Nepal's kung fu nuns kick off reopening of nunnery to public after five years<br /><br />About a dozen nuns performed hand chops and high kicks, some of them wielding swords, as they showed off their martial art skills to hundreds of cheering wellwishers at the long-awaited reopening of their nunnery in Nepal.<br /><br />The nuns of the hill-top Druk Amitabha Monastery, put on the show of strength to mark the institution's reopening five years after the Covid-19 pandemic forced it to close its doors to the public.<br /><br />The group of kung fu nuns, aged from 17-30, are members of the 1,000 year-old Drukpa lineage, which gives nuns equal status as monks and is the only female order in the patriarchal Buddhist monastic system.<br /><br />Usually, nuns are expected to cook and clean and are not allowed to practise any form of martial art. But His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, a monk who ranks only slightly below the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, decided to train women in kung fu to improve their health and spiritual well-being.<br /><br />He opened the nunnery in 2009 and it now has 300 members aged between six and 54.<br /><br />REUTERS VIDEO<br /><br />Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe <br />Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net <br /> <br />Follow us: <br />Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook <br />Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram <br />Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter <br />DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion <br /> <br />Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital <br />Sign up to our newsletters: https://tmt.ph/newsletters<br /> <br />Check out our Podcasts: <br />Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify <br />Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts <br />Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic <br />Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer <br />Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein<br /> <br />#themanilatimes<br />#worldnews<br />#kungfu<br />#nuns
