"FATIGUE makes the best pillow" goes an old Chinese saying.

At the Shi De Cheng Wushu Centre of Song Shan Shaolin - a modest-looking martial arts academy at the foot of Song Mountain in central China's Henan province - physical exhaustion is guaranteed and, therefore, good sleep.

A French student gets advice from gongfu master Shi during an afternoon training session.

No complaints

For 10 days, I rise at 5am to a reveille of opera music croaking from an old Tannoy system and join a torrent of sleepy-eyed teenagers as they pour out from warm dormitory beds into the chilly streets for the ritual race up the mountain.

This is the day's first task for the 40 Chinese and six foreign students who have committed themselves to an unwavering routine of eating, sleeping and doing gongfu, for as long as they can take it.

No one slacks off. No one drops out. And all through the long hot day of gruelling callisthenics, basic fighting stances and kicking techniques, nobody complains.

Doing so would not be showing the true spirit of gongfu, which literally means "perfection through hard work".

The master's way

"Man man lai, man man lai (slowly, slowly)!" former Shaolin monk and gongfu master Shi De Cheng encourages any of his students who show signs of wilting.

Even those of reasonable fitness, like myself, find the learning process a slow and exhausting one.

Always jovial and attired in the loose pants and slippers of a temple monk, Mr Shi knows well the limits of human pain tolerance.

He has studied Chinese martial arts since the age of six.

At 16, he entered Shaolin Temple, where he immersed himself in a curriculum of Buddhist scripture study and meditation, vegetarianism and rigorous gongfu training.

Mr Shi's school sits on a quiet tree-lined street in Dengfeng, a rural service town 13km from Shaolin Temple - the oft-lauded birthplace of gongfu.

One of the world's oldest fighting arts, Shaolin gongfu is said to comprise more than 3,000 individual techniques, but Mr Shi does not overload his newcomers.

Instead, he starts them on just 18 basic stances. These form the basis of the Long- Fist-style gongfu, or songyang gongfu, which he teaches specifically.

One might ask why, in a country brimming with exotic locations, sumptuous food and comfortable hotels, would anyone choose a holiday of hardship?

"This is a chance to learn an ancient fighting art at the source, which in this case is a former Shaolin monk. He's the real deal," says American Jesse Pasley, a Japan-based English instructor who visits Mr Shi's school to train each year and enjoys the cultural exchange with local students.

Students hang out at Dengfeng's streetside "pool halls" with Mount Song in the background.

For the Chinese students, the reasons are more pragmatic - many aspire to work as stunt men and women in the burgeoning Chinese and Hong Kong action film industries, or as professional performers, and even bodyguards.

For myself, it is purely out of curiosity that I travel the 14 hours by overnight train from Shanghai to sign up for a 10-day taste of authentic gongfu lifestyle.

Eager to impress

On arrival, I am given a set of loose training pants, T-shirts, toiletries and slippers, and shown to my quarters in a rustic, former hotel.

The rooms are spartan and the shower facilities are basic. Everywhere, there are signs that its youthful residents eat, sleep and breathe nothing else but gongfu.

The lobby wall is pockmarked by needles, improvised barbells litter the passageways and rubber shoe prints are found 2m high on the walls. All these answer my question: What do students do on rainy days?

The daily pre-dawn race up Mount Song is not compulsory for foreign students (my French roommate has trouble opening an eyelid before 7am), but making the early morning line-up impresses Mr Shi's committed young instructors.

Stretching and strength-building exercises follow the jog, but after the hand-standing against walls - which turns my face into the colour of Dengfeng tomato - I think my stamina and sanity are ready to pack up for Shanghai.

And this is just the warm up.

After a brief but fortifying breakfast, we begin the two-hour morning class, during which I discover a new muscle daily - be it from executing high kicks, turkey-walking, bunnyhopping, cartwheeling down the street or being pushed and pulled wheelbarrow- style up and down the footpath by my panting partner.

To the bemusement of many foreign students, training takes place not in a hall or gymnasium but on the street outside the hotel and office.

A row of trees provides precious shade, and during hot afternoons, most students are reluctant to step outside this cool zone.

Foreign students taking lessons on the sidewalk outside the school.

Refuel and recharge

One aspect of Mr Shi's school that receives few complaints is the food.

A small kitchen at the rear of the office creates delicious and highly nutritious daily meals of home-cooked vegetables, river fish or chicken, rice and tofu dishes which are served on an all-you-can-eat basis.

The afternoon training session follows a similar pattern to the morning routine and finishes at around 6pm, when dinner is served.

Evenings are given to joining the local students for taiji, wooden staff and nun chukka (two-section staff) practice on the street, or taking a stroll downtown for an ice cream, or a game at one of the dozens of open-air pool halls which line Dengfeng's streets.

To be a gongfu star

Due to its proximity to Shaolin Temple, and in some degree to the success of movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, martial arts have become big business in Dengfeng, and it attracts movie star hopefuls and entrepreneurs alike.

An estimated 50 schools now offer tuition in gongfu, Chinese boxing and taekwondo, with many accepting foreign students for up to US$40 (S$58.40) a day with meals, lodging and instruction included.

A conservative estimate puts the number of students in Dengfeng at around 60,000.

Photos: Simon Rowe

*********************

Shi De Cheng Wushu Centre of Song Shan Shaolin charges US$30 a day inclusive of meals, accommodation and tuition. Discounts are given for longer stays. For details, visit www.sdcshaolin-kungfu.com or e-mail shidecheng@china.com