Elyx_117

141 | 9 hours ago

Fun fact: The abbot of Shaolin during this period was later apprehended for illicit offshore accounts and multiple wives.

Top-Choice6069 | Knicks

80 | 8 hours ago

Has everyone just always been grifters lmao

ObiOneKenobae | Knicks

39 | 7 hours ago

Not always, but the shaolin temple hasn’t been what people imagine for a long time now.

Elyx_117

18 | 5 hours ago

Fun fact 2: At one point some 10 or so years back, they were planning to get listed. Yes, to go public on the stock market.

kamekaze1024

3 | 3 hours ago

What profit do they even make…?

soulsides | Warriors

14 | 5 hours ago

Random fun fact: I got to meet Shi Yan Ming in the late 90s after he had set up the USA Shaolin Temple in Manhattan and because we had a mutual friend, I got to crash at the temple when I needed a place to sleep overnight.

Anyhoo: I think the thing that people need to keep in mind is that “eastern” monastic sects are no less complex and, frankly, human than those in the Judeo-Christian or Muslim worlds. But because 99% of what we think we know about them comes through wuxia films and similar media that very deliberately mythologized them, there is this whole mystique that’s really a kind of caricature because we have no other access to understanding what actual life and organizational politics are within them.

Compare this with the Catholic Church and priesthood. Opaque as their practices may be to folks outside those orders, the vast majority of how they’re depicted-especially when it comes to the papacy-is precisely grounded in “real world” palace intrigue and politics and human frailties. To be clear, I’m not saying it’s represented accurately, but we don’t treat priests and cardinals as suoerhuman mystics. Quite the opposite!

VictorZZZ26

13 | 7 hours ago

Yes

DiscreteBee | Raptors

8 | 4 hours ago

Every martial arts discipline has a mythic origin story that supposedly reaches back thousands of years but never really stands up to scrutiny. Of course, the Shaolin temple really does have a long tradition of martial arts, but it’s not unbroken, and even in the old days they were exaggerating how old the tradition actually was and saying it was ancient.

In short, martial arts have always had at least a bit of grifting in them in terms of bullshitting. But martial arts institutions have also been fertile grounds for basically becoming cults as well.

RockDoveEnthusiast

5 | 7 hours ago

🔫🧑‍🚀

drank_obswerver

5 | 6 hours ago

Anytime anyone mentions abstinence as a requirement for whatever it is they practice, you know they’re absolutely full of it.

HoBaggyPants

26 | 9 hours ago

Jazz gonna sign him in the off-season.

BlindPrognosticator | Suns

1 | 4 hours ago

Sound like he’s learning of both “forces”

Capital_System8708

106 | 9 hours ago

The camera sometimes catches him on the bench eyes closed, taking deep breathes seemingly meditating before checking in. Very interesting training for an nba player.

rydog123bruh | LAL

32 | 6 hours ago

Hey, now. Lebron did the exact same thing (when actively pushing the Calm meditation app…)

CauliflowerNo3904

1 | 6 minutes ago

In between sitting with a book open in his lap and looking in its general direction

Dickensians

66 | 10 hours ago

Wembanyama had another winning night.

On March 15th, Beijing time, in the National Basketball League (NBA), the Spurs defeated the Hornets 115-102 at home. Wembanyama returned from the game and played 31 minutes, scoring 32 points. In the latest MVP rankings, Wemby has risen to second place. NBA officials wrote, “ Wembanyama has scored a total of 165 points, 57 rebounds and 19 blocks in the past 5 games, becoming the first NBA player to achieve these data in 5 consecutive games since Yao Ming in December 2006.”

At this time, Wembanyama had grown back his trademark curly hair - two months ago, when he and his teammate Kelden appeared in the player tunnel in “transformation”, the outside world interpreted their shaved heads as a way to relieve the haze of defeat or to show team cohesion. In Shanghai, China, 13,000 kilometers away from San Antonio, Yan’an, Wembanyama ’s master during the retreat training in the Shaolin Temple, smiled at his bald head.

When Wembanyama went to the Shaolin Temple for retreat training more than half a year ago, it was Yan’an who shaved his head. Yan’an, the 34th generation lay disciple of Shaolin, with the common name “Fang Chongwei”, started practicing martial arts at the age of six, and later went to the Shaolin Cultural Center in the United States to teach and gain experience. Now lives in Shanghai.

