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The Thirteen Monks (A Chinese Fable)

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There was once a general named Wang Shih-ch’ung who wanted to rule China. When the Sui dynasty collapsed, he saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When the first T’ang emperor struggled to exert his power to control the empire, General Wang captured Luoyang, in the Henan Province. He built up a conscripted army, and used forced labor to construct a walled outpost in Luoyang. Luoyang was already surrounded by a massive wall, so this compound was a fort within a fort. General Wang’s influence grew when his troops were able to capture a T’ang prince called Li Shih-Min.

There were thirteen monks working the fields at the Shaolin temple on the outskirts of the city at the time. When they heard about Li Shih-Min’s capture, they wanted to rescue him.

The monks, disguised as wood carriers, arrived at the city gates. However, they couldn’t get through the crowd. A monk named Chi Shou pretended to fall over and dropped his bundle of wood. He quickly struck the vital points of some of the people in the crowd, and they fell down unconscious. This let the thirteen monks slip through the gates.

The monks were able to make their way through the city to the General’s compound in the darkness. The monks removed their heavy equipment (which were weights all around their body). They removed these weights from their wrists, chests, and ankles and scaled the wall easily. They jumped from the top of the wall into the compound quietly.

The monks snuck into the heavily guarded prison gates. They couldn’t move past them stealthily, so they attacked the guards. They used different techniques like Wild Tiger Leaps the Ravine and Golden Hook Hangs on the Wall to beat them. A monk named Shan Hu then went to steal horses, while the others went to release the T’ang prince. 

Li Shih-Min was found imprisoned with a heavy cangue. The monks opened his cell and released him from the cangue. They then met up with Shan Hu.

While he was stealing horses, Shan Hu learned that the general was out on a raid, leaving his nephew and heir Wang Ren-Tse in charge of the city. The five monks Shan Hu, T’an Tsung, Shan Hui, Tao Kwang, and Ming Yueh all decided to give General Wang Shih-Ch’ung a taste of his own medicine and decided to kidnap the young heir who was celebrating Li Shih-Min’s capture. Chi Ts’ao and the rest of the monks along with the prince went out to Luoyang Bridge.

The five monks began to search the city, looking for the heir’s banquet. They found a private home suspiciously surrounded by soldiers, so the monks decided to eavesdrop on them. By fate, they turned out to be Wang Ren-Tse’s personal guard. Wang Ren-Tse was inside rapping a woman he fancied on the way to the banquet hall. The monks attacked the soldiers and easily beat them with techniques like Sparrow Hawk Spins in the Air, and Thunder Good Flies Across the Heavens.

The woman’s scream filled the house, so the monks rushed in. They started searching the house room by room.

By the time T’an Tsung found him, Wang Ren-Tse was already finished with his victim and waiting for them. Wang Ren-Tse blew out the lamp and drew his sword. The two men fought in the darkness. T’an Tsung tried to fend him off with his Shaolin techniques, but Wang was also a very skilled swordsman. T’an Tsung would not be able to fight him off without a weapon. The monk bumped into a jar of pickled vegetables from a shelf during the fight, and hurled the jar at Wang with the White Snake Flicks Its Tongue. The enemy dropped his sword and slumped on the floor.

Dragging the unconscious Wang Ren-Tse, the five monks met up with their companions at Luoyang Bridge. The thirteen monks and Prince Li-Shih-Min rode the stolen horses out of the city.

The Tattooed Monk (A Chinese Fable)

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In the Northern Sung’s reign, there was a man from Hai Ch’ung by the name of Lu Ta. He was big, with large hands, broad hips, and strong legs. He had a face you wouldn’t normally think of for a Chinese man, with a round face, big nose, and full beard. He had his head shaved and a body covered with tattoos. When he took up a fighting stance, he looks like a giant boulder.

When he was young, Lu Ta trained at the Shaolin temple. He plunged six-foot-long wooden stakes deep into the earth while he was there. He then pulled up those stakes, eighty or more at a time. His master also taught him how to wield the monk’s spade.

