Shaolin Temple Boxing: Teachings of the Purple Dragon

by Andrew Toth

This book is published WITHOUT the permission of my teacher. For about a year and a half I had been taking notes after class, mainly to help me remember the instructions. I did not tell my teacher, the Purple Dragon, that I was doing so because I was sure he would not allow it. The Purple Dragon is a Master of Shaolin Temple Boxing and is very secretive about his art. The color purple stands for the Crown Chakra, which signifies enlightenment and gives us a clue to the ultimate goal of Shaolin Temple enlightenment. That goes without saying because Shaolin is, after all, a Buddhist art. That said, however, the framework of Buddhism in no way diminishes the brutality and savagery of the art. People (myself included) did get hurt in the Purple Dragon’s classes, so while the spiritual part of it was real, so was the physical part. After the year and a half, however, I decided to tell the Dragon about the notes. He drew a deep breath and said nothing. But his disapproval was obvious. I ceased taking notes from that point on. And because I did not have his approval to publish the notes, I sat on them for fifteen years. Now, nearing the end of my life, I have decided to publish the instructions, even though my teacher desires the material to remain a secret, disseminated to only a few dedicated followers. I have decided to publish because I feel the material is too important to bury. What is different about this book? This is NOT a book of techniques. Techniques are cheap. Everyone wants magic techniques and every other teacher and author tries to cater to this demand and so there is a glut of techniques on the martial arts market, and all they do is cheapen the art. The first concern of the serious student is WHAT MAKES A TECHNIQUE WORK. Once he learns that, he can take ANY technique, even an inferior one, and make it devastating. That is a primary concern of this book. But the book is more than that. It is also a book about living because, as the Purple Dragon points out again and again, you cannot be a great fighter if your personal life is in disorder. Thus the principles of Buddhism are applied not just to our fighting, but also to our personal lives. To fight well, is to live well; and to live well is to fight well. The two are inseparable. That said, the book is NOT a set of lifeless instructions. Through this book you will enter the Purple Dragon’s classes. You will see the Purple Dragon, as he teaches what he teaches. It is the next best thing to being there in person. Read this book, and then read it again and again and again. It may be the best book you will ever find on Shaolin Temple Boxing. And living.

266 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 9, 2011

About the author

In a word, I messed up.
Had a great start, won a Commonwealth Scholarship to University, did great in sports, represented my school in swimming, represented the University in Judo, in short I was just the sort of guy who would succeed.
So what went wrong?
I ended up taxi-driving, picking fruit, doing cleaning jobs, delivery jobs, was a driving instructor once and so on. Got fired from most of my jobs, bummed around for awhile, for a long while, actually, etc, etc. Got into trouble with the law, etc, etc.
Perfect life for an author, but not recommended otherwise...

Reviews

[Andrew Toth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm biased.
I wrote the book!
But I have read enough books on the martial arts to know the difference. If you want the real thing, this is it!
But let me start from the beginning...
Like many I started with a search. The Right Teacher does not appear miraculously on the horizon when you first take up the martial arts although - and this is a BIG ALTHOUGH - we tend to think of our first teacher as THE TEACHER! Which is understandable because we don't know any different. We have nothing to compare our first teacher to. So he (I will use the male pronoun because all my instructors have been male) is THE BEST. We are totally convinced of that. However...
as time moves on we begin to experience some disquiet. Some things don't add up. We don't know quite what they are because we don't have the experience with which to assess things...and of course he is still The Best, but...some doubts begin to creep in. The Teacher may not be as confident as you think he should be, you hear talk and so on...you put all that aside of course, but...
There are now some cracks in the facade.
Not fatal, of course, but it is through these cracks that the doubts seep in.
In my case it was none of this. I just started looking again. I don't know why, I had no reason that I could point to, but I started looking. And I looked and looked and looked...
I tried judo, ju-jutsu, Hsing-i, Pa-kua, Tai chi, Shaolin and a number of other styles the names of which I now forget.
And I became more discerning and critical with each new teacher I trained with. Superficial accomplishment was no longer enough. I was looking for something ... deep, something that went to the Heart and Soul of the martial arts. Why? Because I felt that without this Heart and Soul, martial arts were little different to boxing with its emphasis on beating others and carrying home the trophies.
Yeah, I wanted to brawl and brawl well, but that did not satisfy me. You can always find someone to beat. I didn’t think that was what the martial arts was all about. Beating people. So I knew what I didn’t want, but as yet I still did not know what I did want. So I continued the Quest.
Shaolin Temple Kung Fu is the result.
It is my book.
It is my Teacher’s book.
If you are interested in the Martial Arts, read it!