Shi Deqian succumbed to stomach cancer on August 24. His funeral is today.
Shi Deqian was the author of the Shaolin Encyclopedia (Shaolinsi wushu baike quanshu). I first met him when he was on that first tour of Shaolin representatives in 1992, alongside Shi Xingkong, Shi Xingmin, Shi Xingwei, Shi Yanming, Shi Guolin and Liang Yiquan (see The Dragon and the Eagle: The Shaolin Diaspora in America). I published an article on him, The Shaolin Scribe: Shi Deqian and the Shaolin Encyclopedia, in our Jan Feb 2007 Shaolin Special. We'll have that article live for you by the end of the day.
As a Shaolin researcher and practitioner, I cannot tell you what a tremendous loss this is to our community. The Shaolin Encyclopedia stands as one of the most significant works to come out of Shaolin in the last half century.
