Duan himself almost died when he was approximately two or three years old, prompting his parents to spend all their money on numerous doctors, and his father to sell his special calligraphy pen.

Doctors eventually gave up on him, and after thinking their seventh child had died, his parents wrapped him in blankets, intending to throw him away, before being stopped by an acupuncturist outside their village who saw them crying, and performed acupuncture on the infant Gen Shan, who promptly recovered.

[5] In 1969, the five-year-old Duan's Buddhist parents, still worried about his health, took him to the 1,500-year-old[4] Shaolin Temple, the only remains of which after repeated destruction by warring dynasties and the current government were the foundation and some walls.

[4][5][6] Shi immediately started learning kung fu, Chan Buddhism and acupuncture from his masters, Liu Xin Yi and Shen Ping An, who were Shaolin disciples living outside the temple, rather than monks.

The monks slept on a piece of wood with a blanket on it, sometimes using their clothes for pillows, which Shi says is good for the back, compared to American beds, which he says are too comfortable.

When the temple acquired running water in 1986, the monks were dissatisfied, because under the system of feng shui, digging up the ground and laying in pipes was, as Shi puts it, akin to "cutting your veins out".

Though Shi barely noticed him at the time,[4] the film's 1982 release was a major turning point for the temple, which experienced a significant increase in tourism.

This in turn resulted in more positive attention to the temple by the Chinese government, which rebuilt the building, and in a change to the monks' daily routine, so that they could accommodate the tourists.

[3][4][8] After the tour's last show concluded in San Francisco, Shi secretly left his hotel in the middle of the night and escaped in order to defect from China to the United States.

[3] Because there was no heat, electricity or hot water,[9] Shi would tape flashlights to the walls for light, teaching up to 18 hours a day in order to attract students.

He would also perform in Chinese restaurants to raise money for children and the elderly, gave free lessons, and spoke of philosophy in Open Centre on Spring Street.

In late 2006, after its lease expired, the temple was relocated to its current location in a second floor, high-ceilinged loft at 446 Broadway, in Chinatown,[1][4][11] where he teaches authentic Shaolin martial arts and Chan Buddhism in two-hour classes[10] from 5am to 9pm, every day, to nearly 500 students, who have included notables such as Wesley Snipes, Rosie Perez, Bokeem Woodbine, RZA, Jim Jarmusch, Björk and Tricky.

[4] The USA Shaolin Temple has six international satellite branches in Austria, South Africa, Trinidad, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico.

[12] According to The New York Times, as a young monk, Shi Yan Ming learned to break rocks with his skull, deflect blades with his skin, and sleep while hanging upside down from a tree branch.

[1] By the age of 17, according to Time magazine and The New Yorker, he could deflect the tip of a spear with his neck, sleep standing on one leg, and dangle a 50-pound (23 kg) weight from his scrotum, a practice that helped train him to withstand a full-force blow to the groin.

[4][9] According to accounts in Time and The New Yorker, Shi could also lick red-hot iron shovels and fly aboveground upside down in full splits,[4][9] though video record of these feats are not in circulation.

In a 2005 Discovery Channel profile, Shi stated that since being taken by his parents to the Shaolin Temple, he had never experienced any health problems as he did as an infant, and has never been sick.

[6] Shi Yan Ming had a small role in the 1999 movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, which was directed by one of his students, Jim Jarmusch.

On August 13, 2020, Shi appeared on Discovery Channel's reality series with Caroline Wozniacki & David Lee (basketball) as 1 of 3 super humans to train the family to summit Mt.