Lu Ta left the temple while he was fairly new, but he started getting called as Sagacious Lu or the Tattooed Monk. He went on adventures, and ended up being one of the known outlaws of the area. He also went in and out of several other temples. In one of his terms as a priest, he had to deal with a bandit gang.

The bandits were led by the Old Rat Chang San, and the Green Grass Snake Li Ssu. They spied on Lu Ta while he was practicing with his monk spade, and they decided not to fight him fairly. Instead, they pretended to be injured in front of him as he stood at the edge of the temple outhouse. When he came closer, Chang San grabbed one of Lu Ta’s legs, and Li Ssu grabbed the other. But, it was ineffective. Lu Ta laughed as they struggled to throw him down the toilet. He lifted his right leg, and shook the Old Rat down the latrine. He lifted his right leg, and did the same to the Green Grass Snake.

The next day, the bandits wanted to apologize. They brought several jars of wine and a roasted pig. During the feast, a murder of crows landed in the willow tree that looked over the table where Lu Ta and the bandits were eating. The birds were so noisy that Lu Ta got up and pulled up the tree. To him, it was just like another wooden stake.

The Monkey King (A Chinese Fable)

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The tale of the Monkey King, Sun Hou Tzu, is noted in Wu Cheng An’s Journey To The West (Hsi Yu Chi). This epic narrative notes the roots and adventures of the Monkey King as he protects a monk named Hsuan Tsang on a pilgrimage to India in the 7th century. Here are some stories of the birth of the Monkey king adapted from Arthur Waley’s translation of Journey To The West titled Monkey.

Beyond the seas, in the Eastern continent, in the kingdom of Ao-lai, is the mountain Hua-Kuo Shan (Mountain of Flowers and Fruit)”, and here “there was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of Heaven and the fine savors of Earth, the vigor of sunshine and the grace of moonlight, till at last it became magically pregnant and one day split open, giving birth to a stone egg, about as big as a playing ball. Fructified by the wind, it developed into a stone monkey, complete with every organ and limb.

The Stone Monkey quickly became the leader of the wild monkeys in the area. He found shelter, food, and water for them and soon became their king. The monkeys had everything and were content, but the Monkey King became troubled by the thought of death. He wanted to discover the secrets of immortality. In his journey for eternal life, he went to Holy Terrace Mountain, where the Immortal P’u Ti Tsu Shih taught him the formula of the 72 Transformations and the art of Cloud Soaring, enabling the Monkey King to travel 216,000 meters in a single jump. 

When the Monkey King returned to his kingdom, a demon named Hun Shih Mo Wang was terrorizing the other monkeys. Monkey confronted the demon. 

The two exchanged punches and kicks, and were evenly matched with one another. The Monkey King punched the demon from in the lower ribs, and sent a flurry of punches on his chest. The demon was staggered. He picked up a sword, and slashed at the Monkey King’s head. Monkey swiftly stepped aside. The demon was becoming more savage, and the Monkey King knew it. Monkey used the method called Body Outside the Body. He pulled out some of his hair, and then threw them in the air. 

“Change!” Monkey yelled.

The hair changed into a crowd of small monkeys. When anyone becomes immortal, they can make any kind of miracle. Monkey King could transform his hair into whatever he wanted them to be.

The little monkeys were so quick that they could not be touched. They surrounded the demon. They kicked him, punched him, pinched his nose, and poked his eyes. While the demon was distracted, the Monkey King snatched the demon’s sword. He ran through the group of monkeys, and slashed down at the demon’s skull and broke it.

The Monkey King realized he needed weapons for his subjects, but he could not find any to his liking. Seeing that he couldn’t find any weapons on land, he  wanted to get a weapon made in the sea. 

The Monkey visited Ao-Kuang, the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea and asked him for weapons. The Dragon King was not one to turn a request down. The Dragon King brought out a huge sword, but Monkey did not want it. The Dragon King brought out a nine pronged fork weighing 3,600 pounds, but Monkey thought it was too light. 

The Dragon mother and her daughter saw this exchange. They saw that the Monkey King is no ordinary warrior.  “Great King,” the Dragon mother said, “We can see that this Monkey Sage is no ordinary warrior. In the treasury, we have magic iron that shaped the bed of the galaxy. It has already been glowing for several days. Is this not a sign to give it to him?”

The Dragon King refused. “This,” he said, “was used by the Great Yu, when he fixed the rivers and seas. When he subdued the great flood. It’s just a piece of iron. What use is this to him?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just give it to him and see if he wants it.”

The Dragon King brought the Monkey King to the Treasury. The Monkey saw the glowing iron, which turned out to be a thick iron pillar. He took one end and then raised it. 

“It’s too long and too thick,” the Monkey complained. The pillar quickly became shorter and thinner. 

“Smaller.” The Monkey King said. The pillar shrunk again. The Monkey was delighted.

Bringing it out from the treasury, he saw the iron pillar in its glory. There were golden clasps at each end of the black iron. On the near end, there was an inscription saying “Golden Clasped Wishing Staff- 13,500 pounds”. 

This was only the beginning of the many adventures of the Monkey King. If you want to learn more about his stories, read Monkey by Arthur Waley.

Dragon Wells (A Chinese Fable)

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A long time ago, a young dragon lived in the river near Hangzhou. He had a good heart, but he was impulsive and naive. He spent his days playing with the fish and the turtles, flying in the clouds or relaxing in the water. He lived a simple and happy life.

Then one day, three boats came down the river. The leading boat had a high imperial official and his soldiers. The other two boats had farmers being tied up like livestock. 

The dragon was enraged. He rose out of the waters and whipped his tail on the leading boat, throwing many of the soldiers overboard. The high official clung to a railing. The dragon pulled the boat under the waves, and he drowned.

The dragon pushed the other boats to safety, and released the farmers. The farmers explained that they were assigned to do a building project in the capital. The dragon became enraged again. After saying his farewells to the farmers, he flew into the sky.

The dragon rode the wind to the capital and created a storm. The dragon crashed into the throne room of the palace, where the emperor was discussing the business project with his architects. 

Everyone ran for their lives, all except for one. This man fired his crossbow at the dragon. The arrow struck the dragon’s right eye.

The dragon roared in pain and flew away. He returned to the river, where he sank to the bottom. None of his friends knew what to do, but a wise turtle told him to go to Hangzhou and see a certain monk to help him. 

The dragon then transformed himself into a stonecutter. He went to the monk’s temple and found who he was looking for. He pretended that he was injured while cutting stone, and showed the monk his injured eye. 

The monk pulled out what had been in his eye, and saw that it was a crossbow arrow. He became angry and asked for the truth. 

The dragon confessed and told him his story. He said he was going to destroy the capital.

The monk became very conflicted. The troubled monk asked the dragon to do some work and earn the medicine. The dragon agreed, and the monk led him to the courtyard.

“Powerful dragon,” said the monk “Make me a well!”

The dragon went to work. He dug deep down the earth, and the water started gushing out to the temple courtyard. The dragon tried to come back up to the surface, but little did he know that the monk placed a talisman that trapped the dragon under the water.

To this day, the dragon is said to be still under the water. The well is now divided into three pools: the Jade Spring, the Pearl Spring, and the Spring of Rain from a Clear Sky. 

The water from the Jade Spring is the clear water released from underground that the water released.

The Pearl Spring has bubbles that come from the surface because of the dragon breathing.

The Spring of Rain From A Clear Sky has mist that comes from when the dragon moves its tail.

The three springs are still in Hangzhou.

How do you make a roundhouse kick even harder?

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To throw a really hard roundhouse kick you need to stay balanced, increase your leg strength, make sure to turn your hips over, use your arms as counterbalances, and pivot on the ball of your foot.

If you were also just sitting on your bed thinking about how to make your roundhouse kick harder, then you and I have got a lot to talk about. Believe it or not it's actually simpler than it seems, so I hope the tips I found make things a little easier.

I did some research on how to make your roundhouse kick harder, and it said you have to work on your balance, increase leg strength, turn your hips over, use your arms as a counterbalance, and pivot correctly on your non kicking leg. On paper, it looks pretty easy, but in real life, we are one missed step away from potential disaster, trust me. I really want you to remember these steps, so here it is one more time to make sure you don't forget.

5 Steps on How to Make Your Roundhouse Kick Harder:

  • Work on your balance
  •  Increase leg strength
  • Turn your hips over
  • Use your arms to counterbalance
  • Pivot correctly on the non kicking leg


I don't know how you got here, but let me tell you how I did. I can see anything on TV and immediately assume I can do it just as well, martial arts included. How hard could it be right? You just stand up, watch the clip a few more times, and do it perfectly with no mistakes. Well, a sore hip, a few bruises, and an aching ego say I may have been wrong and jumped a bit too far ahead. After getting down the form a little, I realized that at this point, I won't be winning a fight anytime soon. With the roundhouse kick I have now, I could kick a pillow and it wouldn't move. I don't know about you, but if you're here, that means you want a powerful roundhouse kick as well. So, to help us both out, I have done the research needed to become the best roundhouse kickers the world has ever seen. Put on some pajamas, grab a drink, and let's get this party started.text here...

Work On Your Balance

I read that and thought, no way, it can't be that easy, but it is! Like, really, think about it, you can't ride a bike that you can't balance on. You'll fall every time. The same concept applies to creating a powerful roundhouse kick. By increasing balance, you'll become more stable and confident in your roundhouse kick. Unfortunately, just wanting it really badly does not actually help you achieve things, it takes a little more effort than that. If you really want to make your roundhouse kick harder, you have to put in the work to do so. With that being said, I found a couple of ways to quickly and properly increase your balance. 

I thought I was being pranked by how easy it is to improve your balance.If you think hardcore exercise for twenty five hours, eight days a week, you are absolutely wrong. The correct answer is actually walking and stretching. Focus on walking from your heel through to your toe and engaging in stretches that promote strength in your legs. By engaging in pretty basic exercise and remembering to stretch at the end, you are increasing your balance and flexibility at the same time. You need to be able to maintain balance on one foot while using your flexibility to lift your kicking leg to the correct height. Focusing on these steps will help to elevate your kick to the next level. I know this seems like you have to wait longer than you hoped for, but you can't make your roundhouse kick harder if you don't work on this step. And hey, just think, in no time your roundhouse kick will be hard enough to break a rock, or maybe something a little less intense.

Increase Leg Strength

Remember how I was just talking about exercises that increase your leg strength for balance? Well, I hope you were paying attention because that's the next tip. Having good leg strength will also help you to increase the power needed to make your roundhouse kick harder. Just seeing these tips made me think to myself, dang, I was doing it all wrong this whole time. Of course you need strong legs to kick harder, uh! How could I have missed that. But I can't dwell on the past, we've got work to do! A few good exercises to start doing regularly are lunges, calf raises, and squats. Easy peasy right? Imagine kicking a tree and it splits in half, that would be awesome! Some people might say, what? You're crazy, that's impossible! I say, not if your legs are as strong as ours. Back me up on this. By adding these simple exercises to your everyday schedule, you will be gradually increasing the strength of your legs. Strong muscles help to increase balance and vice versa. If you need more of a challenge, try adding some weights to your exercises. Don't just jump to the heaviest weights you can find though, pick ones you can manage and gradually increase the weight as you see fit. Just by adding two pieces of advice, we are already much closer to successfully making our roundhouse kick harder. Once balance and strength are taken care of, the only things left to work on are the technicalities. 