Yan’an still clearly remembers that in the midsummer of 2025, a car drove into Dengfeng (a city near Shaolin Temple) and stopped steadily outside the red gate on the east side of the Shaolin Temple. The moment Wembanyama bent down and walked out, he deeply realized the concept of a height of 2.24 meters.

In the next 13 days, Wembanyama stripped off the halo of the professional league and followed the practice habits of Shaolin monks: in order to improve his awareness, he had to climb intuitively on unlit mountain roads; he learned to use the non-standard Chinese number “one, two, three, four” when practicing boxing, and felt the pain in his body during meditation every night. Because the bed in the dormitory was only 1.9 meters tall, he could only sleep on a temporary bed made of three single beds put together, so that he could barely straighten his legs.

In addition to practicing martial arts, Wembanyama meditates with the monks every day. The question he asked the most was not about the moves, but “what is it for?” Yan’an found that compared to the scientific data in the professional training camp, the 21-year-old seemed to care more about how to regain awareness of his body and heart in a completely unfamiliar environment.

The following is Yan’an’s oral account:

In April 2025, I received a call from a friend saying that there was a talented basketball player who wanted to learn kung fu in Shaolin and asked me if I could help introduce him.

This basketball player is NBA Spurs star Wembanyama.

This name is now a myth in the basketball world - he is 2.24 meters tall, but possesses the coordination of a guard. In his rookie season, he showed amazing potential to change the game pattern, and was praised by the media as “the future of the NBA.” But at that time, his team saw hidden worries that others had not noticed. Although Wembanyama ’s physical talent was incredible, basketball-specific physical training had pushed his physical function to the limit at this stage, and everyone hoped to explore more ways to improve physical function.

Basketball is never just a matter of physical confrontation. What truly limits performance and hinders the advancement of one’s realm may often be those invisible barriers: such as mental adjustment when falling behind by a big score in a game, emotional control at critical moments, mental endurance during a long season, and maintaining concentration when the body is close to its limit. Therefore, they try to find the spiritual core that can solve these problems in ancient Eastern Kung Fu. This does not refer to specific punches and kicks, but a philosophical system about focus, balance and inner stability.

After reading his training materials, I found that this basketball superstar has very outstanding physical abilities, but the training scenes for coordination and explosiveness are relatively repetitive and simple. He is always on the flat ground, wooden floor or basketball court, and lacks experience in more complex scenes.

The Wembanyama team chose Shaolin Temple not just for cultural curiosity.

As early as 2004, the state of California in the United States passed a legislative vote to designate March 21 (the spring equinox) as “Songshan Shaolin Temple Day”; in 2009, the winter solstice was designated as “American Shaolin Day”. Today, there are Shaolin cultural centers or Kung Fu studios in 42 states across the United States, with more than 3,000 registered students.

The Shaolin Cultural Festival held in Los Angeles every year always attracts tens of thousands of participants of different ethnic groups.

I myself am one of the witnesses and builders of this communication network. I am the 34th generation lay disciple of the Shaolin Temple. I started practicing martial arts at the age of 6. After leaving the Shaolin Temple at the age of 18, I taught at the Shaolin Cultural Center in San Francisco, Washington, and Los Angeles for nearly ten years.

The Wembanyama team came into contact with Shaolin Kung Fu through the long-established Shaolin cultural atmosphere in Los Angeles. They saw that Shaolin Kung Fu emphasized self-discipline, altruism and inner peace. After communicating and finalizing the details, Wembanyama came to China in June 2025.

The first thing that surprised me at the time was the “low-key” nature of the entire team - unlike the popular impression of celebrities traveling on charter flights and being surrounded by people, Wembanyama and his team initially had only five people: Wembanyama himself, his agent, a physical trainer and other personnel.

The second is his “influence”. Although the matter was well kept secret at the time, on the day he arrived, hundreds of fans and self-media bloggers gathered outside the Shaolin Temple after hearing the news. Mobile phones and camera lenses were everywhere.

After the Wembanama team simply settled in, the first question he asked was, “Does it take shaving to become a true Kung Fu practitioner?”

