u/CanalVillainy

> But Master Yan'an had an unusual student last summer. San Antonio Spurs All-NBA center Victor Wembanyama was looking for a challenge that would test him in ways he'd never been tested before. He wanted to build his inner strength alongside his already prodigious physical strength. > > His goals, he said, transcended mere athletic glory. > > "I told him: You play basketball, and I do kung fu. If you want to be great, you have to do things that other people can't do," Master Yan'an told ESPN. "There are two parts to climbing the mountain. The daytime is for your body. Your endurance, your strength. The nighttime is for your mind. Your awareness." > > Wembanyama understood. > > > > ..... > > > > The group walked and climbed for about an hour, a moving meditation in darkness and silence. > > Throughout his time at the monastery, meditation had been the most difficult aspect for Wembanyama to embrace. It's hard for someone 7-foot-4 to sit cross-legged at all, let alone silently for up to 90 minutes, without moving. > > But he kept at it. Each night he slept in three single-size beds that had been pushed together to accommodate his frame. Each morning he rose at 4:30 to train. The monks would have him run through the forests near the monastery or along an uneven 200-meter hillside track, doing frog jumps, sprints and one-legged hops uphill and downhill to build his balance and stamina. > > They taught him the Shaolin 13 Fist Form -- one of the two basic forms of kung fu meant to teach efficient weight shifts, stability and striking principles. > > ......... > > Wembanyama ate the same strict vegetarian diet as the monks while he was there, in accordance with Buddhist principles. > > But several times a day his team arranged for a sprinter van to pull into the monastery, pick up Wembanyama and drive him outside the walls of the temple, where someone would deliver a high-protein meal from a local restaurant. He would eat it inside the sprinter van, dispose of any remaining meat, then be driven back inside the temple. > > ....... > > One day he told Wembanyama to dribble a basketball up another dangerous mountain route to Sanhuangzhai, a monastery deep in the Song Mountains. The hike traversed cliffside plank paths, suspension bridges and ancient forests, and was five times as long as the one to Bodhidharma Cave. The trail forces you to climb roughly 2,500 feet in elevation across uneven ridges and stone. > > Master Yan'an said it would take an average person seven to eight hours to reach the end. > > Wembanyama did it -- while dribbling a basketball -- in four and a half. > > ..... > > Wembanyama's agent, Bouna Ndiaye, first contacted him in April of 2025, soon after Wembanyama had been cleared to resume physical activities following surgery to address a blood clot in his shoulder that prematurely ended his second NBA season. > > After researching martial arts masters and forms from all over China, India and Japan, Ndiaye decided that the retreat offered by the Shaolin Temple was the best option for Wembanyama. > > ..........

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Source: ESPN