About me

I name is Silvio Morit. I am 25 years old and I come from the Netherlands. I spent 1 year in the school. Back home I work as a PE teacher during the week and on the weekends I work as a bouncer. I trained gymnastics Since I was a kid and later on I started jiu jitsu and parkour. Before coming to China I had no kung fu experience. The reason for starting was that I saw all the video's online about shaolin monks doing hard qigong and other amazing things with their Seeing that I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to just focus on training for an entire year and push myself to do those incredible things myself. Besides the tricks and conditioning I just wanted to improve my overall fighting skills and get more experience in Different martial Arts.

Training

The training in the school is tough. Starting right away with doing 30 hours of training a week is a big impact on the body. It takes a few weeks to get used to it and after that you just train with the pain, soreness and tiredness . with with all that comes a lot of fun and amazing friendships that hopefully last a lifetime. The school offers many choices for training so that everyone can be satisfied. I have done shaolin, sanda and tai chi for my entire stay and I loved It In shaolin there are so many different things to learn that there is is time on fist and staff forms. The way master Wei teaches the forms really suits me. Teaching a few moves every class and Make you practice them a lot. If you are not good enough the class after that, he usually doesn't teach you anything new.This way you get forced to make your movement better and better. In my opinion it is way better to learn a few forms really well instead of a lot of forms but only a little bit. 

During the training we get pushed by the master, but most of all we try to push each other to do more and more every time. Beautiful when you feel really tired it is very nice to have someone say “come on, one more time! This feeling of supporting and pushing each other really gives that extra motivation. 

I also really enjoyed the sanda classes. It focuses a lot on the basics, which makes that those became really good after this amount of time. The training was intense and I always had a satisfied feeling after the class. The only thing that I would Have liked more, and I think I would help a lot of people overcome their fear of fighting, is sparring. In my stay we only sparred about 4 or 5 times in class. Outside of class we did some sparring on our own, but not In much of I would have liked. In terms of actual fighting the school is not the best place to learn that quickly, but to improve basics, coordination, awesome tricks, advanced fighting moves and the whole martial arts aspect it is an amazing place. I for one loved it.

Masters

Sometimes I have a lot of different options. Sometimes it happens that a master has to leave the school for whatever reason, but the school tries to have a new master as soon as possible and most of The times of a few days. Either high ranked monks from the shaolin temple or top performers from the shaolin schools around the temple under which the national champion of China. The mantis master is a grandmaster who created his own style and also the Wing chun master has who knows how many levels. In class the master give hard training and outside of class we can have a lot of fun with them too. 

Often we have funny conversations or talk about our life experiences. Also a lot of the masters Train outside of the classes and are also willing to Teach interested students in the evening hours.Maybe the masters as well as the students of course had an off day sometimes. Maybe they had something on their mind, which made that the training was a little less intense. This happened almost never, but when it happens they are always open for feedback They listen to the students on try to give their best all day everyday. As a teacher I know that it Can be hard to have the same enthusiasm and positivity all day,So for me deep respect for the masters that give us the training every day to their fullest!

There is a lot of space and even with 50 people in the school everybody has enough training space. The only 'problem' is when it's raining in summer and everybody has to go inside. I spent a The of the training space within the school walls We often go to the power training and qi gong mountain. Both the mountains are very nice We used to have a conditioning forest next to the school, but sadly the cut that down a few weeks ago.

The school building itself is also very good. The rooms are easily different enough for people. I did decide to start paying for a single room after 5 months in the school. Simply because it gave me more privacy and I could sleep way better. My opinion is was the extra payment. Not all the rooms have air conditioning though, which often makes it very hot in the rooms mid summer. Students can choose to be put in a room with air conditioning if they pay a little bit extra For the The heat becomes a little bit bearable if you buy a small fan in the shop down the street. I had 2 pointed at my bed to make sure I wouldn't melt during the night. In winter the It is Very cold (about -10/ -15 degrees) in the coldest weeks. During the day the heating is turned off. So it becomes very cold.The heaters are turned on between 6 pm to 7 am after while I got used to the cold and I actually liked it a lot. But a lot of students had real problems living in the cold. To me it was just a matter of putting on An extra sweater.

The showers and the bathrooms as well as the hallways are being cleaned every day. But with the amount of students we have they also get dirty really fast. Which in my idea is inevitable, so having a bad smell near the toilet is not something I The toilets themselves could be a little better though. Sometimes they don't flush really well so it takes some time to get everything away. The showers lack water pressure which makes that I don't spent too much time in The showers. But in The end I didn't come here for the most comfortable high pressure showers, so that would just be extra luxury if they would be better. Besides those points I'm more than satisfied with everything we have in the school .

The food is the school is also good. Everyday we get rice twice with a choice of 5 dishes on the table that you can take from. During the week there is more than enough food and I liked almost all the dishes. The breakfast food is pretty good. The problem food is pretty good. The problem food is pretty good. Only problem with the morning food is that you have to buy your own oatmeal (not mandatory, but I Need it to have enough food).  

I stayed for an entire year and I never really had a day that I wasn't excited to train. Both because I love training and because I made so many amazing friends that I saw day in day out. For me the school gives a good Having that time off from training Really cleans the head to start the week full power again on Monday. Life is the school is really hard And really easy at the same time. You don't have to think about anything because the schedule is set. You're always surrounded by Amazing people, but also have time to be alone in your room if needed. And everyone is there for Each other to support when needed.And the hard part is of course the physical part, the huge impact on the body from day to day intense training. 

Thank you Qufu Shaolin Kung Fu School and see you soon again!