How Shaolin Kung Fu Propelled the New Face of Basketball
Webanyama’s Postseason Impact
In these 2025-26 NBA Playoffs, San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama has made highlight play after highlight. It all came together in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder with his 41-point, 24-rebound performance. His gameplay has helped him emerge as a real contender for the title of best basketball player on the planet. Standing at 7-foot-4 (official NBA listed height) with extraordinary skills, it doesn’t come as a surprise to many. Still, he has put in a special amount of work mentally and physically.
Translating Kung Fu to the Court
While the French superstar has trained in many ways, one way has stood out amongst the rest. Over the offseason, Wembanyama trained at The Shaolin Temple, a famous Buddhist monastic institution in Henan Province, China built in 495 A.D. and considered the birthplace of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. In his time at the home of Shaolin Kung Fu, he learned from Master Yan’an, a 34th-generation warrior monk. Yan’an’s knowledge and experience in Kung Fu and personal development gave the Spurs star the perfect set of lessons for his physical and mental growth.
“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 in an article by Ramona Shelburne. “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.”
Through this time, Master Yan’an had the difficult task of leading the skyscraper Defensive Player of the Year through different tasks, including climbing a mountain, a 90-minute meditation session, and even dribbling a basketball up a mountain at around 2,500 feet. Of course, this included learning the Shaolin 13 Fist Form, focusing on efficient weight shifts, stability, and striking principles.
What is the Shaolin 13 Fist Form?
The Shaolin 13 Fist Form is a foundational Kung Fu practice that is taught at the Shaolin Temple. It serves as the foundation of the temple’s Shaolin Kung Fu using the raw power of nature in zen motion. The style follows the teachings of Master Jueyan, who took the practices into combat skills at the Shaolin Temple. Master Jueyan believes that spiritual awakening requires physical resilience for “Zen through Strength.”
The Shaolin 13 Fist Form is considered the “Mother Fist” requiring the mastery of all 13 forms before perfecting any advanced forms. It follows the five animal styles (Dragon, Tiger, Leopard, Snake, Crane) as well the eight combat methods. They bring together an art that doesn’t require brute strength. Students are taught to flow like water and fight back like lightning – the core of Shaolin self-defense. The style is designed to help students become perfectly balanced weapons through their human body.
Turning Setbacks Into Growth
Everything Wembanyama accomplished while training took great grit, determination, and an open mind. After dealing with issues around endurance, physicality, and a shoulder blood clot, he wanted to set himself up for success. And his trip was perfect for him.
“The way that he’s behaving in terms of mental strength is something that I haven’t seen before,” Wembanyama’s agent Bouna Ndiaye said in Shelburne’s article. “There’s pressure in all these situations now. He has the awareness of that pressure and that he’s an important piece of a team that is trying to win a championship….”
Before the trip, Ndiaye was researching different martial arts masters and forms within Asia, including in China, India, and Japan. After looking into the Shaolin Temple by Master Yan’an – including scouting the location himself – he decided to tell his client about it.
Learning about what his time there would be like, Wembanyama was fully on board. He looked forward to the challenge that would improve his discipline and growth physically, mentally, and emotionally. The journey into martial arts has done wonders for him.
Looking to the Future
And his journey this season is not yet over. Wembanyama led the Spurs past the defending NBA Champion Thunder in seven games (4-3) in the Western Conference Finals. He now looks ahead to facing one of the most popular franchises in the league, the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals, starting on Wednesday, June 3.
The Knicks provide another tough challenge as the Spurs star looks to be one of the few elite players to win a title in his early 20’s. Whether he and his teammates pull off this great feat or have to wait another year to be crowned NBA champions, the lessons Wembanyama learned from Kung Fu and Master Yan’an have and will carry with him for the rest of his career.
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Photos are courtesy of Victor Wembanyama’s Instagram.