Shanghai'd

Shaolin KUNG FU!
Thursday night we headed out to the historic Lyceum Theater and witnessed the most amazing Kungfu performance - live! It started out as some cheezy gymnastic moves to 80s dance music. We had our suspicions, but then a 10 year old kid crossed the stage doing back handsprings on his head! The following performance was truely entertaining. The Shaolin are buddhist monks that train their minds and bodies through meditation and gong. Think "Kill Bill". Many of the moves terminate in a cross-legged prayer position. These guys were super-flexible and did some good acrobatic tricks. But the most phenomenal performance were the "feats of strength". There was the guy who smashed a metal beam in 2 over his head (with a scar to prove it), the "thrusting of 5 spears" where a guy was suspended in air on the points of 5 spears, the "sucking the bowl" where the 10 year old kid stuck a bowl to his stomach did a back bend and another guy picked him up by the bowl, and the "thrusting of 2 spears in throat" where 2 guys pushed a double edged spear at their throats together until it snapped into the audience (luckily the performance was significantly undersold and there were only 12 of us in the theater). But perhaps the most amazing was one guy who threw a needle through a piece of glass to explode a balloon on the other side! All in all, 2 hours of good fun.