One night in March there was a huge buzz at dinner about an upcoming performance later that evening. Prominent party officials from Beijing were bringing a delegation of high-ranking German politicians to see the monks perform. Word was this would be the best performance yet. The Wushu Centre had brought some former monks to add their talents to the mix.

The performance was amazing as always, but I didn’t lean forward until a monk I’d never seen before entered from a side door. The new monk walked into the centre of the hall. He began with some qigong breathing exercises, the prelude to an iron kung-fu demonstration. He was breathing in and out of his nose, and his hands roamed around his body. You can usually guess which extremity is about to take the abuse among iron kung-fu masters because the hands will focus on that part of the body, directing the qi energy out of the palms and on to the limb in question as a kind of protective covering. This monk started with his neck, so I assumed he was an iron-neck practitioner. But after rubbing his neck, this monk moved his hands down and around his groin area. It was like a bad Chippendale impression. He kept at it long enough that there were soon some embarrassed coughs from the German contingent.

Finally, to my relief, he stopped massaging himself. Monk Deqing joined the new monk on the floor and invited audience members to participate in the demonstration. After all the crotch rubbing, the audience was a little reluctant. Deqing pantomimed to the audience that they were invited to kick the monk in the groin. No one volunteered, and in fact most recoiled when Deqing entreated their section.

Deqing pleaded with others in the audience, but there were no takers. The Beijing officials were trying to push their German counterparts out of their seats, which they were gripping for dear life. None of them was foolish enough to risk the possibility of the international papers acquiring a photo of a German politician kicking a Chinese Buddhist monk in the balls. Deqing walked away from the Germans and returned to the monk, who calmly spread his legs and thrust his hips forward. Deqing slipped the shoe off his right foot, and snapped a kick into the monk’s groin that was so vicious it lifted him off the ground.

Without realising it, I was up on my feet shouting in English: “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Deqing saw me standing there like a fool. He motioned me over. I shook my head. I was intimately familiar with what being racked, as we called it on the playgrounds of Topeka, felt like. I wasn’t going to do that to another man, even if he was volunteering for it. Besides, if you kick a Buddhist monk in the groin, I’m pretty sure you get reincarnated as a dung beetle. Deqing took a couple of steps towards me and motioned again with sharper movements, his eyes narrowing, letting me know this wasn’t a request. I’d pay for a refusal during the next day of training.

Better dung beetle later than face Deqing’s wrath tomorrow, I decided.

Shaolin’s iron-crotch master waited for me, legs spread, hips thrust out. I hauled back and let him have it, lifting him off the ground. He seemed unaffected by the kick. I could feel the top of my foot throbbing. His groin was harder than my foot.

“Again,” Deqing said.

Annoyed that I’d hurt myself, I kicked him again and again and again, trying to get some reaction. I lifted him off the ground — two inches, four inches, six — but the expression on his face never changed. Finally, I stopped. My foot was numb. The crowd erupted in applause. I bowed to him and he bowed back. His demonstration was over.