The Buddhist prince, Bodhidharma, first introduced the arts of yoga and martial arts to China.  Bodhidharma, a south Indian prince, was born in the early 6th Century C.E.  While training to become king, he was gradually drawn to the religion of Buddhism.

Soon, he gave up both his position as prince as well as his inheritance in order to follow the Buddhist teacher Prajnatara.

Bodhidharma was then instructed to spread the teachings of Buddhism into China, where the practice of Buddhism had begun to decline.

After completing a perilous journey through the Himalayas, the mountains that separate India from China, Bodhidharma was summoned by the Chinese emperor.

Later, the Chinese emperor sent Bodhidharma to a remote cave where he reportedly meditated for nine years.After his spiritual retreat, Bodhidharma set out to spread his knowledge of meditation to the Chinese.  He visited the Shaolin temples and noticed that the Buddhist monks who meditated there were physically weak.

He began to instruct them in self defense movements based on the fighting techniques that had all ready been established in his native India.  These movements came to be known as the martial art of Shaolin Temple boxing.  Bodhidharma also stressed the harnessing of the "chi", an energy cultivated through yoga like breathing methods and meditation.