I told him, yes. He sat directly on the stone steps next to the Bodhidharma statue and let me push away his iconic slightly curly brown hair with a razor. There were no cumbersome rituals or onlookers in the whole process. After shaving, he touched his bald head and smiled. This image made me realize that he was very sincere in coming to retreat for training, and it was not just a show for outside speculation.

Accommodation is the first practical problem that needs to be solved.

The bed in the dormitory (monk dormitory) of the Shaolin Temple is 1.2 meters wide and the length is usually no more than 1.9 meters. For Wembanyama, such a bed cannot even straighten his legs. So we found a room with three single beds and put the three beds together to create an extra-long “full bunk”. Even so, as he stood in the room, the top of his head almost touched the rafters.

The issue of clothing is also tricky. The largest Shaolin training uniform was as tight as a tights on him. I contacted the clothing factory in advance to customize it, but the craftsmen lacked the concept of a height of more than two meters, and the finished clothes were still a bit too short.

That evening, Wembanyama and I had our first formal communication.

He clearly put forward three core demands for the next training plan: first, to achieve a breakthrough in physical coordination and improve body control in complex environments; second, to explore the wisdom of physical conditioning beyond traditional training; third, to deepen mental focus and inner stability.

It’s clear that the 21-year-old knows exactly what he wants.

Wembanyama’s Shaolin life starts at 4:30 a.m. every day. At this time, he had to get up, and there was no alarm clock to remind him.

Morning classes and breakfast are scheduled at 5:00 am. At this time, the monks would gather in the main hall to chant sutras. Wembanyama could not understand, but he always stood at attention with a solemn expression. After that, he will go to the dining hall to have a meal. Breakfast in Shaolin Temple usually consists of porridge, steamed buns and pickles. Once, Wembanyama picked up a bun - he might have thought it was a steamed bun at first. When he opened it and saw vegetable filling inside, he was very surprised and turned to smile at me.

For professional athletes, vegetarian meals cannot actually meet their physical needs. They need to consume a large amount of protein every day. Wembanyama asked me politely, “Master, can I eat meat?”

I told him that eating meat and fish is strictly prohibited in the temple. This is a precept that has been passed down for thousands of years.

So they found someone to buy deli meat from downtown Dengfeng, drove to the mountainside a few kilometers outside the temple, ate in the car and then returned to the temple. They always abide by the rules and never eat meat in or near the temple.

Three training tips

Training time is from 7:00 to 11:00 every morning, and the core is “basketball function transformation training” customized for Wembanyama’s physical characteristics. Before training, I carefully studied the daily training of Wembanyama. The training system is extremely professional and relatively simple. The core idea of Shaolin training is “all-roundness”, for which I have designed three key training contents.

Dickensians

68 | 10 hours ago

The first is movement coordination training. The training venue is no longer the flat wooden floor of the NBA training hall, but the rugged stone slope of the mountain behind the Shaolin Temple. We designed a special set of slope training that covers multiple events on the 200-meter hillside track: jumping up and sprinting down on the sloping stone road, practicing single-leg balance on uneven ground, jumping uphill on one leg, and leaping downhill.

For the 2.24-meter-long literary class, the biggest challenge comes from the center of gravity. He weighs more than 110 kilograms, and one leg alone is as heavy as an adult’s entire body. Wearing a pair of over-size 50 training shoes to move on a rocky slope, every time you jump, you have to overcome the balance problems caused by the huge body load and the height of the center of gravity.

Second, combined with the force-generating skills of Shaolin boxing, I also focused on cultivating his ability to “maintain a stable center of gravity during confrontation.” Wemby often faces double or even triple teams in the NBA. How to still take action when he loses his balance is the key to his breakthrough.

Finally, there are unconventional stance jump drills. In basketball games, players often have to take off while being twisted, tilted, and pushed. Therefore, I designed a variety of take-off exercises on unbalanced planes to simulate real confrontation scenarios in the game.

Lunch time is from 11:00 to 12:00. The four dishes and one soup are all vegetarian: pumpkin, green peppers, potatoes, green vegetables, served with rice or steamed buns. The Zhaitang (dining hall in Shaolin Temple) abides by the rule of “eating without speaking”. During those 13 days, the literature class always queued up to get meals and washed the dishes by themselves after meals.

During the three-hour lunch break and free time after fasting, he would usually spend it reading. He brought several English books on philosophy, psychology and kinesiology. He also liked to play chess and played several games with an old monk in the temple who had some knowledge of the game. He also often uses this time to interact with the young monks - teaching them basic basketball moves and humbly learning basic Shaolin Kung Fu moves from them.

From 15:00 to 17:30 in the afternoon, there is Shaolin boxing training. The literary class focused on learning the “Thirteen Boxings of Shaolin” - a set of basic boxing techniques for the Shaolin Kung Fu Dan system. This set of boxing techniques may seem simple, but it contains the core force generation principles and body coordination requirements of Shaolin Kung Fu.

His learning ability is amazing. I taught this set of boxing techniques to him and the physical trainer at the same time. I demonstrated it three times in front of him, and the literary class was able to master it completely. He not only memorized the movements, but also closed his eyes and silently practiced and reviewed them, thinking about the details of the connection between force generation techniques and movements. Ordinary people need to practice more than a dozen times to keep up with the rhythm.

What surprised me even more was Wemby’s “mirror learning ability” - after he mastered a set of punches with his right hand, his left hand could naturally complete the entire set of movements without additional teaching, while most of the students I taught needed repeated practice to master the switch between left and right.

The meditation time every night is the most confusing part of the class at the beginning. More than a hundred monks gathered in the meditation hall, sitting cross-legged and silent.

After the first meditation, he asked me in English, “Why we just sit here? What is meditation?”

I didn’t give a direct answer, but let him continue to experience it with his heart.

Later I explained to him that meditation is not passive sitting, but an active psychological precipitation. You need to let go of everything external - your mobile phone, identity labels, unfinished tasks, and even the idea of ”I am meditating” itself, and just face the present moment purely, whether it is joy, sadness or peace, and finally reach the free state of “no worries”.

Turn off the lights and go to bed on time at nine o’clock in the evening. After turning off the lights, he hardly uses his mobile phone and is almost isolated from the world.

On the sixth day of training, Wembanyama made a special request.

“Master, is there any way to train my awareness?”

In the context of basketball, “awareness” refers to the instantaneous perception and prediction of the overall situation, opponent’s movements, and teammates’ positions. It is the core of “field vision” and “basketball IQ” that top players rely on to survive.

So I arranged another activity for him - night climbing to Bodhidharma Cave.

Bodhidharma Cave is located in the back mountain of Shaolin Temple. It is the place where Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, faced the wall for nine years. It is also the spiritual source of the concept of “Zen and martial arts integration”. It takes normal people one to two hours to climb from Shaolin Temple to Modong. The mountain road is steep and rugged, and there are no lighting facilities at night.

At nine o’clock that night, the team consisting of me, Wembanyama, the physical trainer and several monks officially set off. Everyone turned off their flashlights and headlamps, and groped forward with only the faint moonlight and touch. The mountain road was pitch dark, and the only sounds that could be heard were the chirping of insects and footsteps.

I actually had some concerns at the time - he is an NBA superstar, what if he slips and gets injured. But this concern was quickly dispelled. Since you want to pursue higher achievements, you must dare to challenge things that ordinary people dare not do.

Climbing a mountain in absolute darkness is essentially an exercise in extreme sensory deprivation.

Vision is basically disabled, and he can only rely on hearing to determine his direction, touch to find the steps, and balance to prevent falling. When the eyes can see, people will rely too much on vision; when the hands are strong, people will rely on strength. Only by stripping away all these external dependencies can we truly begin to perceive the world with our hearts.

The mountain road is steep, and some sections have cliffs on one side. Wemby walked in the middle of the team, protected by monks in front and behind. Although we have chosen a relatively safe path, there are still potential risks.

I still clearly remember his breathing, which was always steady and deep, without any panic. He walked very carefully step by step, carefully exploring each step with his hands, and his concentration reached the extreme.

An hour later, we successfully arrived at Bodhidharma Cave. Wemby sat down cross-legged on the flat ground in front of the cave and began to meditate.

At that moment, I saw a completely different Wembanyama - he was no longer an NBA star shining brightly in the spotlight, but a practitioner who devoted himself to seeking inner peace.

Afterwards, he posted a photo on his Instagram: he was sitting in front of Bodhidharma Cave in the dark, his back blending into the night, with only his outline outlined by the faint starlight. This photo was not labeled with any location, but it triggered heated speculation and discussion among fans around the world.

That was probably the happiest night of his entire practice. He told me that this feeling of being fully immersed in the present moment was very special.

This night walk gave Wemby a deep understanding of “awareness” - when playing basketball, he needs to make quick judgments on the ever-changing court, and the awareness developed in the dark can help him better deal with various emergencies in the game. In the dark, he learned to feel everything around him with his heart, and this ability transferred to the basketball court.

Lucky-Conversation49

16 | 7 hours ago

This is quite well-translated. I mean it would be much better if people can read the interview in Chinese, but this is actually quite good already.

The last part of the article is not yet translated. 2 interesting points:

The small section about Zhan Zhuang (See wiki), and how difficult it is for Wemby, is quite interesting.
Flexibility training is also hard on Wemby, and this is one of the core training principles of Shaolin. (For people who are interested, ask AI to explain 少林功夫三叉一腰) to you
He clearly stated he would go back to Shaolin for training in the offseason.

I wish more could be written on this body training part. I mean all those awareness and meditation is very important (if not more gimmicky), but it’s only one side of the coin.

Dickensians

25 | 7 hours ago

Apparently I missed that when posting. Thanks for bring that up. And it’s fixed now.

Here it goes, enjoy.

During the 13-day retreat, we climbed the Bodhidharma Cave three times, each with a different focus: the first emphasized endurance training, the second speed training, and the final, this significant “journey of awareness.”

A height of 2.24 meters is an unparalleled asset on the basketball court, but in the early stages of some training at Shaolin Temple, it presents a unique physical challenge.

Standing meditation is a fundamental skill in Shaolin Kung Fu, requiring the legs to be slightly bent and held in a fixed posture for several tens of minutes. This puts immense pressure on the knees and ankles of tall individuals. Flexibility training is another major challenge. Shaolin Kung Fu emphasizes “three splits and one backbend”—horizontal splits, vertical splits, kneeling splits, and backbends. This is a challenge for all beginners, including Wemby. When we helped him stretch his legs, his expression was painful, but he persevered through sheer grit.

Wemby’s physical trainer participated in the entire training session, while two other staff members accompanied him during outdoor activities. The final result was quite dramatic: Wemby’s condition improved steadily, the physical trainer also benefited greatly, and the two accompanying personnel lost over ten kilograms in 13 days.

Wemby’s learning ability was astonishing. Besides quickly mastering the Shaolin Thirteen Fists, he also possessed an extraordinary talent for language learning. At the time, I arranged for a young martial arts monk, around ten years old, to train with Wemby. During practice, they needed to shout commands like “one, two, three, four…” I had the young monk count in English, while Wemby counted in Chinese.

The young monk’s English was halting, often getting stuck at seven, and sometimes he would even reverse the order. Wemby’s Chinese counting also frequently went wrong, either omitting numbers or making strange pronunciations. Eventually, everyone simply paused training and watched them teach each other. Finally, I simply had Wemby count backwards from “fifty,” and this basketball prodigy quickly mastered it.

During his 13 days at the monastery, Wemby almost never proactively talked about basketball. He considered this retreat one of the most important arrangements of the year, dedicating himself entirely to it. On the morning of his final day, he packed his bags. He neatly folded his specially made monk’s robe, restored the three makeshift beds to their original state, and bid me farewell in his quarters.

He gave me two gifts: a San Antonio Spurs #1 jersey he had worn, and a pair of specially made basketball shoes he had worn during training. I reciprocated with a red string bracelet with a bead engraved with the character “勇” (yong, meaning courage/courage)—red in China symbolizes good fortune and peace, and “勇” signifies great courage and virtue, one of the core spirits of Shaolin culture, and an indispensable quality on the basketball court.

Wemby solemnly put the red string on his wrist, saying, “I’ll come again next year (2026),” and hugged me goodbye. He was so tall that he had to bend down to do so.

