Two siblings died of starvation prior to Shi Yan Ming’s birth, and he was a very sickly child. Fearing the same fate might befall him, his parents brought Shi Yan Ming to the door of a 1,500 ...

Shifu Shi Yan Ming is a Shaolin warrior monk and founder of USA Shaolin Temple. He defected from China and escaped to New York in 1992, in part because he didn't agree with the monastery's strictures.

Shi Yan Ming trained at the Shaolin Temple in Henan, China for decades before coming to New York City to teach hundreds of students, including many famous celebrities.

Jian Hong Shi is 15 years old and lives in Brooklyn. Her parents are Sophia Chang and Sifu Shi Yan Ming. Laura Bennett: Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with your parents?

SHI YAN MING: We walk 10 blocks, we don’t feel tired, that’s chi. If we walk five blocks and your legs feel heavy like 1,000 pounds, you cannot move forward, there’s no chi.

The martial arts, with their emphasis on discipline, offer fantastic training for both the body and the mind. “The Shaolin Workout” (Rodale, 2006), by Shi Yan Ming, combines kung fu moves ...

Though Shi Yan Ming is a world-renowned kung fu master, he was lucky to survive a poverty-stricken childhood as a peasant in China. He was born in 1964 in Henan Province, the heart-center of the ...