ideology of China, until it was replaced by the "Three Principles of the People" ideology with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.
The core of Confucianism is humanism, the belief that human beings are teachable, improvable and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-creation. Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of which are ren, yi, and li. Ren is humaneness for other individuals within a community, yi is upholding righteousness and the moral disposition to do good, and li is a system of norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act within a community. Confucianism holds that one should give up one's life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren and yi. Although Confucius the man may have been a believer in Chinese folk religion, Confucianism as an ideology is humanistic and non-theistic, and does not involve a belief in the supernatural or in a personal god.