After leaving Shaolin Temple, I also paid close attention to his every move on the court.

Since the start of the 2025-2026 NBA season, many fans and media have noticed his transformation: his movement has become smoother, especially his lateral quickness and balance on the defensive end. In several games, even when off-balance, he has managed to shoot or pass, a “control under unconventional circumstances” repeatedly praised by commentators.

I saw the Spurs coaching staff reveal in an interview that Wembanyama has demonstrated “better body coordination and core stability” in training. Data analysis shows that his defensive coverage has increased by 8%, and his shooting percentage under pressure has improved by 5%.

I’d like to use an analogy to explain the relationship between Shaolin training and NBA training: “Wemby’s previous training system was like being in a swimming pool—professional and efficient. All training was aimed at performing standardized basketball movements on a standardized basketball court. Shaolin training, on the other hand, is like taking him into the unpredictable ocean—with waves, undercurrents, and uncertainty. When a person returns from the ocean to the swimming pool, their abilities naturally become more adaptable and coordinated.”

The two training methods offer improvements in different dimensions. Basketball training taught him how to shoot a ball, while Shaolin training taught him how to maintain the appropriate physical and mental state for various situations.

Now, when I think of Wemby, one image always comes to mind: that night he meditated in front of the Bodhidharma Cave. The darkness was pure, and he sat quietly, seemingly one with the mountain, the night, and the Zen spirit.

That image lacked basketball superstars, commercial endorsements, and millions of social media followers; it only contained a 21-year-old young man, on a mountaintop in a foreign land, pursuing a spiritual realm that transcended sports, talent, and even himself.

Tesgoul | Spurs

12 | 8 hours ago

Really cool read, thanks

96Mute96 | Spurs

13 | 9 hours ago

Actually a really good read

tdsas97 | SAS

13 | 9 hours ago

Thanks for sharing, fun read

Far-Championship604

13 | 7 hours ago

I’m Chinese.After I reading this, I definitely believe that Wemby is at another level not only at his age but also as a basketball player and a human being. I am so blessed as a spurs fan from Duncan to Wemby. Hope he can get what he deserves as soon as possible. By the way, in Chinese this is a very moving article ,and it shows how unique he is

Suqitsa | Spurs

10 | 9 hours ago

Fascinating. Thank you for the translations

SaltonPrepper

10 | 9 hours ago

Earlier this season, people crapped on me for saying Wemby was top-5 NBA so long as he avoided injuries. And I’m not even a Spurs fan!

Several months later, I stand by my top-5 rating.

nixhomunculus

9 | 8 hours ago

An alien trying to be the GOAT of the NBA turns to Shaolin monks is a fever dream and if you pitch it in Hollywood would be laughed out of the room. But it’s real.

TrailerParkBuddha | Pacers

9 | 7 hours ago

Thing is, that’s not even an entirely original script. Kareem trained with Bruce Lee and was the final boss in Lee’s last film Game of Death.

nixhomunculus

0 | 7 hours ago

Right but Bruce Lee ain’t really Shaolin, he studied Wing Chun.

Still, if Wemby is able to follow Kareem’s path he is on the path to be a GOAT.

magicbeaned

7 | 9 hours ago

Excellent find, thanks!

Chessh2036 | Hawks

6 | 9 hours ago

Not sure they’d allow cameras in but I’d love to see a ESPN or documentary type report on his time there

Responsible_Grape_16 | Spurs

7 | 8 hours ago

This was an excellent read, esp for Spurs fans.

frozz3nn

6 | 6 hours ago

Outstanding article and translation. Thank you very much for this.

Life_Teaching6499 | Lakers

3 | 10 hours ago

Wemby will MVP latest by 2028.

siphillis | Spurs

10 | 9 hours ago

I like his chances next year

Someonediffernt | PHO

3 | 5 hours ago

The big thing is his MPG, he’s playing 29.3 this season and the lowest MPG an MVP has ever had was 30.4 but that was during the weird COVID year. He did play 33.2 last year but that would still be the 4th lowest MPG by an MVP ever.

