Monk Youg Shou, Wushu Master of Today

Monk Yong Shou, whose secular name is Ma Tingxiang, was born in1938 at Baozi village , Longxi county in Gansu province. When he was six he and his mother left home to beg and traveled to Mt. Song. They became separated and Yong Shou stayed to become a monk at the Shaolin Monastery.

Yong Shou began to learn Wushu from Master Monk De Gen . To obtain an "iron palm" , he filled 12 jars of different heights with mixed river sand and iron sand that has been soaked in salt water and thrust his hand in and out repeatedly in the jars. His fingers became raw and bled, his wrists swollen. He would stop for a while to wait till his hand recovered. Then he could pierce into the jar so deep that the sand came to his elbow.

To cultivate leg skills, he erected 24 wood poles into the ground. On each pole he practiced eight movements. Later he could walk on the poles as easily as he did on the ground. He run swiftly on three upturned huge jars and gradually increased the distance between the jars until he could jump from one jar to another three meters apart. Then he turned the jars upright and ran on the edges of them. He learned a wood plank onto the wall at a steep angle and run up it. He practiced until he could run up the plank at almost vertical angle. Soon he became a master of various Wushu routines.

In the 1958 national Wushu contests, 19-year-old Yong Shou won the second prize of the event of cudgel, and in 1974 the first place at Northwestern Five Provinces Wushu contests,. Now Monk Yong Shou is deputy director and chief coach at Songshan Shaolin Wushu School.