YAN LEI – Shaolin Warrior- Kung Fu Journey

This is a review of the dvd from amazon…Make no mistake this an excellent DVD and Shifu Yan Lei is certainly a master of the highest order. The reason I’ve only given it 4 stars is firstly its a little short at 60 mins but maybe Shifu Yan Lei is a victim of his own success in that respect in that you just cant get enough of the guy. Secondly the DVD is more Thai boxing orientated, i.e. fighting in the ring rather than focussing on traditional Shaolin Kung Fu. Thats not necessarily a bad thing but it makes the title a little misleading. Anyway the format of the DVD is as follows. First of all Shifu gives us a little history of Shaolin Kung Fu and goes over the basic Shaolin punches and kicks. He then talks about how he goes on to fighting in a ring but loses his first fight which causes him to reassess his Shaolin techniques. As a result he modifies his Shaolin training to give it a more Thai boxing/boxing flavour in order to serve him better for gloved combat in the ring. The highlights in this DVD for me are the snippets of the iron shirt steel body training that he does to toughen his body. Definitely a case of “dont try this at home” as he beats his body with bricks and allows other monks to break sticks across his body. Equally impressive are his hard shin kicks against bamboo poles. Although not necessarily a dedicated training DVD I do believe that anyone practicing any form of martial arts can take something useful away from this DVD with respect to their own training. As an example “If a small man fights a big man he will be scared but if the small man has an iron bar then he will not be scared”. He then shows us how he trains to make his arms like iron bars. Gems such as this make the DVD worth buying. If nothing else it will motivate you. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shaolin-Warrior-Kung-Journey-DVD/dp/B00021Y8QO