All that said, I would rather have ~30 MPG of Wemby than 48 MPG of like 95% of players in the league and if anyone can do it it’s him.

zhy_26

1 | 2 hours ago

The other thing to note on the MPG is Wemby spent quite some effort on the defense when he is on the court, while other MVPs may not use as much energy on defense. He may get more output during his shorter MPG.

SaltonPrepper

1 | 13 minutes ago

Great point. Wemby’s defensive rating going by advanced stats is extremely good and that’s partly driven by effort.

EmergencyLavishness1 | Supersonics

5 | 7 hours ago

It’s awesome his mentality is focused on greatness. His body needs to hold up to it though.

There hasn’t been a person of his size to ever be a long term player in the mba. This isn’t his fault, this isn’t his wishes.

It’s just the pure physicality of being in the league with potentially so much fragility in his genetic makeup that makes his such a what if….

I don’t wish injuries upon any player, and I want wemby to be healthy for as long as possible. I want to see every record broken

Lucky-Conversation49

3 | 6 hours ago

This Shaolin training is as much about training his mental game as well as his physical. The premise of this training is that professional sports training is too single-dimension. And it seems to be. I remember Wemby clearly saying that the Shaolin training has forced him to use muscles that he seldom use, and he had extreme soreness in those regions during the training. I remember this vividly because that’s what convinced me this Shaolin training works, and is not just a mental training.

Goombercules | Thunder

6 | 3 hours ago

…he had extreme soreness in those regions during the training. I remember this vividly because that’s what convinced me this Shaolin training works

Muscle soreness doesn’t mean this training “works” for a basketball player. It just means he’s fatiguing muscle that he doesn’t typically use in a basketball lifting/conditioning program. It’s probably a waste of time to do so as well.

There’s a reason MJ had a 48-inch vert but couldn’t do a full body pushup on 2 fingers. One of those was needed to become the best basketball player he could, and the other doesn’t really matter one bit.

gamesrgreat | Heat

1 | 22 minutes ago

Based on the training he did I could see it being useful for performance and injury prevention

AeroBlaze777

5 | 5 hours ago

I think the question for wemby’s career will undoubtedly be if he can stay healthy. He has the mentality, talent, and genetic gifts to be one of the greatest to ever do it, but the odds of people this tall staying healthy are not that great.

TonyIsMoney

3 | 9 hours ago

The big IF will always be injuries, a 7’4 guy who moves like hes 6’9 will always make me be pesimistic because mother nature is undefeated.

Sfr33123 | Clippers

5 | 8 hours ago

Of course that’ll always be a worry but both Wemby and the spurs organisation seem to be doing everything to protect him.

I also see a lot of parallels between him and Kareem in terms of mentality as well as how they look after their body and Kareem had an extremely long career for a player of his size

Waterflowstech

6 | 6 hours ago

Kareem had an extremely long career, period.

HairAcademic2011

2 | 8 hours ago

If you spend any time reading about the Shaolin Temple, you quickly learn that it’s basically a giant scam.

Dependent-Layer-8052

2 | 8 hours ago

Bruh I’ve literally told this known fact to martial arts nutters and they be arguing, for what reason I don’t know.

dreamweaver7x | Spurs

3 | 7 hours ago

That’s like saying all religion is a giant scam.

ElChapo1515

8 | 5 hours ago

I mean…

Someonediffernt | PHO

2 | 5 hours ago

“If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the ~~Wu-Tang~~ Wemby could be dangerous.”

K3TtLek0Rn | Celtics

2 | 3 hours ago

It’s so refreshing to see a guy with all the god given physical attributes and talents actually have passion for the game and a drive to be the best. So often we see athletes coast on their natural ability and squander what could be such an amazing career. It’s crazy how often it happens.

zhy_26

2 | 3 hours ago

Amazing read. Thanks for sharing!

SlyMrF0x | Warriors

1 | 3 hours ago

I love that he followed this up with a session with Kevin Garnett.

Learn how to master your emotions, center yourself, and stay present in the moment, and then learn how to shit talk like an absolute animal on the court.

Think_Monk_9879

1 | 19 minutes ago

You know regular people can pay money for these Shaolin retreats that cater to westerners. It’s not particularly authentic but rather an industry. This guy is just promoting his temple With an nba superstar

Wemby’s journey at Shaolin Temple