Turn Your Hips Properly

I know you're excited to get started, but don't practice just yet. We still have to learn what to do with our hips. After doing a little research, I found that the general consensus is to rotate your hips smoothly with the kick in a fast motion. Let's break it down step by step. Make sure to lift your leg up to be about level with your hip, chamber it next to you. Once you practice the motion of just getting your leg up to the correct height, you can start using your hips as well.  You want to turn your hips over, meaning they should be moving forward with the kick. You can actually injure yourself pretty bad if you don't do this correctly, so make sure to take it slow and really understand how to kick properly.

 Bringing your hips over is one of the most important parts to remember. The hips generate a surprising amount of power to your roundhouse kick, so don't underestimate this step. When you lift your heel off the ground, it will make rotating your hips over much easier, you'll learn more about what to do with your heel in the final step, don't worry, it's coming up. Make sure you stretch well before attempting any of these steps, having tight hips will prevent you from being able to deliver a solid kick, and can also lead to injury. Phew! That felt like a lot, but trust me, it's worth it to get this part right. Don't zone out on me yet, there are only two more steps needed to give you everything you need to make your roundhouse kick harder.

Use Your Arms To Counterbalance

Hey! Stay with me here, we're almost at the end, there are only two more tips on how to make your roundhouse kick harder. Now take a look at your arms, those bad boys aren't just for show, they've got a very important purpose. There is a lot of momentum involved in a roundhouse kick, so you want to use every part of your body to stay on your feet. Let's say you're using your left leg to kick, all your weight is now resting on your right leg, which is why balance is so important. Use your left arm to follow the direction of your kick, this will help you to aim properly while using your upper body to generate more power. Slightly lift your right elbow behind you so that it counterbalances against the momentum of the left leg, but keep your fist close to your face for protection. If you quickly turn your whole body in one direction without using your arms, the weight distribution will be off, and you won't have any counterbalances to keep you upright, ultimately resulting in you ending up on the ground.

The positioning of your arms is very important. Imagine going to give the hardest roundhouse kick of your life and your foot goes out from underneath you, yikes. All your generated power is gone and you're now laying on the floor with a clear view of the sky. Not great. Put everything you learned together and slowly practice getting the technique right. One arm follows the kicking leg while the opposite goes out slightly behind you to act as a counterbalance. I have also seen some people say that you should have the arm on the kicking side go down for balance as well. There will always be slight variations to how people do things, so figure out what works best for you and what will help your balance the most. If your body feels stable, you will be confident in your kick, which will then help you put more power into the delivery.

Pivot Correctly On The Non Kicking Leg

Hooray! We made it to the fifth and final piece of advice on how to make your roundhouse kick harder. This is the moment where it all finally comes together, everything we learned has lead to this. This is the final step before the roundhouse kick is complete. The final bit of advice I found is to make sure you are pivoting your foot in the correct direction when trying to kick. It might seem like a minor detail, but it's not, everything else goes to waste if this step is ignored. When preparing your kick, make sure you lift your heel and pivot. Your heel will pivot toward the direction of the object you're trying to kick, but make sure you stay on the balls of your feet.

If you put weight on your heels, your balance will start to lean backwards, which is a big no no. You can't generate any power if you feel like you're falling every time you kick. By using the ball of your foot, you can move easier and quicker, thus creating a harder, more powerful kick. Practice standing on the ball of your foot with one leg, pivot back and forth until you feel comfortable doing it. And that's it, that's the final step to making your roundhouse kick harder, I can't believe it's actually over!

In Conclusion

Practice makes perfect and perfect takes time. Executing a strong and powerful roundhouse kick definitely needs a lot of work and practice. Does that mean to give up, absolutely not! Some parts may be harder to get used to then others, no biggie. Take a deep breath, don't worry, and use a little time everyday to practice. Before you know it, your roundhouse kick will definitely be a lot more powerful and stronger. Regardless, I hope you learned something here that will make things at least a little easier for you in the long run. Have fun with the process and start practicing on your technique, with a little patience and dedication, those trees won't stand a chance.

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