The Shao-Lin Center for Martial Arts was opened in March of 1996, after Sifu Frank Versagi returned from his first trip to the Shao-Lin Temple in China. The School is located in North Olmsted, Ohio, a western suburb of Cleveland, Ohio; situation on Lorain Road, directly across from Great Northern Mall. We’re located on the second floor. The Shao-Lin Center offers classes in meditation, Tai Chi Chuan, Shao-Lin Kung-fu, Northern Style, and children’s classes. The School focuses on the mental as well as the physical development of the students. The meditation and Tai Chi classes are geared toward allowing the students to relax, calm their busy minds down, and to slowly get into mind/body shape. Our kung-fu classes for adults and children teach a practical, realistic approach to the martial arts, techniques that will help should they find themselves involved in a fight; not techniques that would require gymnastic skills. We emphasize to our students that fighting is the last option of any situation; however, if you find yourself in some type of battle, you may as well be darn good fighter so you come out ahead. The leg/hand ratio is 50/50 allowing anyone of any size to become proficient at their kung-fu skills. We cover body conditioning, controlling the emotions, weapons, weapon takeaways, anti-tackling and a variety of other skills that enhance the students’ all around athleticism. Men, women, and children are all treated equally. We start children at 4 or 5 years of age and train adults up to 105; doesn't matter, it’s never too late to start. Classes are taught five days a week, no contracts are required, very reasonable monthly rates. The school is 4,300 square feet and has plenty of room for everyone. Class sizes are small to medium, allowing plenty of attention to all students. The Tai Chi Chuan and Shao-Lin Kung-fu taught at our school has not been watered down at all to fit some Western sense or view of the Martial Arts, but is taught the traditional ancient Chinese way. No one just blows through our program in 18 months and becomes a Black Sash. It will take three or four years, but the journey is the good part, not just the destination. We try to bring as much mental and physical combination training to the student, as we feel the student can absorb. Students progress at their own rate, not some pace set by the School.

We somehow want to instill in the student the feeling that they should become a calmer, kinder, less egotistical person, who just happens to know how to take care of themselves in this ever changing society we find ourselves in today.

Yours in the Martial Way,

Master Sifu Frank Versagi,

5th Degree Black Sash

THE GOLDEN RULE Hinduism: Everything you should do you will find in this: do nothing to others what would hurt you if it were done to you. - Mahabharta 5:1517 Buddhism: Do not offend others as you would not want to be offended. - Udanavarga 5:18 Taoism: The successes of your neighbor and their losses will be to you as if they were your own. - Tai-Shang Kan-Ying P’ien Confucianism: Is there any rule that one should follow all of one’s life? Yes. The rule of the gentle goodness: that which we do not wish to be done to us, we do not do to others. - Analectas 15:23 Judaism: That which you do not wish for yourself, you shall not wish for your neighbor. This is the whole law: the rest is only commentary. - Talmud Shabbat 31 Christianity: In everything do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets. - Matthew 7:12 Islam: None of you shall be true believers unless you wish for your brother the same that you wish for yourself. - Sunnatt Earth Wisdom: Do one of the above and live in such a way that you will enrich and not diminish our relatives in the earth family of animals and planets, soil, air and water. - Masonic Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio