SHAOLIN CULTURAL CENTRE OF CANADA (SCCC) 加拿大少林寺文化中心

Shifu Yan Chong, Chief Coach of Shaolin Kung Fu at the Song Mountain Shaolin Temple, established the Shaolin Cultural Centre of Canada in 2007, in Toronto, Canada, to share the authentic teachings of Shaolin Kung Fu, Zen philosophy, and wellness.

OUR OBJECTIVES:
The SCCC is a non-profit organization. Its main goals include gaining a better health and promoting martial arts ethics. It seeks to develop obedience and discipline; practise the Mahayana Buddhism doctrines, and propagate the spirit of compassion. The centre advocates the Shaolin's 1500 years of profound culture and Chan (Zen) Buddhism including the purification of the mind. It strives to improve the understanding amongst nations and peoples, to enhance the East and West cultural exchange and praying for a Peaceful world.

THE GOALS OF THE SCCC :

• To assist Canadian Chinese with learning and understanding their Chinese culture and heritage;

• To share the world renown Shaolin Culture with all Canadian society;

• To introduce the Shaolin Wellness Health Kung Fu Program. With regular practice, the seniors and the middle aged benefit from improving their blood circulation, recovering from fatigue, cleansing and strengthening of their internal major functional organs and limbs;

• To practise Shaolin Kung Fu to help develop adults' and children's physical and mental well-being, adaptability and perseverance;

• To learn Shaolin compassion, the spirit of endurance, and to preach these themes to the populace.

• To participate with sincerity and dedication in multi-cultural and charitable events;

• To improve the relationship and respect between Canadian Chinese and other cultures, and to live a productive life in peace and in harmony;

• To promote Canadian cosmopolitan culture in local and international settings and to allow more people to have a better understanding of its beliefs and characteristics;

• To publicize about Canadian successes and opportunities to Chinese all over the world;

• To seek opportunities for the SCCC to further contribute to our multi-cultural societies.

Shifu Yan Chong 师傅延冲

Shifu Yan Chong, head coach at the Shaolin Cultural Centre of Canada, entered the Shaolin Temple at Song Mountain in 1996, and became a 34th generation disciple. He has been the coach of the Shaolin martial arts demonstration team since 2002, and has toured in North America, Europe, Australia and South East Asia for the team's stage presentation "Shaolin Warriors".  He has visited more than thirty countries for cultural exchange in Shaolin Kung Fu and Chan Buddhism, including U.S.A., Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Shaolin Kung Fu has evolved from the monastery's signature skill into a global folk culture. It has become the most accessible expression of traditional Chinese culture, a key pillar of cultural cohesion across ethnic groups, national borders, and even faiths, and plays a unique cultural role globally.

Shifu Yan Chong serves as one of the friendly ambassadors of Shaolin culture. He is committed to sharing Shaolin Kung Fu to benefit the people of Canada. He will dedicate his life to promoting and disseminating Chinese Shaolin culture to the world, to promote world peace.

Yan Chong was awarded first place at various Provincial competitions and served as head judge at the National Martial Arts competition. He is proficient in Shaolin martial forms of Da Hong, Xiao Hong, Lohan, Mei-hua and Pao, as well as mastery of the Shaolin cudgel staff, hooked sword and broadsword art form.

Because of the flourishing International Cultural Exchange, Shaolin Temple martial arts monk Yan Chong wants to be an ambassador so that the broad and profound Shaolin culture can be shared in Canada. He hopes that this will bring happiness, good fortune, good luck to the people of Canada and peace to the world.

He teaches Shaolin focused health exercise, Chi Kung and various other styles of Shaolin martial practice.

Although there are numerous schools of traditional Chinese martial arts flourishing across China, the martial arts of the Shaolin school form a particularly important part of the cultural heritage passed down by forefathers of Shaolin Monastery. These arts - sometimes called Shaolin Kung Fu - are unique and brilliant and belong to the body of greater traditional Chinese martial arts. Because of its philosophic sophistication and technical subtlety, Shaolin Kung Fu has become a term familiar to practically every part of the world. Shaolin Kung Fu is able to engender an unusually mighty catalytic mechanism in body of a practitioner; and the mechanism functioning like a catalyst can readily bring his prowess potential and latent physical strength into full play. As time elapses, fame of the monastery has been spreading worldwide because of its seemingly supernatural attributes.

From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty onward, martial arts of the Shaolin school had been growing more and more sophisticated and more mature, which the branches of martial arts growing in number, too. So far as Shaolin repertoire of martial arts is concerned, the number of such arts has now amounted to several hundred; among them are boxing, broad sword, spear, double-edged sword, quarterstaff, qigong, jumping and soft treading, developing prowess potential, juvenile wushu, etc. In fact though these martial arts were originally developed by forefathers of Shaolin Monastery, in developing them they did try their best to draw from the strong points of martial arts developed by other wushu schools. Notwithstanding Shaolin Kung Fu has never been assimilating successful techniques of other schools at the cost of its uniqueness.

Shaolin Kung Fu consists of three major categories:

(1) Boxing. Boxing includes such varieties as arhat boxing, liuhe boxing, xinyi boxing, hong boxing.

(2) Standardized Series of Movements Intended for Optimizing physique. In this category are included such varieties as "standardized series of movements intended for effecting muscular optimization", "standardized series of movements intended for fortifying bone structure".

(3) Weapon use. In this category varieties are numerous such as shaohuo Quarterstaff, meihua spear, Dharma sword, chunqiu broadsword.

Shaolin Monastery constitutes in itself a realm dominated by the spirit of "forging unity of Zen and Shaolin Kung Fu". The monk population here believes that "both Zen and Shaolin Kung Fu are two outgrowths from the same stalk", that "Shaolin Kung Fu is nothing but an incarnation of Zen", and that Zen remains the quintessence of Shaolin Kung Fu. But for the theoretical guidance provided by philosophy of Zen, there would not have been any development of Shaolin Kung Fu in the history of Chinese culture, but it had ended up in a blind alley many, many centuries earlier. Therefore without an adequate knowledge of Zen philosophy, a trainee's progress in Shaolin martial-art training can be more imaginary than real.