Customer Reviews

The Shaolin Way: 10 Modern Secrets of Survival from a Shaolin Kung Fu Grandmaster

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It never ceases to amaze me that people fall for this kind of stuff. A "tenth-degree black belt in Shaolin kung fu"? Since when did the Shaolin monks start handing out black belts? Since when did they start wearing karate gi's? And what's so difficult about entering the Shaolin Temple Museum? You just pay your entrance fee and you can get in along with the other million plus annual visitors. And if you give the government installed "abbott" a nice check, you can get a nice certificate from him and he will even display your school plaque in the museum courtyard. Then you can tell your students that you are the "official (put the name of your country here) representative of the Shaolin Temple". Fact is, there haven't been any real martial monks at the museum for decades.

The opening quote of the book reads, "It will all be ok in the end. If it's not ok, its not the end. -Anonymous"

The guy is former FBI and calls himself a "10th degree BB in shaolin". I should have checked out the book more carefully before buying it. If you like the law enforcement mentality, you may enjoy this one. The whole book is just blah blah blah, not a single demonstrative image anywhere. I don't even want to waste time going into detail, there are plenty of good long fist books and this is certainly not one of them. If you are looking for martial morals, ethics, and philosophy, this ain't it either.

The end was not "Ok", fortunately it did end.

Although, the writer is obviously not a professional writer and his martial arts credentials, although respectable enough, are open to question, there is a lot of very good insight into personal responsibility and accountability. Not enough people in this world hold themselves accountable for their own happiness. Steve Demasco manages to encourage without being overly pretentious.

If you're looking for a book about how to do kung fu, this is not it. If you're looking for a book about the kung fu-influenced life philosophy of a very American kung fu master- who started out with everything against him- this is it. DeMasco has a lot of good suggestions for strategies to deal with the difficulties of life; although we can read self-help books, it's nice to read a book that also talks about personal applications of techniques that truly make life better. DeMasco provides some good insights into how the style of American life can make things much more difficult- for example, everyone expecting themselves to be perfect. The book is written in an easy conversational style, and I started reading it in the bookstore and then bought it, knowing I'd enjoy it and read it multiple times. I'm pleased to have made this book part of my personal library.